[Pez]

Day 2

Ultrasone




Stopped into our first headphone room. Ultrasone setup was very understated, but sounded wonderful. I have issues personally with closed ear headphones because they make my ears sweaty, but they sounded great. I could definitely see the appeal. They looked very VERY well built.

{Tyson} I love headphones and the Ultrasones are some of the best available on the market.  I did a brief listen, and it confirmed what I've always felt, that they are some of the best sounding headphones around.

Odyssey



From about 100 feet away way down the hall I could hear Soundgarden ?Black hole sun? blasting somewhere in the distance. I?m a huge fan of Soundgarden! Tyson and I were on the way to the Odyssey room to see Klaus and I thought ?Boy I hope whoever is blasting that will turn it down so I can hear in the Odyssey room? Low and behold it WAS the Odyssey room. Klaus, lonewolfny, and cloudbaseracer were all in there headbanging at high SPL. Awesome sight to behold.

I get in the room and not a moment later 2 other vendors walk in saying at the top of their lungs ?CAN YOU TURN IT DOWN???? Klaus says ?I DON?T HAVE THE REMOTE HE DOES? pointing at lonewolf, who clearly had no intention of turning it anywhere but further up. I told the guy ?YOU?RE GOING TO HAVE TO TURN YOUR MUSIC UP LOUDER?

{Tyson} As a previous Odyssey Stratos Dual Mono amp and Symphonic Line preamp owner, I've got a pretty good handle on the Odyssey sound.  This year they took it up a few notches.  They have always had good tonal balance and power, but this year the soundstage and dynamics took a big leap forward.  The Kismet line is something else!  And, finally a room that isn't afraid to play it LOUD!  My Mahler Symphony 2 track sounded awesome here.  This was one of the top 5 rooms at RMAF, IMO.

We did an interview with Klaus that everyone should listen to:  http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=72350.0



Cloudbaseracer put on a wonderful track by Ben Harper called ?God fearing man? that really got the place bumping at slightly more reasonable SPL. It sounded very very nice. The new Kismet gear looks incredible! Especially the amps. I was and always am thoroughly impressed with the Odyssey line. This year definitely takes the cake. The Kismet was probably the nicest looking solid state amp that didn?t cost $50,000 and sounded like systems costing an order of magnitude more.



I don't know what is scarier, the unbelievable construction that went into the Kismet heat sinks or Klaus.



Symphony line stuff. As usual looked amazing.



Sighting!!!!





Win Analog


All I can say about this room is OH MY GAWD!!! Without a doubt the single sexiest amp/preamp at the entire show. These amps are SET capable of 100 watts per channel! That is coming from one ginormous tube of course. Simply the most astonishing piece of equipment at the entire show without peer. How did it sound? Well without sounding like a fan girl, it was the best soundstage/imaging I have heard in my life. Deep, wide, just breathtaking. And it can all be yours for $100,000 per channel plus the gorgeous preamp that uses 845 tubes normally reserved for a power amp. It was just orgasmic. Watch this company, they are doing great things, definitely my first stop when I win the powerball. WOW!

{Tyson}  Well, the speakers use focal drivers, which I hate.  I had low expectations when I sat down because of this.  But let me tell you, the soundstaging, imaging, and tonal balance was awesome.  Bass and dynamics were lacking, but that's probably due to the speaker being quite small.  But the things it did well were just stunningly great.







More to come!

[Pez]

Ok good to go enjoy! Much more to come!

[mgalusha]

Looks like Klaus is taking up air guitar with the piece. Gotta love the new hair. 

I don't know what is scarier, the unbelievable construction that went into the Kismet heat sinks or Klaus.

[Pez]

Post2

Fritz Speakers


One of my favorites. This room had great sound and the speakers were very well made. I think this size speaker works well for the size room they are in. A lot of manufacturers tried to put too much into too small of a space. This room just did it for me. Great stuff! Custom printed acoustic paneling.

{Tyson} This was another very good sounding room.  The speakers did nothing wrong, and did almost everything right.  Very balanced sound.  And for a reasonable amount of money, too.  I LOVE the acoustic paneling, I think I'll start working on my wife to see about getting some for our living room.




Another sighting!



Rithm



Interesting coaxial speaker design sits a mere 2 and a half feet tall, but throw a big image and soundstage. Also the gentleman running the room (Chris) was also selling recordings for MA recordings. Check out their site, great stuff! I picked up Llama a recording done in a church in Bacelona Spain. Absolutely stunning dynamics and very well done.

{Tyson}  Interesting room, the speakers sounded suprisingly full and much bigger that their physical size.  I think these guys would be an excellent choice for people wanting a "lifestyle" speaker like Bose or Bang & Olufson.  Small unobtrosive form factor, but big audiophile sound.








PMC/Bryston Smaller room



{Tyson}  I thought this room sounded pretty good.  I don't think the speakers are worth $10k, but didn't do much wrong and sounded a little bit bigger than they were.

PMC/Bryston Larger room



As usual PMC and Bryston setups are here. Both rooms sounded very nice, the big speakers were astounding! Huge sound from top to bottom, with room shaking bass. I really liked this system a lot. No wonder the guys on this site are so ravenous about this stuff.

{Tyson}  Now THIS is what I'm talking about!  These were the most impressively dynamic speakers at the entire show.  And not just loud to soft to loud transitions.  No, what was really amazing was listening to Mahler's 2nd Symphony and being able to hear large dynamic shifts occuring with the basses, cello's, and horns, while the violins very subtle, soft dynamic shifts on the other side of the soundstage.  I've never heard it's equal.  If the speakers would have been slightly less dry sounding I would have this room in my top 5.

Inards:



Tyson's hair being blown back.

more to come!

[AlexG]

Pez,

Nice coverage...it was great meeting you. 

Alex

[Pez]

Post 3

Nice to meet you as well Alex, if only briefly. Ok more stuff. phew! This is getting tough!

For whatever reason there were a lot of rooms I just popped in, shot and left. I will have feedback on the rooms that I stayed, but otherwise there will be no further info.

{Tyson}  I'll take some blame here - I generally hate the sound of metal drivers, so any room that had them I tended to want to "move on". 

Laufer Teknik



{Tyson}  Metal Drivers!

Joseph Audio


{Tyson}  More Metal drivers!!

Laufer Teknik again


{Tyson}  Even more!! Aaaaagghhhh

Marantz USA


I-fi
Now here was an interesting room! Tyson and I both had a chance to get up close and personal with the I-fi chair system. Tyson trying his hardest to look hardcore, so cute!

{Tyson}  Finally a room with speakers that don't use metal drivers!  Look how happy I am!



Me giving what appears to be a thumbs up or possibly I'm hitchhiking to the next room.


{Tyson}  Seriously though, this was a cool room, a great concept.  The chairs had bass drivers and butt shakers built in (or at least it felt like it), but you only got great sound with the chair fully reclined.  Otherwise you were just too close to the speakers.

Arte Forma/Omega speakers

Not the Omegas


Wouldn't you know, just our luck, the Omegas were not hooked up. Oh well They looked gorgeous!



The Omega Matchsticks



Orca/Raven room



Von Schweikert/Moscode



Starting to notice a pattern with these speakers. The room again was pretty crowded. We were able to hear them a little more in this setup and they sounded pretty good! Sweetspot was taken though.

{Tyson}Too bad, I was hoping this room might show me metal drivers done right.  But it was too busy and I got no time in the sweet spot.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Audio Design & Marketing



Now this one we did stop in. it was not to my liking unfortunately. I do think this one was probably one of those that could have used a larger room or at the very least some room treatment.

{Tyson}  I don't even remember going into this room with Jason.  It must have been one of those boom-tizzle sounds that I try to block out immediately.

More to come, Also I am going to do a separate section for the canjam room.

[lonewolfny42]

Pez...

From about 100 feet away way down the hall I could hear Soundgarden "Black hole sun" blasting somewhere in the distance. I'm a huge fan of Soundgarden! Tyson and I were on the way to the Odyssey room to see Klaus and I thought "Boy I hope whoever is blasting that will turn it down so I can hear in the Odyssey room".  Low and behold it WAS the Odyssey room.  Klaus, lonewolfny, and cloudbaseracer were all in there headbanging at high SPL. Awesome sight to behold. I get in the room and not a moment later 2 other vendors walk in saying at the top of their lungs "CAN YOU TURN IT DOWN????" Klaus says "I DON'T HAVE THE REMOTE HE DOES" pointing at lonewolf, who clearly had no intention of turning it anywhere but further up.  I told the guy "YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TURN YOUR MUSIC UP LOUDER"

.........I was doing my yearly "Lonewolf Rock and Roll Loudness Test"....and Klaus' room passed once again with flying colors !!! Good stuff..... 

All I can say about this room is OH MY GAWD!!! Without a doubt the single sexiest amp/preamp at the entire show. These amps are SET capable of 100 watts per channel! That is coming from one ginormous tube of course.  Simply the most astonishing piece of equipment at the entire show without peer. How did it sound? Well without sounding like a fan girl, it was the best soundstage/imaging I have heard in my life. Deep, wide, just breathtaking. And it can all be yours for $100,000 per channel plus the gorgeous preamp that uses 845 tubes normally reserved for a power amp.  It was just orgasmic. Watch this company, they are doing great things, definitely my first stop when I win the powerball.

Captain Humble and myself visited the Win Audio room as well....great looking equipment. We listened....
When I left...one of the reps came out and asked what I thought...so I told him the truth....great looking amps and preamp....but those speakers...they suck.

He looked puzzled...said "the guy that designed the equipment also designed the speakers"...

Let him stick to the electronics....get better speakers.


Nice job Jason...thanks...

[Pez]

Wow Lonewolf, I couldn't disagree more on the speakers. Yeah they didn't reach down to 20 hz, but I thought they threw an amazing soundstage. I suppose that is why they call this a subjective hobby though. No wonder I don't have a shot of you leaning against them.


Nordost


I thought this room had quite a good vibe to it. I liked the little ribbon/ceramic driver speakers. They really had a great transient snap to them without sounding bright. Of course hearing Pink Floyd the Wall pt 1 in it probably skewed my opinion a bit. Though for the cost no object realm this room was much more down to earth and not as flashy. Moon audio front end.

{Tyson}  The third (and last) of the Big Vendor rooms that I really liked (Hansen and PMC being the others).  Bass was pretty good out of these guys, but the vendor was trying to play them too loud for the space they were in.  No, the real magic of these babies was in the upper mids and highs - they had a wide open quality that reminds you of a cool, crisp morning without a cloud in the sky - you feel like you can see for miles and miles.  A window into the recording?  What window?  Speaking of recordings, I liked that the vendor played normal CD recordings to show off the system, and that they sounded spectacular.  The recording of Anne Sophie Mutter playing Sarasate was like listening to her live, front row.  Now if I just could mortgage my house...







Luxman room



Welcome to Venus earthling. We didn't spend much time here, but it was a very good looking space.




Grant Fidelity


Finally, after all those cost no object systems something reasonably priced! Talk about some great looking/sounding gear! The Grant fidelity room was just brimming with drool worthy equipment and tweaks. Ian and Rachel were very nice. Ian knows every aspect of every product they sell and Rachael... Well... Rachel is the boss. Again very pleasant and helpful as I'm sure many here already know. Very nice looking/sounding set up.

{Tyson}  Great people in this room, and all of the equipment was built like tanks!  Seriously, Krell and Levinson have nothing on these guys when it comes to build quality.  And beautiful to look at too.  Interestingly enough, they didn't have a big brawny sound, but rather a refined, musical presentation that was a balm to hear after so many boom-tizzle rooms. 

The Black Treasures looked gorgeous, but I restrained myself.  Unlike Jason, who got a bit of drool on his shirt while talking to Racel about them.

In the picture are GF A-534B SET 300B integrated tube amp in the back with the treasures. Talk about gorgeous! It's not as expensive as it looks at $2500. below is the Jungson JA99D 100 watt beast.



The Sheng Yo and Compact speakers fit and finish were superb. We listened to the Sheng Yos. Very smooth sounding for a compact monitor and darn good bass.



Sheng yo front end. Hard to describe the intimidating look of the two monoblocks under the tubed pre. also the Reference CD-1000 tube cd player



Also drool worthy on display were the treasure tubes. Now I did not get a chance to listen to the 300b amp they had on display in the grant room, but I heard 2 headphone setups using the 300bs and the EL34s and I can say they were the best sounding setups for headphones in the whole show easily.


Overall the Grant room had the biggest assortment of reasonably priced equipment. Great stuff there.

{Tyson}  And check out our interview with Rachel of Grant Fidelity Here:  http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=72350.0

[ltr317]

Wow Lonewolf, I couldn't disagree more on the speakers. Yeah they didn't reach down to 20 hz, but I thought they threw an amazing soundstage. I suppose that is why they call this a subjective hobby though.  No wonder I don't have a shot of you leaning against them. 

I agree with Chris (lonewolf) on the WIN speakers.  I and 3 other friends were in the room and the sound was absolutely awful.  We all walked out after a minute and everyone was shaking their heads negatively.  The two hired hands sitting outside at the table also asked for our opinions, and we all told them they sucked.  For 9k pr, those speakers would have been overpriced at $900.  They were tonally thin and had a veil like thick blankets.  I noticed the 2 magic eye indicator tubes used in the front of the expensive preamp and asked the designer if they were vintage or new production magic eyes.  He had no idea what I was saying.  I rephrased the question and substituted EM84 for magic eye tube, and it took him a minute before he caught on. 

Btw, you're doing a great job loading all those photos and adding descriptions.  I'm still recovering from the event and can barely function. 

Paul Mah

[Pez]

LOL Wow! It's like you guys heard an entirely different room than I did. I definitely have to disagree with you. Either way, there is no denying the setup looked amazing.

Pez

[ltr317]

LOL Wow! It's like you guys heard an entirely different room than I did. I definitely have to disagree with you. Either way, there is no denying the setup looked amazing.

Pez

Yes, the amps glowed nicely and the preamp's magic eye tubes did their little dance.  But at over $100k for the system, the stuff better sound a whole lot better. 

[lonewolfny42]

LOL Wow! It's like you guys heard an entirely different room than I did. I definitely have to disagree with you. Either way, there is no denying the setup looked amazing.

Pez

If you hit Lotto....and get the WIN electronics Jason....I'll loan you a better pair of speakers to really hear what they can offer.

The WIN Audio "stuff" did remind me of a past RMAF room....the Amber Wave Audio room....these were monster mono block amps....Weight 200 lbs./side....



http://www.amberwaveaudio.com/

[BPT]

What were the speakers used in the Nordost room--thought they were quite good?
Chris H.

[mcgsxr]

Really impressed with a couple of things.

1 - the attendance in terms of manufacturers at this event - I HAVE to get to this one year!
2 - the quality of the pics - I have tried to take pics of systems before, and never get results this good!
3 - the VOLUME of the pics - you are an audio-paparazzi!
4 - how in the heck do you keep track of all this - do you carry a notebook and take notes down so you can comment on the pics?
5 - keep it coming, those of us that cannot attend are loving it!

[Lyndon]

Pez,
Thanks so much for the photos and the commentary!
Have to agree with your comment about closed ear 'cans.  My perfectly good Sennheiser 650's sit gathering dust
while I would rather listen to any of my speakers.
Did you try those $2K in ear buds? The J-pro's?
Lyndon

[jayt]

Pez,
Thanks so much for the photos and the commentary!
Have to agree with your comment about closed ear 'cans.  My perfectly good Sennheiser 650's sit gathering dust
while I would rather listen to any of my speakers.
Did you try those $2K in ear buds? The J-pro's?
Lyndon

JH13pro is $1099, and it is Jerry's top of the line product.

[garyalex]

What were the speakers used in the Nordost room--thought they were quite good?
Chris H.

I'm pretty sure that the speakers in the Nordost room were Raidho Ayra C-1.0.  I remember that room for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that's where I was when the power went down.

[Pez]

What were the speakers used in the Nordost room--thought they were quite good?
Chris H.

Chris I couldn't agree more. I was told about who made them, but in the monstrous process of covering the show I have misfiled that info in my brain. If you find out please let me know.

Really impressed with a couple of things.

1 - the attendance in terms of manufacturers at this event - I HAVE to get to this one year!
2 - the quality of the pics - I have tried to take pics of systems before, and never get results this good!
3 - the VOLUME of the pics - you are an audio-paparazzi!
4 - how in the heck do you keep track of all this - do you carry a notebook and take notes down so you can comment on the pics?
5 - keep it coming, those of us that cannot attend are loving it!

1. The show is definitely a must. Think of it is Audiophile/music lovers mecca.
2. I have a very nice Nikon D300 with 18-200 mm super lens. It is capable of wideangle and tight shots with little effort. I love it!
3. 8 gigabyte CF card baby! Even compressed the amount of pics I took was graeter than 1.4 Gigabytes worth of data.
4. Honestly it is pretty easy to remember a lot of this stuff. No notebook, but when I see the pictures my brain says "Oh yeah, That rooms sounded like this or that"
5. There is WAY MORE to come!!!!! Also we have posted audio interviews.

Pez,
Thanks so much for the photos and the commentary!
Have to agree with your comment about closed ear 'cans.  My perfectly good Sennheiser 650's sit gathering dust
while I would rather listen to any of my speakers.
Did you try those $2K in ear buds? The J-pro's?
Lyndon

Lyndon, The Booth Babes wouldn't let me leave without trying them. Unfortunately I was under staffed that day so no pics. I tried the expensive set of JH's and while they sound great, I'm not a fan of in ear headphones, though I get why people are.

And Thank you garylaex for remembering the speakers!

Keep em coming guys, love the questions. Also expect the rest of day 2 and hopefully all of day 3!

[Pez]

Jaton Corp

stop and shot





Audio Note

Ok let me be blunt in previous years audionote room really did something for me. It was warm, tonally balanced and such a wonderful soundstage. This year it was really nothing to write home about. Their front end looks magnificent and is priced relatively within reason, but the speakers they had this year really left a bad taste in my mouth. They were bloomy, the treble was marred with a papery sound, and if there was a soundstage I couldn't find it.



Soundstring Cable Room

Easily one of my top ten rooms. It was surprising for a few reasons. The first being Tyson and I were going to just stop in, takes some photos and run. But when we got in the sound was awesome. We ended up spending about 15-20 minutes listening to track after track. The room consisted of Soundstring cabling, Bamberg Audio speakers, and Modwright amps.  It was one of the best put together rooms in the entire show. Really an excellent setup!

Great looking setup and candy!!!



Gorgeous Modwright equipment! That modded Sony is to die for.


Great looking cables!


Name I can't remember, someone please help!

This one was unfortunately a stop and shoot as well. The room was completely full, standing room only and WAY too much gear to get an appreciable idea of what was going on.

One of my favorite companies/people Chris Brady from Teres had his latest/greatest in this booth.




Teres new tonearm wired by Wayne from Bolder cables


more to come. Babies crying!!!

[Pez]

Now fortified with Vitamin T.