A report – of sorts.

There was nothing really ambitious at the show. As Neli might [does :-)] put it, there is always “some piece of crap” in an otherwise interesting system. This a) prevents the system from sounding good and b) makes it impossible to really hear what the good pieces are doing.

Oh well.

My focus was therefore a) what sounded good at the price and, more difficult, b) what goes into a sound that not only sounds good but, for me personally, one that I could live with for 6 months, a year, 5 years.

We didn’t exhibit this year, so maybe people did not know how to find us, but it seems a lot of the people we know were unable to make it. The consensus was that overall traffic was down, though I thought Friday it was quite crowded.

Those manufacturers who didn’t make it this year but who have exhibited recently here are: Magico, Avantgarde, Hansen,Joe Roberts and Silbatone, Acapella, Revel, BAT …

The headphones part of the show is continuing to grow – up to maybe about 30 booths now.

Best of Show

This best-of-show is according to my taste which consists of, in priority order: correct timbre, good control and separation, good resolving of the subtleties of the music, and good midi-dynamics and otherwise NO extremely bad distracting behavior. Soundstage and imaging, powerful bass, room pressurization etc. are less important to me, although I do enjoy them [and do use them as indicators of overall quality].

This year my BOS is the Estalon, Vitus room. The Estalon speaker rooms have also been consistently good for the last several shows.

I enjoyed many other rooms: Audio Note, the PranaFidelity and Musical Design room, Studio Electric, Rthem, the Gershman and VAC room, the Acoustic Zen and Tri room, the Nola and ARC room, the YG Acoustics and Veloce room, the Von Schweikert VR 22 room, Odyssey Audio, the Von Schweikert and McIntosh room.

All these room have real issues, but I could have spent the entire show in any of them and not run screaming. The ultimate test for all of us I guess 🙂

Our Show Reports

We took over 1000 photos and we will be posting photos of each room soon.

But…

I am no longer going to write Show Reports that describe and analyze the sound in any kind of detail.

My point to these show reports has been to describe the sound in detail, describing why and how each system is not perfect. How we must each choose our poison as well as our needs and preferences. How each system is a compromise.

But I feel that such an intellectual approach is not all that welcome by many for whom high-end audio is an emotional endeavor or exploration of possibilities… or a business… instead of what, for me, is a pursuit of the ultimate musical experience.

I tried using many different ‘voices’ to the reports, some of which pissed EVERYBODY off [:-)], and some of which just annoyed those who think their particular thing is The One, that will lead all of humanity to the golden age of enlightenment and joy… [until the next better version is released anyway :-)].

We will still do Show Reports with just tons of photos, and we have a few ideas 🙂 that, when we get the time, we think will make EVERYBODY happy, including those like me who have a real, deep abiding hunger to know what EVERYTHING sounds like – the good, the bad, and the ugly… and the beautiful.

A few odds and bits – mostly of the last day.

The smaller [compared to previous years] Nola speakers were in room 2021. Always a nice big relaxed clear sound in this large room.

Acoustic Zen in room 1009. Also always reliable providing us all a musical and engaging sound.

Audio Limits with the big Venture speakers on FM Acoustics filled, FILLED, this large room with loud authoritative rock and roll

An attempt to capture what the Audio Power Labs amps on the Leonardo speakers really looked like in person in the Pikes Peak room on the Mezzanine

Ray Kimber and the Bronco’s marching band. Ray arranged for these folks to play at the end of the show. They later played some rousing music to help people pack by both in the area by the tower elevators and in the atrium. I was up on the 5th floor packing and when they played in the atrium, it was quite loud. A reminder that real acoustic music is often louder than how most of us play it at home.

Neli and Bob Neill of Amherst Audio

Neli and Dave Cope of Audio Note

Mike Marko previous of Audiophile Systems now with Nordost – perhaps just a wee bit little slower on the draw than yours truly 🙂

Klaus Bunge of Odyssey Audio demonstrating another possible use for a piece of his massive $1000 4-shelf rack

Goodbye RMAF, until next year.

Things I liked – mostly quite inexpensive speakers in the $3K range – and other things that stood out for me.

Schroder Pivoted Linear tracker tonearm o THE BEAT Magdrive turntable in room 1126 [neli spent a lot of time here. Do we finally have plug-n-play linear tracking? … coolness]

Tube Research Lab’s DUDE preamp in room 1102 [neli says NO but, dude, how can WE not like this?]

Studio Electric in room 1000 [their Monitors really come into their own on these stands. Very enjoyable and engrossing.]

PranaFidelity in room 9010 [Steven Norber’s new speakers on an inexpensive system – heard the monitors and very well-behaved, open and dynamic]

Odyssey Audio in room 9000 [another inexpensive system, best we’ve heard Odyssey at this show – enjoyable and accessible]

Small Vivid speakers in the Ayre room 9002 [cute/awesome Vivid speakers in a room with a startlingly non-show like decor. And they play Smashing Pumpkins on vinyl.]

The new Wilson Audio Alexia speaker in room 2030

Sorry for the relatively bad quality – the VTL room prohibits me taking photos this year – maybe prohibiting everyone taking photos, don’t know – and so the 1st Alexia photo is cropped from a large photo of the entire VTL system that I took before I was shooed away and the 2nd was taken as I was quickly exiting stage right.

The new Wilson Audio Alexia speaker in orange in room 2030 [seriously, is the best speaker color ever or what?]

A bunch of stuff on Von Schweikert VR-22 speakers [not exactly well-behaved but another big, open, dynamic fun sound on inexpensive speakers] in room 2000

Peachtree Audio on Zu Audio speakers [like the VR 22 room but a little edgy-er, tighter sound] on the Mezzanine in Maroon Peak

Audio Power Labs [an interesting listen. Need to go back] on the Mezzanine in Pikes Peak

Vivid speakers in the TweekGeek room [neli says they were playing some unique vinyl here that had the system sounding quite good. I heard it with the laptop … oh well]… on the mezzanine in Longs Peak

Someone must of let Danny Kaey out… [ 🙂 ]

Very ambitious piano playing with both better sound and, frankly, better music selection than most rooms IMHO. Nice. Sponsored by Ray Kimber / IsoMike.

The undulating carpet outside the isoMike room was causing people to either get seasick a 1000 miles from the ocean or lose their footing and tumble down onto the carpet. [or both. View this fullscreen if you do not believe :-)]

This demo created a wide soundstage, very open and dynamic – kind of like what Audio Note achieves by putting speakers in the corners – albeit with the limitations one might expect from modest speakers like this – … But I wish they would make it look nicer. (the clue) room 1026

Light Harmonic CD player in room 1014.

Veloce, YG Acoustic, Kubala-Sosna in room 1007. Interesting but more listening required.

Winners of the cool tube category competition. NAT amps in room 1114