Because of a number of requests for us to post our impressions of the systems in this room, including those on the Audio Asylum, I stayed and listened to a few CDs on both this and the smaller system below.

When I got here they were in the middle of a demo of the Acoustic System tweaks, tiny bowls mounted to wood (see below). Like the Shakti demo at THE SHOW, all I could determine from the demo was that it was important to balance the deployment of these positional tweaks - if there is one on the left speaker, there should be one on the right. As for the effect, I could convince myself that they were for the good and that they were not. In general, both these tweaks seem to increase pressurization of the room - but whether it was at the expense of things I value more, like microdynamics [to communicate emotion and message and to help keep hardness at bay] and even-handed treatment of frequencies and dynamics top-to-bottom  - this was not at all obvious, to me during the demo.

Below are my impressions of the large system. Luckily I wrote down a lot of notes immediately afterwards, because as I write this almost two weeks later, it is hard to remember anything right now but my own name. Please remember that everything goes into a making a system's sound be what it is, including, for example, cables.
 

This AMR system, with virtual Dynamics cables, was much more neutral and almost solid-state in its approach which is strange what with the tube CD player and integrated.

It was very dark in this room. So dark that when I took these first photos all I knew was that this was an HRS rack, and assumed it was one of the Mahogany MXR racks and took a few photos and left.

[There are no photos of the speakers here because Magico does not want photos of their speakers in our report for reasons described in section of the report for Wing One of the Venetian Tower - essentially because of our opinion on the sound of the rooms that Magico showed in at the last CES .]

It was only later that I learned that these were the MXR in the new metallic red finish. So a bunch more photos, taken a few days later, are inserted below. It was still dark in the room when I got there so I asked the nice fellow if he could turn up the lights. He said after the song ends and so I listened to the system for the rest of the song [the sound didn't suck and you BAT fans out there would probably think it was pretty good: round notes, good control, no micro-dynamics but well balanced for most of the frequencies, considering BATs do not have much air and the little Minis are not able to fill a room this size with bass].

When the song ended he turned up the lights, as promised, but only part of the way. So, although my camera could take photos [which it can anyway in near pitch black, as the first few photos here show], I was still unable to just look at the rack with the naked eye and see what it was, how it looked in the context of a system and a bunch of black components on the shelves.

How else would I know whether I should push for us to go with this color for our next MXR or go with one of the figured or burled wood finishes that Neli wants. Heck, it is an uphill battle to start with, since I am the one who pushed for the gloss black one we have now, and this ain't helping me get up the massive amounts of conviction and passion and, I know it, sheer foolhardiness needed to argue a wife, who has every right to think she gets to pick the next veneer, out of her choice in favor of mine ... ;-)

So , anyway...., these photos are much brighter and clearer that what I saw while I was actually there at the show and I am seeing them for the first time now, as I process and post these pictures.

At least a little interesting looking, aren't they?