First a few photos of our *Audio Note U.K. room.
Everything was more or less modestly priced except perhaps the CDT3 and DAC 4.1x Balanced, together a $20K front end, that was probably more expensive by itself than many other entire systems at the show. Here’s our brochure that gives the details of the system we brought to the show.
Neli thought that maybe 50-60 people made it to the room. In comparision, about 400-500– get to our room at RMAF.
We took the *Acoustic Dreams equipment rack again. Many exhibitors chose to use the hotel furnishings to support their gear rather than to bring a stand.
The show’s rooms were suites. This is what the sleeping room looked like, with the furnishings from the main room and empty equipment boxes piled up more or less out of the way.
This was our next door neighbor, Custom Isolation Products showing with Clarity Cables. One of the few rooms to bring a real equipment rack and amplifier stands, which they build. Very distinctive, modern look with heavy acrylic shelves and that very cool blue light. At $1200/shelf it is comparable in price to our Acoustic Dreams’ rack which comes in at $1500/shelf. Sonically … it’s so hard to tell about the specifics of a line of vibration isolation products, or a line of cables, at a show, but … their room sounded very nice. It’s so easy to have good things sound bad, especially at a show.
They were showing the*Marten Design ‘Miles II’ speakers and *Audio Aero Capitole Mk II CD player, with a pair of Art Audio amplifiers doing a wonderful job on the Miles. Why is it that rooms that have the Capitole player always are amongst the best rooms at a show? Maybe it has to do with the aesthetic of the owner themselves…
Duke and his wife, from Audio Kinesis were also there, Neli saying it sounding pretty good in this room as well.
AudioKinesis brought their Jazz Modules, in a lovely walnut finish. They were powered by Richard Grey’s 300B amps, in a custom chassis, and accompanied by a vintage Infinity preamp. These are very interesting loudspeakers, and would benefit from a larger room.
This room was set up by the Dallas Audio Society. Texas is big fun, and the Audio Society folks are certainly proof of this. Neli did not for some insane reason photograph the completely restored original Keith Monk record cleaning machine that was hiding in a corner … the very lucky and diligent owner purchased it for very little money, the new ones are now about $6K. This is the machine on which the Loricraft is based.
Fred Thompson’s line arrays definately do a big sound, at a real budget price point — if memory serves me, they’re $350 to build a pair yourself. The amplifier is a tiny Class T device, there on the top shelf.
Bob Spence from Maxxhorn is always a gracious host, and the sound in here was big and open with good separation and good tonality. Electronics include the very distinctive little Berning amp in the front (I think this is a microZOTL), powered by the battery pack that is hiding next to the table with the CD player (a modified Sony 9000ES). We had wanted to let the Mixibitors bring the Audio Note OTO Phono SE over from our room … but Neli was too tired Sunday evening and dinner beckoned. In retrospect … we missed an opportunity. Maybe at RMAF!
Hi Folks, Neli here … my writing is rather different from Mike’s so you can probably tell that some of this post is his, and some mine. A few overall remarks on the Lone Star show:
I did a lame job at getting out of the room and taking pictures. This was compounded by the side effects of ongoing construction in the hotel *during the show*. Jackhammers. Carpenters. Random loud banging and assorted other noise. I didn’t really get out of our room on Friday or Saturday morning to take any pictures, and many exhibitors just bailed and checked out Sunday morning. Our room, which was over in the corner, at first seemed like not-so-good of a location but in the end it was one of the quietest places on our floor for construction noise. I would expect that the show organizers are mighty annoyed. They were able to quiet the jackhammers by Saturday afternoon … but by then the damage was done.
So I didn’t get to all the rooms, and I didn’t take pictures in all the rooms I did get into. For example, Brian Smith of Audio Note Kits brought a bunch of very kewl parts, and a full kit-built system with new monoblocs that sounded really quite wonderful, and a lovely new chromed chassis … but I didn’t take any pictures. Sigh. Please don’t worry — Mike will be back at his usual antics soon.
The most complete discussion area regarding the LSAF that I’ve found so far is at AudioRoundtable.com, in their General forum. I have a hard time with forums sometime — but I like the tone of the discussions at Audio Roundtable. I’ve been liking the AudioCircles, too. A bit kinder and gentler than the better known forums.
And here’s a list of other reports:
Dave Cope (Audio Note UK’s factory liasion, and general websmith/wordsmith, see TriodeAndCO.us) has a very nice slideshow.
The Lone Star Bottleheads’ photos are up on their forum, here — and they also have a slideshow version here.
The CryoParts folks did a little reporting on there site, here:
Bill Epstein attended for Dagogo — his report is here
Both Albert Porter and Akhilesh Bajaj wrote for Positive Feedback:
Albert Porter’s report
Akhilesh Bajaj’s report
