[DaveC113]

OK, IDK WTF is wrong with photobucket and rotating my images. I apologize ahead of time, PB seems to randomly rotate back some of the images I manually rotated and not others. No idea what's going on here...


meh...



boom tizz... 





Sounds like really good PA speakers, with SPL abilities to match



Nice system, the TAD speakers are also capable of ungodly SPLs.





About what you'd expect from electrostats and tube amps that seem underpowered for the job... Good thing the dish in the center cost as much as my entire system. BIG fail here...





Yawn...



Surprisingly good, the 8" single drivers are also good but too colored...



Meh...





One of the best setups acoustically, the speakers were also great. The planars have a character to them I'd describe as fast, open and detailed, but they can use more harmonic texture and tone in the upper mids to high freqs... nevertheless this system is one of the best at the show.

[SoCalWJS]

 
Agree with your comments on all of the rooms listed (so far). I thought the other TAD's of similar size in another room sounded good as well. The Focals disappointed w/o fail. The New Wilson debut was less than spectacular ( the comments I heard...... )

I think the GR/Serenity system was very good and only got better each day - just wish that the larger amps had the improved parts in them and were used - a bit more power in that room would have helped (IMHO).

Well stated and thanks for sharing!

[FullRangeMan]

A really stupid thing is a big & hot 10V x 10A, 833 tube inside a tube of glass to dont cooling the valve 

[DaveC113]

WILSON!!! Makes me think of Phish... Yup, these are great speakers, I don't care what other peeps have to say. They are immaculately neutral and show no trace of cabinet resonances or effects. They show little to no trace of crossover issues and the drivers blend almost seamlessly. They may not have a "personality" and I personally wouldn't buy them, but they deserve some respect for their accomplishment.







More Zu. Another system that can't play digital, complete BS and alienating potential customers by not playing music people brought in. That goes for every vendor at RMAF, I'd MUCH RATHER BUY STUFF FROM PEOPLE THAT WILL SPARE 5 MINUTES TO PLAY MY F$%KING MUSIC!!! AND NOT HAVE AN ATTITUDE ABOUT IT!!!



One of the best systems in the show...









Perpetuating single driver speaker's bad rep...





Sander's Electrostats Kick A$$!!! Good setup (asymetrical people, jeez!!!) Great sound, great soundstaging, controlled dispersions and active x-over...







Meh, ok I guess...





Here's a $50k+ system that is on the same level as my $1300 retail Omega Super3 XRS and DIY EL34 SET amp. There's a lot of systems I'd trade for my modest system, this is pretty good but isn't one of them...









I totally forgot about this system, I think it was good.



ok...







Deadalus, they has some pretty bad bass problems and their setup was very poor for the room they had. Nevertheless, the speakers sound great if you can ignore the issues around 60-120 Hz, they were fast, accurate, dynamic, and a lot of fun to listen to. More my kind of speaker vs. something like the Wilsons. And the guys running the room were friendly and happy to play my test tracks. These are also some of the best speakers at RMAF...  despite the issues with room acoustics. And some of the best looking too, this is incredibly nice woodworking.







ok-ish...





Feastrex. Not a good speaker for high SPLs and complex music, but they have a realism in vocals and simple arrangements that's startlingly real, and better than anything I've ever heard. My Omega single drivers are better for a wider range of music, but NOTHING in this world can touch Feastrex given the right material. It's spooky how real some vocals can come across on these speakers. Absolutely amazing...

[DaveC113]

MBL sounding like MBL. Its ok I guess but like most huge $ systems the value is questionable...







Pretty good if you like the planar sound...







Another TAD speaker'ed room. Good speakers but theres something in the midrange tham makes me say hmmmm....



Cool looking tube and tt stuff



Bud Freid. They were solidly mediocre, no way could I live with these. "Only" $3k for a pair of crappy speakers.



Salk, pretty good speakers for sure. Like Wilson, they aren't my style but you have to respect good engineering and a good product.





Small Wilsons... meh



Wisdom, I thought they were really good but on the edge of too bright and edgy, but I like my resolution... so overall good but needs some work.



Merlin, one of the best speakers on earth...







Vaughn, I thought these were very good speakers, great space from the bilpole design and the tweeter blends well with the wide range drivers.







Usher, these guys have a master reel to reel than blows away every other source I've ever heard (including any huge $ vinyl setup), and not by just a little. With my own tracks these speakers went from Oh My God! to just ok.

[Tyson]

Dave, I may not agree 100% with your assessments, but I gotta say that you are my kinda peeps!  Keep the brutal honesty flowing

[DaveC113]

Mac, the room sounding pretty dialed. Again, not my style but props for good setup and a nice sounding speaker.





Totem, there's something I like about them but I can't quite put my finger on it, hmmm  Anyway, these have some upper bass hump but otherwise are very nice speakers



Avalon, $18k or so, really?



KEF Blade, meh...





Leagacy, great speaker and a nice guy building them. The speakers pictured have a DSPeaker processor and thus had accurate bass. High efficiency and great dynamics don't hurt either. These are also a great value and if I had the right space for the Legacy line I'd certainly consider them. Also, the DSPeaker room correcting processor is AWESOME! I'm waiting for a version with decent USB implementation and I will own one. If you use toslink or spdif it'll do 24/96 and the room correction software is great, and also can be used to analyze frequency response in-room and see them effects of acoustic treatments. This is a great piece of gear.





Nice...

http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/davec113/RMAF%202012/?action=view&current=RMAF2012165.jpg



Best sound in show 



Good, but not great single drivers with a woofer. The guy running seemed to prefer very simple music and lower volume despite my efforts. BTW, these are NOT metal drivers, they are structural foam with very thin foil wrappers.



Seriously good, but slightly rolled off at extreme high freqs





KINGSOUND electrostats, wow, awesome!





One of the best rooms in the show IMO, and one of the speakers I'd actually consider buying.... Speakers are dc10. GREAT JOB!!!

[csc]

Bud Freid. They were solidly mediocre, no way could I live with these. "Only" $3k for a pair of crappy speakers.

Interesting comments on the Fried speakers. They are built by Salk with the crossover done by Dennis Murphy.

[brj]

Wilson-Benesch out of the UK, not Wilson Audio out of Utah.

Small Wilsons... meh

[Pez]

Dave, great stuff here! Thanks for your huge contribution!

[Big Red Machine]

Interesting comments on the Fried speakers. They are built by Salk with the crossover done by Dennis Murphy.

An overwhelming positive response from listeners in the Fried room.  Dave got the brutal part correct.

[rbbert]

I was very impressed by the NOLA KO's at $10k/pr.  Maybe you didn't like the music when you were there?

My personal vote for one of the worst sounds at the show (I heard them only Fri and Sat) was the Cessaro room. 

Isn't that what makes this hobby great?!

[dminches]

Any comments on the Vandersteen room(s)?  Did they should anything other than the 7s?

[Pez]

When I look at all the rooms you visited Dave I think to myself 'did we attend the same show????' I think 80% of what you posted were rooms Tyson and I missed entirely.  that is amazing! Yet also makes me kind of sad. There's just now way to see more AND listen for enough time to make a proper assessment. Great stuff again!

[pcosta]

Nice pics and info considering the time it takes to see and take in one of these shows and try and remember anything that was truly memorable.

Are you able to share more about the High Water Sound room with Tron and Cessaro's.

I had to skip this years show but I enjoyed the previous four.

[taoggniklat]

I did find it interesting to see so many of the rooms I visited using Mac gear.

[wisnon]

Dave, about the Dspeaker:

The guys from Dspeaker are very responsive.

Q&A from Dspeaker:

What are the current max sample rates accepted into the USB and Toslink digital input channels? I was under the impression that Toslink was 24/96 and that USB was 24/48 and that possibly in a future firmware update, USB can go up to 24/192.

Currently the Toslink can go 24/96 (latest firmware) and USB 48/24.

Am I correct here? I hope so because I have at least 20 hi-rez albums of 176khz and higher that I wont be able to play otherwise from my laptop.

You should be able to play them, as USB should be able to send the data in 48/24. Also the ADC of the AM2DC is 192kHz, so you could also use analog input if nothing else works.

Please let me know the current status and future upgrade plans in the works.

Yes we will. We'll announce any new firmware features on our website, so stay tuned.

Any plans to allow Toslink and USB input to accept 24/192? I have a lot of hires albums and can make more from my SACDs.

It is difficult to say yet about 24/192 as we are still planning the 24/96. However, the analog input already is 192kHz and USB should be able to feed the data in 24/48 format. With 6.144MHz reclocking, 24/48 is essentially as good as 24/192 as there is no jitter (which is more relevant than the ultrasonics).

Question:

> Pls advise if anti-mode 2.0 USB input with Asynchronous data
> processing? I could not find this information on your website or user
> manual. Thanks.

Answer:

Currently the USB Audio uses adaptive mode. We already have test code
that implements asynchronous mode and some extras (HID reports the
remote commands to the PC), but it has not been integrated into the
firmware yet. It still needs a bit of optimization.

--
Pasi Ojala, MSc (eng)
Head of DSPeaker Division DSPeaker-Home

[ted_b]

When I look at all the rooms you visited Dave I think to myself 'did we attend the same show????' I think 80% of what you posted were rooms Tyson and I missed entirely.  that is amazing! Yet also makes me kind of sad. There's just now way to see more AND listen for enough time to make a proper assessment. Great stuff again!

I was thinking exact same thing when perusing Dave's very nice gallery of pics and comments.  In a way it's great that the overlap is so small.  OK, so here is an idea for next year's plan:
* coordinate, among three reports, the entire show.  Each report person (or duo in the case of Pez/Tyson) take a third of the rooms and report back.    Each report needs to have a good cameraman, of course (you guys and Dave have set a nice bar!!).   Obviously, go see the rooms you want to see, but that can be done in the "drafting" of rooms, or after the report activities are through (yeah, good luck on that). 

[jtwrace]

Any comments on the Vandersteen room(s)?  Did they should anything other than the 7s?

Yes, the 7's sounded dreadfull but the Quattro's sound really nice.

[wisnon]

Dave, could you also label all those speakers you commented on but did not name, as well as the blue glowing amp that did not impress you with the panel speakers.?