Saturday (cont'd)So, Lou, Wayne, and I go out to a great local pizza joint called Pasquini's, great time was had all around. We come back and Jason convinces Lou to hook up his 5 watt "Truth and Corruption" SET amp to drive the Ulysses full range. We played it on low volume for about 15 minutes, and started to listen. Jaws hit the floor. By the time we were at 30 minutes, it was just stunning sound. This was VERY surprising to me, because Jason's amps had a bit of difficulty with both my V2's and our friend Mike's Gedlee speakers. Also, the Atmaspheres had done so poorly with the Ulysses earlier. But the Daedalus and the Truth/Corruption amp was a match made in heaven.
Next, we pulled the amp and headed down to the First Sound room. Oh man, it just got better and better! With the tubed preamp and awesome CD player and overall simpler system, it was very synergistic. Don't get me wrong, the Berning OTL amp it replaces is very fine, indeed. But the transformer based SET amp was just magical. We literally stayed up till 3am listening to track after track after track.
SundayPics today are of poor quality because they are from my iPhone. Even though it does good outdoor shots, it's pretty horrid indoors with low or mixed lighting. Apologies up front. But Jason was again falling down on the job
Dynaudio Sapphire and T&A Room - I kid you not, the name of the electronics in this room was Theory & Application (T&A). They were hybrid amps driving a really cool looking set of Dyn's. Pretty good overall, nothing stood out as bad, but overall not exceptional.
Sony Speakers and Pass Labs - Speakers from Sony? Yes indeed, and using absolutely first rate drivers from Scan Speak and excellent build quality in the cabinets. They were being played with some Muzak at low levels. Jason fell asleep. I thought they sounde pleasant and way better than anything I would have thought Sony would put out. But the volume and music selection made it impossible to get a real handle on them.
Tyler Audio - A really nice sounding room. Similar to the Dynaudio Sapphire's, but quite a bit better in overall sound, especially in the bass, which was very impressive to me. Also, this room had the most over the top remote control ever. It's actually not a remote, it's my Light Saber.
NAPA Acoustics - One of the coolest and most fun rooms all show! Look how absolutely TINY those speakers are! And they sounded good, very good!!! Driven by that tiny CD player and Tiny tube-hybrid integrated amp. $200 for the speakers and $400 for the CDP and $400 for the Integrated. Seriously, if you need an office or a bedroom type system, THIS is what you should be checking out.
Less Loss Audio - The only reason I went in this room is that someone on AC requested that we try to hit it. Boy am I glad I did. The speakers and amps sounded PHENOMENAL. I still give the Dynaudio C4 room my vote for best sound at show, but that's mainly cause I'm a tube guy. If I were and SS guy, this room simply kicked @ss. Massive transformers and power supply choke (in an SS amp!), cryo treated of course! This was easily the most tweaked out room I saw at the whole show. I'm not sure how much the tweaks contributed, but the end result was pretty dang stunning.
Purity Audio Room - this had the bad luck of coming right after the Less Loss room. Sure, it sounded good, but just was not at the same level. Maybe I'll try to hit it sooner in the show next year.
JM Reynaud Room - Not my favorite tweeter in the world, but JM actually manages to implement it very well. The overall presentation of the speaker is a bit light for my tastes, but it really gets the energy of a performance down well. And it was very coherent. So, maybe not something I'd choose for myself, but for someone with a preference for a more lit-up sound, these would be outstanding. Plus, you gotta love any room that is playing Shostakovich when you walk in!
Rogue Audio - Ah, I finally get to hear Rogue! I've read about them for so long and I just happened to see their sign as we were walking by. I went in expecting to love this room. Plus they were spinning vinyl, usually a very good sign. I dunno, it was quite underwhelming. Maybe I'd hit the wall at this point, but it just sounded like another "generically good" hifi presentation. I'll try to hit them sooner as well next year.
Gallo Acoustics - Talk about a 180, here was another room I'd always read about but never heard. And based on what I'd read, I expected to be underwhelmed. But in reality they were quite nice! Tonal balance was good (although Jason felt they were bright, but then again he was trying to take a nap), the image was very deep and well defined, and they had really good bass. They are a bit short, but then again, so was the designer
Analysis Plus Room - I don't think these (very cool looking) speakers were actually for sale or even still in production, and the room was focused on selling cables of course. I loved the way these speakers sounded, they were easily the most dynamic of anything I heard at the whole show. Maybe a tad bright, but just killer, killer dynamics.
Tannoy and Velodyne Room - The Tannoys seemed pretty nice. I say "seemed" because the Velodyne rep had the f'ing sub turned up so loud it was impossible to tell. Left this room in a hurry.
JBL and Mark Levinson Room - Jason doing his best Lonewolf
I wondered if this room would be as bad as I thought it might, with high efficiency horns and high powered SS amplification. It was. The speakers played VERY loud, but only had two gears - very soft and very loud, with no dynamic gradations at all.
Holistic Audio and Virtue Audio - Jason and I did not agree on this room. He thought the imaging was weird, while I actually enjoyed. it. Of course, I own open baffle speakers and he owns direct radiators, so we are probably simply expressing our biases here a bit.
Duevel and Thor Audio Room - Jason and I felt exactly the same way about this room as we felt about the previous Holistic Audio room.
Avatar Acoustics and Feickert Analog - This room is a good example of why you should bring your own source material. We listened to the dealers LP of James Taylor and it was way too sibilant. Then we put on a different LP and it was much better. I put in my CD in and it sounded very good. Maybe a tad on the analytical side, but still well balanced within that type of presenation. Dynamics were very good and bass was suprising in such a modestly sized speaker. Good stuff!
PostscriptI would have even more to report but everyone started packing it up at 4pm on Sunday (the show is supposed to go till 6pm). But, I suppose I can't blame them for wanting to get a jump start, plus it was SLOW all day Sunday (often Jason and I were the only people in a given room). There are FAR too many vendors at RMAF for anyone to hit them all, so this year we did not even try. Based on what we heard last year, we were able to avoid certain rooms and really focus on the more interesting/better rooms. I think that subjectively this made for a much more positive overall show vibe for us.
I'd also like to give some major kudos to the AC based manufacturers. While many rooms were sitting on their hands, the AC guys are clearly trying to push the boundaries in high end, ether from an absolute standpoint, or from a value standpoint (and often both!!). Meeting people like woodsyi, chairguy, Nuance, Vinly Lady, etc... was truly a highlight of the show for me. Being able to immediatly have a bond and rapport with people I'd never met in person before was a real joy and I hope to see you ALL at next year's show!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
