It was 85 degrees when we left for RMAF.

Now it is 15 degfrees.

THIS is why we like the shows to be as early in the Fall as possible. Next year it is scheduled for October 15th. Get your mittens and earmuffs ready.

Random thoughts here… but silly to wait 2 weeks until report is done.

I thought the Accuphase amps on the Hansen speakers worked pretty well. As you all may know, Accuphase has a particular flavor of sweet and laid back kind of sound. This sound is up there with the CAT 150 watt tube amp sound on the Hansens. The CAT is another laid back, albeit very neutral amp sound.

The other amps we have heard on the Hansens: Boulder and BAT [solid-state if I remember correctly] just sounded etchy and like someone was poking me with a knitting needle: some notes would rise too rapidly, and be jagged at the tops, and other notes just about disappeared.

Yes, I am sure we would all like to hear the Hansens with other amps someday and 1) see if they were able to drive them and 2) if the sound was kick butt or not. The mixibitors would rush around at midnight and try the: big Audio Note like the Gaku-On and big Joule Electra which would both be very interesting. The MBL and even the FM Acoustics would be interesting.

The Show Report is splitting into 2 reports. The main RMAF 2009 Show report is on Spintricity. We will not talk about sound there for the reasons stated there.

Our readers here we expect are more interested in the hardcore technical description of the sound – and we will post that here in this blog.

For example the Wadia room system. To force listeners to listen off-axis the Dynaudio apparently put the speaker’s tweeter close to the floor. Since I took photos crouching in the front of the system, and then sat front row almost center [it had an interesting sound that peeked my curiosity] it worked for me. In a in-home situation, most people who listen from a sweet spot will have the tweeters in their sight which is all that is required for this design to work. In the few minutes I had I was not able to figure out what it was about this system that I thought might be worth investigating further. It was certainly a soft, and digititus-free sound [which does not mean it was analog-sounding]. Maybe they just removed all the frequencies above 3000Hz – but I did not think so at the time. It seemed to have good separation, and controlled midi-dynamics – typically uncharacteristic of solid-state sound. Guess I should wait until I get to the photos again and then we can talk more about this room.

We will also talk about our room, of course. It was quite an experience!