We rolled into the show late Friday afternoon, did take in a few rooms but that night Patricia Barber live. Not a very large crowd, maybe because no seating, everyone had to stand. Good show though and afterward she signed CD's. Yes, I got mine and even got a pic with her. She was nice and had a sense of humor. During the weekend I also met Lyn Stanley,
www.lynstanley.com , great singer with high quality recordings, also available at Amazon and a few other online sites if you want better shipping costs.
I will begin with best of show which I didn't think I could choose one until wandering into the Tidal room last day and knew if I could put any system in my room it would be that one. German electronics & speakers with the Bricasti DAC as source. My 2nd pick would be Sadurni speakers driven by Merrill amps. The Sadurni are horn speakers that sounded better than any horn I've ever heard, resolution, extension, no harshness, I can't even begin really to describe the look. The Merrill amps should be on everyone's radar, these are Class D that were so smooth and musical they could drive 108 dB efficient horns with no hint of anything that would be fatiguing. Not positive of Merrill web address but I know it's .net, not com. Merrill is also USA.
"Wow factor", MBL playing master tapes on reel, concert level sound pressure crystal clear and sounding great. They had a master track from James Newton Howard & Friends, spectacular. D'Agostino driving Wilson Alexandria, very good but I still would prefer the MBL. My first listen to Quad speakers, I really enjoyed them, full electrostat, no dynamic drivers and the bass was deep. The guy told us that Quad will be distributed again in the U.S. by him, who works for a division of Mobile Fidelity. They were playing vinyl but I forgot which table. Another company I really enjoyed and more on the affordable side if a $4k component is affordable, it's just that when hearing all the mega dollar systems ATC had a great sound. ATC from England, does Pro sound as well and been in business for decades. I would describe them as neutral will a live presence, like a studio monitor, not sterile, enjoyable. In the "wow" and nearly tied for 2nd best in show was Bricasti, their DAC directly into their new $30k a pair monoblocks driving Tidal speakers. As I seen all off these on different days etc. I probably shouldn't try to rank, except I'm sure on Tidal, I fell in love. I saw a $499.00 powered speaker that just shocked us all when we were told the price, made by Vanidu, I hope I selled that correctly. I would have to give some type of an award to the Parasound integrated, maybe "best bang for buck product". Parasound is known for this but the integrated is a new benchmark having essential the same preamp section as a P5, a built in DAC which is better than their $500.00 or so stand alone and a high power amp section, I forgot the specs. I talked a good while with Richard Schram who was very friendly and nice to me. Halo was amping for the KEF room who was showing one of the Blade models, the Ref5 which sounded very good & the LS50's. Johan from KEF was demonstrating by going back and forth between the LS50's and the Blade how their speakers are voiced similarly it just depends on your room size, budget, associated gear, etc. I heard a set of Maggie 3.7's driven by a Pass X250.5 that impressed me, I never heard Maggie's do bass like that and I felt it in my chest. The room was actually Exasound who makes a very reasonable priced high quality DAC. This is just the highlights there was a lot more, like retailers were there as well, I heard Levinson monoblocks drive Dynaudio Platinums which needed a larger room but still good. Levinson was there driving JBL Everests which needed more room.
Legacy was there showing their 3 top models, the V at $50k was very good, it has it's own outboard crossover with room correction DSP and microphone, built in power for what I believe was three 15's but I didn't get an upclose look to see if any were like in back or side.
Our own Vapor Audio showed a top model speaker driven by Lamm that sounded good but Ryan was still doing some tweaking. I regret we didn't get back in on Sunday before leaving.
I feel those who treated their rooms were a step ahead of the rest despite what the demo was. In fact, one guy rented 2 rooms and put exact systems in each room, left one room alone and treated the other acousticly, if you visited the first he practically threw you in the other, LOL. But point taken, the improvement was quite noticeable. Which brings me to a company called SMT, they were in the MBL & Sadurni rooms, a room treatment that diffuses and not deaden the sound. I like their theory. When I do something other than DIY I plan to check into SMT.
Let me sum by saying I had a great weekend. This would be quite a bit longer if I tried to include everything but hope you enjoy the highlights.
