[fsimms]

Thanks BRM. Who is in this photo with Jim?

He's da Man! 

Bob

EDIT: Since this is in the Audio Show circle and not the Salk circle, I guess I should not be so cryptic.  He is Dennis Murphy.  Designer of the Salk SongTowers, Philharmonic speakers and master crossover designer.

[sharpsuxx]

Wish I was there, looks like a great line up.

[Nuance]

Wish I was there, looks like a great line up.

+1

[sharpsuxx]

Sorry about your Brewers Nuance
-STL 12 in 12

[funkmonkey]

Re: veneer on SS8

It's Black Limba...

  Damn sexy is what it is   

especially with the black name plate and plinths...  very handsome speaker. 
can't wait to see some better pics of them.

[Big Red Machine]

Nice!  Hawthorne is moving up. Waveguide with a new ribbon tweeter.

Her cookies are awesome. I stayed in their room practically the whole time about 4 years ago, just because of the cookies!

Best,
Anand.

The Hawthornes being 96 db speakers and needing so little power sure worked effortlessly.  I was SHOCKED to hear them playing the analog outputs of an Emotiva CDP.  There was a Metrum dac in the rack for the digital files, but I never heard the Emo cdp sound so good as through those Hawthornes.  Real nice folks in there as well.

[Big Red Machine]

Some more photos.  I'll try to take some more today.

Klaus had a real lean set up, as usual, straight to the point and outstanding sounds.



Bass from these speakers was off the charts.




Vapor/BMC room

Voices were exceptional and the subs were not playing.



Ryan waving from the back.




Right next door was the Vapor/Morningstar with EE stuff:

[Big Red Machine]

My camera is doing something funky.  I'll have to check the settings.  KInda grainy.

The Marantz room:








The Bogdan room.

Super nice folks and really good sound.  Tubes!

[Big Red Machine]

Some more photos.

member room, no idea the speakers.


Selah room:  they did not seem to change volume as you walked closer to them.  Is that the attribute of a line array-style speaker?  Check out that tweeter array.








Salk and AVA gear in both silver and black.  A new SS amp at 225 wpc and the 600R.  They did have different sounds and we tried to set up the amps Friday night to driver particular speakers to bring out the best of each. 



Dean!


Tyler acoustics and my local buddy who makes Zentara cables:





Silnote cables.  Nice.  They really made those big Tylers play clean. 




McIntosh made the trip:







Are you out of your gourd?  Ha!

[JLM]

I'll try to catch up to you guys later today.   

Gotta find those gourds.   

McIntosh seems to only know one way to make better speaker (add drivers).   

That Selah array is the first array I've seen that makes acoustic sense to me (simulating a point source).

[krikor]

I took a little Flip video cam along to experiment with... some rooms are too dark and I should probably get the hosts to talk about/explain their systems (but music and crowds kind of prevented this).

Loaded all my crappy photos and videos onto photobucket here:

http://photobucket.com/akfest2012

Here's the video from the Bogdan audio room (click to open):

[krikor]

Gahh I'm missing out ...those Hawthorne speakers look amazing! Some Vapor pics/impressions would be appreciated, too 

Jeff in the Hawthorne room mentioned that those reference speakers will be on permanent display/audition at a building in Dearborn, MI.  If you are in the Detroit area, you'll be able to come by and listen.  I work in Dearborn and can foresee some long lunches there 

[kip_]

Selah room:  they did not seem to change volume as you walked closer to them.  Is that the attribute of a line array-style speaker?  Check out that tweeter array.

Not an attribute of all line arrays. CBT (constant beamwidth transducers) use amplitude shading to control floor/ceiling bounce - more info here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=92134.0
http://www.selahaudio.com/id282.html

They usually use an active crossover such as a DEQX but I believe there's a passive version available as well.

[OzarkTom]

Those Hawthornes look awesome. Did Hawthorne give out a price on those?

[emac]

My wife and I attended again this year and really had a good time.  Not as many vendors at there had been in the past, but my wife and I agreed that there were 3 rooms that really stood out, perhaps (if my audio memory is serving me right) more so than in past years.

1.  Hawthorne reference speakers - I have enjoyed the sound of a well executed AMT design, and have a pair of Silver Irises that I still use.  So, was predisposed to liking these speakers.  But they were better than what I'd anticipated.  Big speakers, but able to shine in a relatively small room.  Musical and handled whatever small details that were hidden in the tracks.  Very interesting to see how far a good OB design can go.

2.  Salk room - While I don't advertise this here, my wife and I haven't really cared for the Salk sound at past shows.  Not sure why, but never did it for either of us.  But at the show I thought the 2 speakers that I heard were working really well in the set up.  The first was the SoundScapes, which sounded up to their potential.  And, interestingly, I really liked the RAAL-Illuminator bookshelf that they had there.  Someone else would have to give the specifics, but musically they just sounded right. 

3.  Odyssey room - Got a chance to hear both of the speakers that they had there.  The first was what I guess were the Lorelei's.  Nice sound and very pleasing to the ear.  However, I thought that the trapezoidal bookshelf speakers were even better.  Extremely musical and dynamics that were unreal.  I'm not a big bookshelf fan, but these and the Salks were terrific.

And finally, I'll add in the Selah room.  Those curved line arrays did a pretty good job with whatever was thrown at them.  The only thing my wife and I noticed was that were a bit forward sounding, which may have had to do w/ the room.  I think the speakers would do a much better job if they had some more space to breathe.

But overall a great show.  Looking forward to next year. 

[Charles Xavier]

I took a little Flip video cam along to experiment with... some rooms are too dark and I should probably get the hosts to talk about/explain their systems (but music and crowds kind of prevented this).

Loaded all my crappy photos and videos onto photobucket here:

http://photobucket.com/akfest2012

Here's the video from the Bogdan audio room (click to open):

I watched all your videos and I was most impressed with the sound of the  Odyssey monitors

[Bob in St. Louis]

Loaded all my crappy photos and videos onto photobucket here:

http://photobucket.com/akfest2012

Thank you for that. 
Any chance you could drop by the Hawthorne Audio room?

Bob

[roscoeiii]

Headed back home from AKFest late last night. What a wonderful chance to meet some ACers in person. And great sounding stuff on display there. Here are my highlights (mirroring what many others have said here already):

Sadly missed out on hearing the Vapor Breeze (means I am that much more likely to visit stlrman in Pittsburgh), but the Arcus which is comprised of a waveguide loaded Beyma tweeter and an AE 10" woofer sounded fabulous. What a killer tweeter on that one. Very very impressed. I preferred it to the Cirrus, but it is also a good deal more expensive than the Cirrus and it was playing on much more expensive electronics than the Cirrus.  Would have liked to compare them with the same equipment upstream. Both are superb.

But drum kits on the Arcus were incredible. Impact, detail, bass drum thunk and heavenly cymbals. Wow.

And in general, I was really digging the great tweeters on many standmounts this year. The Beyma, the RAAL on the Cirrus and the Salk speakers I heard, and the beryllium tweeter that was on the Odyssey Kismet. Great top end.

Best of the show for me was the Hawthorne speaker. Great cookies in that room too. Fabulous large scale presentation and impact.

Biggest surprise of the show was the Bogdan. They were in a big room and did a surprisingly good job of filling that room with great sounding cello, bass guitar. No easy task for a speaker and driver of that size. Wow. ~$2000. A killer speaker. Stereomojo review:

http://www.stereomojo.com/Bogdan%20Audio%20Art%20Decco%20Speaker%20Review.htm/BogdanAudioArtDeccoSpeakerReview.htm

Didn't get to hear the other Bogdans playing, but I heard other attendees rave about them. 

[saeyedoc]

Sadly missed out on hearing the Vapor Breeze (means I am that much more likely to visit stlrman in Pittsburgh), but the Arcus which is comprised of a waveguide loaded Beyma tweeter and an AE 10" woofer sounded fabulous. What a killer tweeter on that one. Very very impressed. I preferred it to the Cirrus, but it is also a good deal more expensive than the Cirrus and it was playing on much more expensive electronics than the Cirrus.  Would have liked to compare them with the same equipment upstream. Both are superb.

But drum kits on the Arcus were incredible. Impact, detail, bass drum thunk and heavenly cymbals. Wow.

Do you recall the price of the Arcus? Any pictures of it? What was the sensitivity?

[roscoeiii]

In the $6000, $6500 neighborhood IIRC. Somewhere between 6-7k.

Fairly efficient too. A lot of the specs are blending together, but I think it was high 80s or low 90s.