[Pez]

Opening this up. I wanted people to really hear as much as they could before posting here. If you are done with the show please feel free to add your comments!

Jason

[Pez]

Bump yo

[johnr733]

I regret that I have to start this off negatively, but this years show was by far the worst since I started attending these 5 years, (I missed last years however), ago.  This year was especially depressing as it was the first time Legacy and Naim attended the show.  My system has a Naim amp driving Legacy Focus loudspeakers.  Naturally I was excited to have the chance to hear the new Focus SE's, (which sounded mediocre at best), and the higher end Naim amps, which received my award of most pathetic sound at show.

Several other rooms were relatively mediocre, but it seeemed to me it was because they really didn't put the effort into setup like they did in the shows before this.  Best sound of show, Bel Canto Room.  Runner up - GR Research room. 

There's always next year.

[TheChairGuy]

Alright, I'll bite, Pez

Everyone keeping mind I got there at 4PM on Friday.....and left the show on Saturday around 5:15PM (and I didn't start until 10:30AM or so)

So, by no means did I hit enough rooms in total, but there were two standouts for me.  They just made my skin tingle with excitement and reminder of a re-enactment of a live event:

SoundSmith
3 words: Strain Gauge Cartridge.  The age old intractable and innate issues with phono cartridges have been mostly swept aside.  It doesn't rid anyone of the inherent issues of analog/vinyl itself....but, it mostly removes the albatross to higher fidelity that standard phono cartridges have been.

I have never heard cleaner, less jittery,fulsome and quiet recordings in my life.  It made my Longhorned/shibata Grado's sound tepid in comparison...and I have found my Grado's to lay waste to a lot pricier cartridges over time.

The strain gauge is the real deal - obliterating common obstructive elements of even the best and priciest moving coil, iron and magnet cartridges. Low moving mass - how 'bout no (as in ZERO) moving mass. Frequency response? DC to 70 Khz (you've never heard bass like this from vinyl and this spec is part of that reason)

To borrow a line from Anthony Cordesman (gushing) review of the SoundSmith Straing Gauge in March Stereophile:

you will discover a truly different approach
to LP sound—one that will reshape your perceptions about what
LP can and cannot do.

Starting at $5500 for dedicated phono preamp (it does not work with the one you already own) and cartridge it's certainly a chunk of money.  But, it was the largest advance in sound quality from the playback end that I have heard or are aware of.  Digital and DAC designers....you're not obsoleted as you will always have convenience on your side - but any thoughts of besting the best vinyl playback has been set back at least a decade with the strain gauge in the race

Yeah, I kinda' liked it


Purity Audio Design
Unfortunately, our own Bill Baker was out lighting up some cancer sticks while I was in his room....but, ciggies have sure not dulled this man's ingenuity and attention to great sound.

Holy smoke (pun intended ) did that room sound good.  'woodsyi' implored me to go there with my dwindling time at show and, man, am I glad he done did

It sounded sensational in there.  Using Lowthers with separate tweeter units and bass enhancement in the corners, powered with his Purity Audio electronics it sounded creamy smooth and one could have stayed in that room for days and not been sonically fatigued.  Delicious, just delicious it was.

Lest you think I was pre-disposed to liking Lowthers (or single drivers in general), I assure you I was not.  In fact, I was pretty much pre-disposed to hating them.  But, the moral of this as it relates to audio is never to hold beliefs so close as to not open yourself up to other possibilities.


Special Kudos
Value.  I love it when I hear it and when it's available from one manufacturer or importer...and I heard great things at affordable prices at Grant Fidelity (again - I heard them at a San Francisco audiofest a couple months ago), Audio by van Alstine and Odyssey Audio.  For $6000 and less, you could create quite a fine system from these guys



In General
My idea of audio enjoyment isn't jumping in and out of 100 rooms in the space of 9 or so hours.  Sometimes fighting thru crowds and finding seats and hearing unfamiliar music on $100,000 systems I would never consider buying (merely because of the expense; I'm not implying they aren't worth is; merely that my addiction would never merit a $100,000 expenditure on it).

Nope, enjoying music is something best enjoyed in a relaxed state or at least use music to reach a more relaxed state. Neither is available condition at RMAF.  It's something less than optimal for attendees and for exhibitors it's certainly less than ideal.

They are using shared power lines (sags, spurs, noise and all) to show their stuff.  The rooms on average are maybe ~15 x 22'...every SINGLE room I was in that had speakers with 10" and larger cones had integration issues.  The best rooms had speakers of different statures...but the best coned ones had small drivers (4" to perhaps 8").  I don't know enough about air propagation of larger drivers (and bass) to know exactly what was going on...but I kept hearing the same. 

The speakers with the small drivers tended to sound best in these small rooms...but that may not be the case in your home.

I did find that active equalization  of room anomolies did make some of the bigger speakers with larger drivers work better in the rooms they were in...but didn't quite pull off the issue entirely.  Sizing your listening space to the type of speaker you buy seems paramount to one's enjoyment of the goddamned, sick hobby

John

[Tyson]

My biggest surprise is what a lightweight chairguy turned out to be when we started drinking

[TheChairGuy]

My biggest surprise is what a lightweight chairguy turned out to be when we started drinking

Ha - now I'm doubting whether those mushrooms were really that good at Shanahan's or was it Chateau du Woodsyi thinking for me

Drinking at altitude is one freeky ride

Chairdude

[TomS]

No question for me, the TAD Reference Ones in the big Bel Canto room.  I wish they would follow me home, but alas I was just a poser ... 

The smaller TAD CR-1's with Lloyd Walker himself spinning vinyl on his TT were just as amazing and much more appropriate for the smaller demo room.  Clearly the same sonic cloth.

The Vandy 7's and Audio Research setup was not far behind, if at all.  I didn't get to hear my own material as the room was always packed, but they were heavenly, whether vinyl or CD's, with every genre of music.  Beautiful natural mid-range and vocals.  I kept trying to get up and leave but couldn't pull myself away.  Very impressive.

[Scott F.]

Purity Audio Design
Holy smoke (pun intended ) did that room sound good.  'woodsyi' implored me to go there with my dwindling time at show and, man, am I glad he done did

It sounded sensational in there.  Using Lowthers with separate tweeter units and bass enhancement in the corners, powered with his Purity Audio electronics it sounded creamy smooth and one could have stayed in that room for days and not been sonically fatigued.  Delicious, just delicious it was.

Lest you think I was pre-disposed to liking Lowthers (or single drivers in general), I assure you I was not.  In fact, I was pretty much pre-disposed to hating them.  But, the moral of this as it relates to audio is never to hold beliefs so close as to not open yourself up to other possibilities.

John

 

Although I have no idea which Lowther driver Bill was using, you now have a sense of why I'm so passionate about my Lowthers. If you had a chance to go to the Lowther America room (on 10 as I'm told), Jon's room sounds a bit more like my rig...though I use 300Bs and tubed preamplificaiton.

...and you're exactly right, sonically non-fatiguing yet loads of detail. Just a pleasure to listen to....but then again, I'm pretty biased 

Glad you had a chance to experience Lowthers done well 

[OzarkTom]

Best sound of show, Bel Canto Room.  Runner up - GR Research room. 

There's always next year.

Well, that says quite a lot about Danny and Gary's set-up. What, there is only about 8-10 times the price difference in those two systems?

[TheChairGuy]

Although I have no idea which Lowther driver Bill was using, you now have a sense of why I'm so passionate about my Lowthers. If you had a chance to go to the Lowther America room (on 10 as I'm told), Jon's room sounds a bit more like my rig...though I use 300Bs and tubed preamplificaiton.

...and you're exactly right, sonically non-fatiguing yet loads of detail. Just a pleasure to listen to....but then again, I'm pretty biased 

Glad you had a chance to experience Lowthers done well 

Nope - I was on floor 10 before I was on floor 4 or 5 where Purity Audio was....and, I probably skipped over the room that said Lowther America on it out of ignorance

Missed you too, Scott - damn

[studiotech]

I regret that I have to start this off negatively, but this years show was by far the worst since I started attending these 5 years, (I missed last years however), ago.  This year was especially depressing as it was the first time Legacy and Naim attended the show.  My system has a Naim amp driving Legacy Focus loudspeakers.  Naturally I was excited to have the chance to hear the new Focus SE's, (which sounded mediocre at best), and the higher end Naim amps, which received my award of most pathetic sound at show.

Several other rooms were relatively mediocre, but it seeemed to me it was because they really didn't put the effort into setup like they did in the shows before this.  Best sound of show, Bel Canto Room.  Runner up - GR Research room. 

There's always next year.

Well, Legacy WAS at the show last year and had some of the best sound there.  Both the Whisper and the Helix models.

Greg

[groovybassist]

This is my first RMAF (and first show of any kind for that matter) and I'm with johnr733 here - most of the rooms did not sound very good to me - too much thudding bass and too forward in the upper mids/low treble.  I felt like I was getting shouted at most of the time.  Decent sounding rooms in my opinion (in no particular order):

Dynaudio C4
Joseph Audio Pulsar
JBL Synthesis
Revel Salon2
TAD Ref 1's (Bel Canto's room)
Zu's room (don't remember which model they had playing)
Von Schweikert VR33
Brodmann's room
Ayre's room
JM Reynaud (I think the Orfeo was playing?)
Vivid 1.5 (in TweekGeek's room)

There were a lot of very detailed speakers at the show, but the detail was being thrust at the listener in my opinion.  I'm not inclined to attend any shows in the future - a bit disappointing to me.

[vinyl_guy]

SoundSmith
3 words: Strain Gauge Cartridge.  The age old intractable and innate issues with phono cartridges have been mostly swept aside.  It doesn't rid anyone of the inherent issues of analog/vinyl itself....but, it mostly removes the albatross to higher fidelity that standard phono cartridges have been.

I have never heard cleaner, less jittery,fulsome and quiet recordings in my life.  It made my Longhorned/shibata Grado's sound tepid in comparison...and I have found my Grado's to lay waste to a lot pricier cartridges over time.

The strain gauge is the real deal - obliterating common obstructive elements of even the best and priciest moving coil, iron and magnet cartridges. Low moving mass - how 'bout no (as in ZERO) moving mass. Frequency response? DC to 70 Khz (you've never heard bass like this from vinyl and this spec is part of that reason)

To borrow a line from Anthony Cordesman (gushing) review of the SoundSmith Straing Gauge in March Stereophile:

Starting at $5500 for dedicated phono preamp (it does not work with the one you already own) and cartridge it's certainly a chunk of money.  But, it was the largest advance in sound quality from the playback end that I have heard or are aware of.  Digital and DAC designers....you're not obsoleted as you will always have convenience on your side - but any thoughts of besting the best vinyl playback has been set back at least a decade with the strain gauge in the race

Yeah, I kinda' liked it

John

John, You expressed my thoughts exactly and beautifully. I have never heard vinyl sound so good and I have a pretty good vinyl set up. The sound of the Strain guage was heavenly.

[drphoto]

Seems like early on there were a lot of favorable responses, people saying stuff like 'best show yet' (more or less) and now these reports that are less than favorable. What's up? Believe me, I'm not trying to sound snotty from 2K miles from the action. But were people originally encouraged then dissapointed after further review?

What about rooms specifically from 'our' guys like GR, Virtue, Odyssey, etc?

[groovybassist]

I didn't get to the Virtue room, but GR Research's and Odyssey's didn't float my boat.

[vinyl_guy]

I was not disappointed one bit. This was my 6th straight RMAF and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Were all the rooms great? Of course not, but that is no different than any of the previous shows. I heard several really good sounding rooms--some of the best I've heard over the past six years. I also heard some rooms with mediocre or worse sound. The most common deficiencies IMO were boomy bass, shrill highs or TOO LOUD. All in all I thought it was a great show. Marjorie and her cadre of CAS volunteers did a terriffic job.

In addition to the Soundsmith room, I enjoyed the Daedalus room, the ModWright room, First Sound, Bamberg Audio, Odyssey, Audio Research/Vandersteen, Purity Audio, Emperical audio/Salk/BPT and GR Research.

I enjoyed meeting many ACers and seeing others I have met before.

[Pez]

Seriously, what were you guys who think the show wasn't that good smoking, or not smoking? Best RMAF evah! and by quite a wide margin too. That's coming from a very jaded long term RMAFer.

[satfrat]

Seriously, what were you guys who think the show wasn't that good smoking, or not smoking? Best RMAF evah! and by quite a wide margin too. That's coming from a very jaded long term RMAFer.

That's what I would expect a "local yokel" to say. 
 
Yeah,,,, I'm just jeolous cuz i can't afford to go to one of them high falutin audio shows.    But I sure to enjoy all the pictures and insights! 
 
Cheers,
Robin

[johnr733]

Seriously, what were you guys who think the show wasn't that good smoking, or not smoking? Best RMAF evah! and by quite a wide margin too. That's coming from a very jaded long term RMAFer.

Sorry Pez, Guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one! 

I'm a little upset now that I missed the Sjorn Hi Fi room.  My son, who was with me, has their Guru speakers in his system.  Would have like to have heard that new speaker "the cute".

[Meicheng]

This being only my 2nd RMAF, thought I'd chime in.  I thought a lot of rooms sounded very good this year, as opposed to a very few last year. I did notice more rooms using computers/servers for music and even a few that had problems while I was there.  Although I kind of ran out of gas on Saturday, its great to meet a few new people in person.  So, a shout-out to Woodysi, John the MagnaCart/Chair Guy, as always Fritz and this time his girlfriend Jan (have a good vacation guys), Paul Ma who knows just about every audiophile in New York, Seth of Virtue, Jim Salk and Danny Ritchie.   Wonderful people one and all and one of the reasons I go to RMAF.  Martin.