[Meicheng]

It was fun finally meeting some of the local AC members and thanks to Tuan for instigating this.  I went to the Tonian room twice, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon and thought it was one of the best rooms at the show.  Very non-fatiguing and natural sounding speakers.  Martin. 

[TheChairGuy]

After 3.5 hours + there...things really started to blend (things slightly more blended by the use of digital players in almost all the rooms....it takes time to set a turntable up, so a few of the rooms hadn't had time to dial in the TT right on the first day and they were silent )

The DeHavilland suite with the 95db sensitive Sonoist speakers playings was special - the guy in there (Mr. DeHavilland I think) had this old Reel-to-Reel deck and things sounded stunning in there.

I thought Ian Grant of Grant Fidelity was a pip (so, too, Marc Silver of SoundScape AV) and his system, moderately priced at ~ $5500 for the components sounded fine indeed in those rooms.  Very reasonable priced gear that sounded quite well.

I NOW know why folks dig their Salk Speakers and van Alstine Electronics, too....things in the Salk room played deep, wide and strong.  I got to hear the SongTowers with the Frank VA's UltraValve 70 and there was little wrong with that combo for the very fair prices of them charged

I though the stuff in the FritzSpeakers room sounded good, too.  Fritz was playing the smaller of 2 bookshelves he had there (and I don't think a subwoofer either) and it sounded full and stronger than you'd think looking at the diminutive dimensions   I think I heard FritzSpeakers right after Salk...and although both rooms sounded fine, they sounded strikingly different.

John

[Mortsnets]

Did you guys hear the Tonian speakers? With what most here would consider mediocre electronics, those speakers lit up the room in a way I've never heard before. For me, far and away the best sound I heard at the show today.

The Tonian Labs speakers were AWESOME!  I'm not sure of the model (7.1 1B?) but they sold for $5500 per pair and on small scale music they were the best I heard at the show.  Scary real on solo acoustic instruments.

These were demo'd with an old Phillips cdp and an old Audiolab integrated I think.

[Len_Dreyer]

Went to the show yesterday & had a good time. It seemed like 70% of the speakers had ribbon tweeters. My favorite rooms included the JBL horn/Levinson amp room, the Salk speaker/Van Alstine amp room, the Sonist speaker/Glow amp rooms and the Evolution Acoustic speakers/darTZeel amp room.

[dave_c]

I just got back after a great time.  For me I found that full range driver based speakers are much much more enjoyable than I remember.  Although I liked ones that had some augmentation down low or up high, the overall timing and coherence are pretty amazing.  I learned that I'm less impressed with tonal accuracy and more impressed with PRAT and coherence.  The Lotus Group Granada with the Feastrix driver was awesome.  For me that was the best of the show.  I also liked the Tonian's a lot too, I think those were my two favorites.  The Tonians had a full range driver augmented with a ribbon tweeter and sounded so right. 

I also really liked the JBL Everest II's but it was impossible to get a good seat and the room was way too small for them.  I liked the Pass Lab Electronics they were using too.
 

[Russtafarian]

This is a bit of a ramble, but here are a few highlights from my weekend at the show.  The first people I saw when I got to the hotel on Friday morning were Dave & Carol Clark (PFO) who graciously invited me to join them for breakfast.  The last people I saw leaving the hotel late Sunday afternoon were Dave & Carol who graciously invited me to join them for dinner.  Since I was traveling solo, your hospitality and conversation was much appreciated.

Dinner Friday night with the local AC guys was pretty cool.  The excellent Thai food fueled a fun conversation on all things audio.  It was great to meet you guys in person and thanks again for the lift into SF, John (Chair Guy).

I got a call Saturday morning from Ann Soo (Constantine’s wife  and show organizer extraordinaire) telling me I had won Friday’s raffle drawing for a Wadia Ipod dock.  That was a great way to start the day.  And for lunch on Saturday I joined some of the folks from AudioEvo.org.   Again, a lot of fun to meet and hang out with people who I’ve gotten to know on-line.   

The Saturday night listening session at Paul Stubblebine’s studio hosted by Paul and Bob Hodas was really something special.  So which Tape Project 1” master did we want to listen to: Bill Evans, Dave Alvin, or Sonny Rollins?  All of them, please!  Paul put each tape on and let it roll all the way through.  We just relaxed with some wonderful wine and let the music feed our souls. Words fail to describe how musically amazing this was.  Deep thanks to Bob and Paul for this unique opportunity.

I got to play DJ in my buddy Fritz’s room off and on throughout the show so he could work the crowd and wander the halls.  Had the experience of running a demo for a print publication reviewer who I felt like tossing out of the room because his ostentatious demeanor.  Sorry Fritz, if you don’t show up in his blog, it’s probably my fault. Thankfully, it was the only time I ran into this kind of attitude the entire weekend.

Most systems I heard were on the bright side, probably as a result of the room mirrors and pictures that were inconveniently positioned at or near the sidewall reflection points of most speaker setups.  Fritz and I tried to address this by taping shower towels over them.  It helped but we could have done better with some simple room treatment.  I was very impressed with the YG and the Evolution speakers.  Both were very clean, fast, robust, and open sounding without getting too etched or aggressive.  The Audio Note room sounded musical and organic, aside from some mid-bass room-induced bloat.  I can now understand the allure of a complete AN system.  For reasonably priced speakers, I was quite impressed with the Salk Songtowers, the Sonist speakers and Fritz’s Carbon 7’s.  They all offered superb sound and build quality for the money.  I heard good things about the Grant speakers, but found them too aggressively bright when I heard them.

I was surprised how much I liked some of the full range driver based systems like the Teresonics, Lotus Granada, and Tonian Acoustics.  The Terasonics with that nice analog front end were very musically engaging, though still a touch papery sounding in the upper midrange.  Easily the best Lowther-based speaker I’ve heard.  The Tonians were extremely fast and articulate, but a bit bright.  It could have been the room, but for my taste I would pad that ribbon down a notch or two.  The massive Granadas produced the best sound of the show.  The system energized the room with the illusion of performers in space like nothing else I heard.  That was really good!

Bipole/dipole designs were hit and miss.  The Granadas was definitely a hit.  So were the Gradient Helsinkis.  The Gradients had a very open, expansive soundstage, and pretty impressive bass (60 Hz) for non-DSP’d open baffle woofers.  On the other hand, the little stand-mounted ClairAudient 2+2 bipoles, while very open sounding were way too diffused.  They simply would not produce solid images.  Voices and instruments were whispy ghosts haunting the sound stage instead of materializing as fleshed out performers.  This was my first time hearing the Emerald Physics Dipoles.  The bass integration in the room and palpable image was quite impressive.  But depending on the source material the mid-highs could be quite grating.  Why are they using a cheap compression driver in a $5,500 system when that’s the speakers’ most glaring (pun intended) weakness?  Dump that $40 Selenium driver and use a $140 B&C DE250. 

Finally, congratulations and thanks to Constantine Soo and his team for putting on a great audio show.  And thanks for the Ipod dock.  I can’t wait to get it hooked up and start playing with it.

Russ

[Charles Calkins]

I was there Sat. and had a great time listening to some very great sound systems. One of them was The martin Logan system driven by a Sherwood receiver. Room 1203.Genesis/Soundscape AV. I think the Sherwood receiver is something brand new. The guy giving the demo sure knew how to use it and get an impressive sound field.

 All in All it was a very good show. Lot's of expensive audio gear on display.

 I am a fan of Frank Van Alstine and for less than $6K of his electronic gear he can give the big boys a run for their money. AVA electronics paired with Salk speakers are a very good combination. Heard some good music in their room.

                                        Cheers
                                        Charlie

[mattyturner]

Have to chime in to agree with Mortsnets.. the Tonian Labs were an ear opener for me, that AER driver is something special indeed.

I also enjoyed the two rooms with Sonist speakers (DeHavilland and Wire World)

Very impressed with Grant Fidelity, I listened to a system that was $2,400 total, and it sounded awesome.

Loved the Salk/AVA combo. That room and Tonian Labs were my two favourites.

As a general question on exhibitor etiquette, was anyone else bothered by those rooms that turned the AC off? I had to leave some rooms very soon on Saturday cause I felt woozy, even though the sound was good.

[Russtafarian]

I'm sure the Air Conditioning debate raged in every room.  Do we turn it on and screw up the sound of the system or turn it off and stifle the guests?  Why not open the window to get some air circulation.  The westside rooms would have gotten a nice breeze off the bay.

[Charles Calkins]

mattyturner:
 I noticed that some of the rooms had the AC off. But did you see some of the exhibitors were wearing heavy jackets!!. I guess our weather is not to their liking. Must be hotter than hell where they live. I'll stay here in good old Martinez. Very good weather. Not too hot or cold year around.

                    Cheers
                      Charlie

[Russtafarian]

@Charlie,

The Sherwood/Trinnov demo was pretty convincing, though i'd rather have heard music than crash bang movie clips.  The exhibitor explained that Trinnov differs from Audyssy in that it uses a multi-capsule mic to triangulate the exact location of each speaker in the room.  That way, the processor can steer the multichannel track to lock to the screen even if the speakers are offset from the ITU standard.

[Charles Calkins]

russtafarain:

 I had the dude turn off the sound effects so I could listen to the Martin Logans in stereo. Liked what I heard. So it seems to me you don't need very expensive electronics to get good sound.

 Years ago in the last century Martin Logan speakers were very good as long as your fat ass was locked into the sweet spot. Standing up or moving left or right you lost the sweet spot. Not so with what I heard Sat. didn't make any difference where you are they sound more like a regular speaker with drivers and whatever else involved in a speaker.

                                    Cheers
                                  Charlie

[Nyal Mellor]

I too thought the Tonian Labs speakers were excellent. Once of the only rooms I didn't sit down in, listen to one track and then leave because the sound was god awful. The other good room was the Lotus Granada.

[iGrant]

"When I played a highly refined recording of cello and piano playing mellow chamber fare by Ginastera, the system totally captured the delicacy, beauty, and emotion of the music. Shall I tell you how many systems at the show that cost 10, 20, and 30 times as much failed to reach into the heart of the music they were designed to faithfully reproduce. . ."

We seem to have finally shown up on Stereophile's radar, link to their CAS 2010 report:

http://blog.stereophile.com/cas2010/grant_fidelitys_chinese-made_bargains/

The traffic was much more than anticipated, as always great to meet new people, the AC members that introduced themselves and hear everyone's test music.

Cheers,
Ian

[eclein]

Congrats Ian!!! You definitely have some great gear and excellent customer service..enjoy!!

[CSI]

mattyturner:
 I noticed that some of the rooms had the AC off. But did you see some of the exhibitors were wearing heavy jackets!!. I guess our weather is not to their liking. Must be hotter than hell where they live.

"Hates California, it's cold and it's damp. That's why the lady is a tramp"

- Frank Sinatra

[mhconley]

As a general question on exhibitor etiquette, was anyone else bothered by those rooms that turned the AC off? I had to leave some rooms very soon on Saturday cause I felt woozy, even though the sound was good.

At RMAF 2009 those most concerned with audio quality were doing the same thing.  Hotel room AC can make a fantastic system in a well treated room sound like utter dog poo.  When I was playing DJ in the Moscode / Von Schweikert room I would crank the AC when no-one was in the room and shut it off once someone walked in the door.  Seemed like a good compromise.

Martin