RMAF 2010 Show Report: Overview

(YG Acoustics, Soulution, ‘GTT Audio’)

What this show report will cover…

First, this overview.

Then several rooms in detail… specifically a few very inexpensive rooms and the very expensive (those who are not just going thru the motions).

Also our rooms setup and what it was like to setup a 4-day old ceramic-driver speaker driven by the most revealing cables and components known to mankind. In particular a microscopically detailed account of how the sound changed during the 4 days of the show (counting the setup day).

Later… shootouts and detailed observations by the group of avid listeners in attendance:

1. The newish $20K Audio Note Jinro integrated amplifier and how it compares to the renowned $95K Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier (i.e. how close is the Jinro to the Ongaku)

2. The new $42K Audio Aero ‘La Source’ CD/SACD player / preamplifier

3. (Hopefully) the new $15K Emm Labs PRE2 preamplifier

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We are on a break

First, as we warned in an earlier post, we are ‘taking a break’ from the publishing several photos of each and every room and booth at the show. There are several reasons for this. Not all of them involve laziness and sloth. Just about very other magazine has taken to posting similar (if less detailed) photos. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery – but it is for certain a sign that it is time for us to strike out in yet new and bold directions (report wise). Audiogon, for example, is now recording 24×96 audio accounts of many rooms.

Bo-ring

Every year I try to ask as many people as possible ‘what sounds good?’ This year was probably the year of the most Lackluster Response Ever. Some people respond by pointing out one little aspect of a room’s sound ignoring the egregious obstacles to long term enjoyment (for example: the nice dynamic response of the frequencies between 2K and 4K in one room ignoring the sloppiness and compression and lack of integration with the rest of the frequency party in that room, soundstage scale in another ignoring the horrifically long decays and lack of control [not to pick on a particular person :-)]), [OK, Neli came in and discussed getting the equipment out of the car before it rains and I have no idea where I was at…].

I guess, that when I evaluate a room I allow for some room issues (bass around 200Hz in the Venture /FM Acoustics room, and similarly in the Odyssey Audio room – more about these later) and also for speaker design (can’t sit too close to horns, box speakers are not as naturally dynamic, and electrostatics even less so) and for system purpose i..e is it designed for a large room or a small room (our mixed-vendor room this year was a small room, for example, and we designed the system for that kind of intimate listening [more on Aerosmith Toys in the Attic and Who’s Next later 🙂 – but essentially this system is great for classical and opera and complex rock and roll and in particular people who like music that sounds bad on most systems because it is so hard to reproduce really appreciated this system (thanks to PQ for the idea that Metal and R&R is often well recorded but usually heard on inferior systems – gaining them a bad rep in the audiophile world)].

Sorry, this is rambling – the point was that some people thought to count us out of the ‘spectacular of show’ because both of our rooms were small this year – but they would be wrong [:-)] . Curiously Magico and Evolution Acoustics also had small rooms this year – and were two of the top 3 or so most interesting rooms.

[OK! Back from carrying the show equipment in from the garage. In the past it has taken 15 – 20 hours. Took us only 1 this year. Whoo Hoo!

Oh. The point of the previous paragraphs is that some consideration is made, by me anyway, when evaluating a system with respect to its purpose, the kind of technology it uses, and its cost. Conversely, if it has a Walker turntable as a front end and it is not detailed sounding, or uses electrostatic speakers and does not have a lot of micro-dynamics, or has horn speakers and is not dynamic – then we know a lot about the system’s other components. And, even more seriously, if the system cannot reproduce at least some semblance of emotion in a human voice – which is the kind of sound that we, as fellow humans, I dare say, are very, very sensitive to – then, well, let’s just say that that system does not score well in my book – no matter how cool it plays drum solos at 100dB]

So, lots to talk about. The lack of micro-dynamics (and detail! as we posted quite a bit about last CES) of many currently reviewer-marketed solid state amps raised its ugly head again in many, what would have otherwise been quite interesting rooms. The rooms we will talk about: Odyssey Audio, Venture / FM Acoustics (Audio Limits), Walker / Technical Brain / TAD, Magico / Spectral, Evolution Acoustics / darTZeel , and Grant Fidelity. Also some Neli room impressions as well.