[Jon L]

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Imagine HiFi room featuring JAS Audio speakers, which were impressively built and sounded very nice, reminding me a lot of big Marten Design speakers.  No wonder since both use the Accuton ceramic drivers.  NuForce Ref 9SE monoblocks and Esoteric P03/D03 digital front-end conspired with these speakers to make music that was rock-solid, exquisitely resolved, fulsome, yet fast. PassThru Cables were used to wire the entire setup.

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Imagine Hifi had another room featuring less expensive gear but very musical nevertheless, featuring Esoteric UX-03, Almarro A205a Mk II SET, and the new Cain & Cain "BIB" speakers along with Bailey subwoofer.  Cabled up with all Furutech cables, this rig showed off the strengths of single-driver technology, which included unforced naturalness, coherence like spring water.  Surprisingly, the BIB speakers are apparently meant to be used with a good sub b/c to my ears, their bass does not extend as low as Abbey's, but then again, Abbey's use bigger Fostex drivers.
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The Cain & Cain BIB speakers with low rear opening, which is new for Cain & Cain.  The Almarro speakers also looked interesting.

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Eighth Nerve room featuring Peak Consult Incognito X speakers.  This room had a very good sound, but then again, what do you expect from tube power (Berning ZH270) and full Eighth Nerve room treatment, not to mention turntable-only source (no CDP!)
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The only source being the superb Continuum TT w/ Manley Steelhead.  And yours truly had to lay down on the floor to get a shot of those Eighth Nerve room treatments.

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Verity Audio  speakers with Audion Quattro tube preamp.  Brand new Nagra transport and DAC combo was making some suave music.  This was truly the room with the most silky, refined, yet textured presentation, and to my surprise, I learned thy were using the Nagra SS mosfet amp, not those tube mono's!
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The Nagra SS amp is the one on the floor.  Very nice.
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The other Verity Audio setup, which wasn't playing at the time.

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Rethm speakers with modified Lowthers and "bass extenders."  I really liked this room, but how could you not, listening to those beautiful turntable.  The digital wasn't too shabby, either, with Metronome CD3 Sig CDP.  All being powered by Audio Frontiers 845 SET via Stealth cables.  The Lowther magic was in abundance with minimal Lowther shortcomings.
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Some more eye candy in Rethm room.

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Odyssey room where those on-wall picture-frame speakers were being demo'd to good use.  They made surprising amount of bass by themselves with good overall sound, something I would consider if I was a serious videophile..

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Gershman speakers with McCormack UDP-1 Deluxe and DNA225.  The UDP-1 Deluxe was sounding better than I ever heard out of regular UDP-1.  Those speakers' top and bottom portions are totally separable BTW.

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Audio Aero room with Audio Aero Prestige CDP and monoblocks. Speakers were WLM speakers with proprietary tweeters. Despite the nice components, there were some synergy problems in this room.  Too much bass and not enough highs.  Then again, many rooms were like this..

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Vandersteen Quattro speakers with Ayre electronics, including CD5Xe.  Unmistakable Vandersteen house-sound was present in abundance.  I understand those tiny Ayre monoblocks are NOT "digital" amps.

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Gamut room with Gamut speakers also.  Overall very nice sound, except this room also had the ubiquitous room problems

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Von Schweikert VR5Sr speakers with all Channel Island gear, including VDA2 DAC and D200 monoblocks at the time.  A very no-nonsense, dense, robust, "don't look at me for dang tubes" sound.  Texture and presence was plentiful, but if I could just throw in one tube stage in there..

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Acoustic Zen speakers and cables with Red Dragon Leviathan digital amps.  Source was Modwright Sony9100. I remember these speakers getting some serious media attention at the last CES, but today they weren't pushing my buttons in the midrange.  The bass was phenomenally pitch-correct and non-boomy even in this hotel room, showing it has the transmission-line magic.

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Joseph Audio speakers and the much-talked-about Moscode amps.  These amps allow you to swap tubes on the fly, and I must say I preferred it when 6DJ8's were rolled in place of 6H30Pi stock tubes.  Just so much more midrange bloom and magic with 6DJ8 vs. 6H30Pi IMO.

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I sat down in this room and had an audio-visual disconnect.  I couldn't believe my ears that these weird single-drive dipole speakers were making the sound I was hearing.  The speakers are from DC Gold Audio, sporting unique single-drivers made in Texas.  I soon understood why the sound was so resolved, clear, and dimensional right after I realized the CDP was BlueNote Koala and pream/amp were the famous ASR Emitter.

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This room caught my attention b/c they were streaming music wirelessly from PC to amp via those strange wireless "pod" things.  The name of this room escapes me b/c they weren't really doing demo's when I got there.

*Edit* This room was Sonneteer/Bard Audio.  They even had a small wireless DAC with build-in amp shown below.  I don't know why, but there didn't seem to be any other rooms doing PC audio this time around.
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Harmonix/Reimyo room.  Even with the obvious limitations of the tiny speakers, I could "hear through" to the greatness of Reimyo CDP and PAT777 amp.  The system definitely had the inner resolution and "breath of life" thing down, which unfortunately I cannot say for many other rooms here.  

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Ascend "E" speakers which do not feature ribbon tweeters like "Z" or "M," but nevertheless, this system was one of my favorites since unlike most rooms here, there was no dullness, veil, and over-tubiness.  Very lively, clear, spirited, resolved sound.  Perhaps that Dynavox CDP, Karajan electronics, and Virtual Dynamics cables may have had something to do with it.

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Kef speakers home theater demo.  Very impressive if you are into HT.

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Legacy Focus speakers.  

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Mobile Fidelity speakers.

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Big Ebaen X-5 speakers and big VTL mono's.  Source was BelCanto PL2, I believe.  Another setup with room problems and too much bass.  Hate when that happens.

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Vandy 5's with the biggest ARC can offer.  ARC CD7 player was spinning the music.  Great, warm, Vandy house sound.  But with the caliber of gear present, I would have expected much greaTER sound personally..

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Wilson Sophias and VTL.  Jadis' beautiful transport and DAC.  Another setup that  'should' have been greater given the individual gear's talents.

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Acapella Violon speakers and WAVAC HE833 superamps.  Extremely sophisticated, liquid sound.  The source was the much-anticipated Accustic Arts DAC4, which reportedly upsamples to extreme levels.  Great sound, but once again, I would have expected more given the price tags involved.

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Hyperion room with Hyperion everything.  

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Zu Druid and Definitions.  To me, Definitions sound like Druids with several more woofers.  The family resemblance is definitely strong.  Another ModWright Sony9100 was feeding Audiopax mono's.  Zu's definitely have a different sound than Lowthers, Fostex, etc.  

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Chord electronics and Neat loudspeakers.

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Focus Audio Master speakers powered by Sim Moon 6 monos.  The CDP is the interesting Aurum Integris.  Great, balanced, confident sound out of this setup.  The Vitus amps were not being used today.

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The classic Watt/Puppy 3/2, modified with better puppy tail, powered by Ayre electronics.  I rather liked this WP3/2 better than Sophias, etc.  

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I always love setups with Griphon Mikado CDP, and this one is no exception.  Griphon integrated amp powering Rockport Mira speakers made some seriously detailed, solid, dynamic music.  Very nice..

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Von Gaylord "Uni" liquid-cooled tube amps.  I have a very close, close-up pic of the liquid-cooling action.  Also, Von Gaylord DAC is seen.  I love the fact they have stuck with the same speaker for all these years, and the speakers sounded incredibly robust and musical in this setup, sounding like floorstanders.  That Uni amp really has some great potential IMO.

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Aperion speakers home theater demo.

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Dynaudio speakers with Origin "Leonardo" CDP and amps.  Holds some good promise.

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The top-of-the-line Usher speakers using Beryllium tweeter AND midrange sounded incredible.  Detail resolution to die for, and not a lean, mean tonality at all.  Price is also reasonable compared with other speaker companies using Beryllium drivers.  Right now, I can't think of any other speakers with Beryllium midrange, but I think there is another..  Anyway, these Usher Beryllium speakers and JAS Audio accuton speakers are just plain great finds and are "real deals" compared with their American/European counterparts.

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Usher CDP and preamp/amp also perform extremely well.  The preamp is supposed to be designed after Cello Pallette pre without EQ circuit, and the amp is supposed to take after old Threshold class-A designs.  The $800 Usher CDP sounded very good, if not quite as immediate and dense like Esoteric DV50S in side-by-side comparison, but there's like a 6x price differential here.

Edgarhorn room.  I really wanted to check out the Edgarhorn room with the new straight midhorn to see how much better it is compared to the older model, which I love.  As you can see, there were simply too many rooms, and by the time I got there, they were already packing up the room:)  Maybe next time.

Conclusion
There are some great, fantastic-sounding gear out there, and if you look hard enough at some non-traditional places, there can be some incredible sound at reasonable prices.  But as always, synergy and careful tuning-by-ear to please your personal tastes will determine how happy you will be.  Until next time...

[Jon L]

Another room I missed was the Lamm room, and some others simply because of the hectic pace, which was partly caused by my insisting to listen to my own reference cuts in each room.  My apologies to those rooms I inadvertently missed, and my sincere admiration to all the vendors and organizers.  Having seen the packing-up/cleanup ordeal, I must say it's NOT something 'I' could do on a regular basis!

[mcrespo71]

Jon,

Great report!  Thanks for sharing.

Michael

[Levi]

That's excellent John.

Thanks!

[cbj]

Thanks for taking the time to do the report Jon, much appreciated.

[SET Man]

Hey!

 Thaks for the show report Jon. Look like you've had a fun weekend.

   Hey! Is the The show coming to NYC next year?

Take care,
Buddy

[Hogg]

Jon,

    Very nice report.  Thanks for taking the time to post.  I do have one question, what is the speaker in the fourth picture?  It's near the Cain & Cain subwoofers.  It appears to be a three way with an aluminium-coned midrange.  Thanks again.

                                                             Jim

[randytsuch]

Hi Jon
I was there on Sat., but I did not take pictures. or keep other than mental notes (and my memory is not what it used to be).

I think one thing we agree on, is that for the price of many of the setups there, they should have sounded better.  I was somewhat surprised that setups that cost more than most people make in a year did not sound better than they did.  I am sure it is hard to get good sound in that type of setting, in many cases the speaker seemed to big for the room it was in, so that must have contributed to that.

I was surprised you liked the Gamut room, I thought that system was very bright.  But, I did not bring my own music, so I was just listening to whatever they had on.

Randy

[lonewolfny42]

Jon.....Thanks for taking the time to post the report....>>>and with my favorite<<<....pictures !!!!!

Nice job !!!!! [/list:u]
Chris[/list:u]