[nature boy]

+1

+2 many thanks Jason and Tyson.  You guys are super!

NB

[rbbert]

Did you ever get to the Positive Feedback mag "hospitality suite"?  They had the Sonicweld system there; unbelievable, even playing 16/44.1 files from a Macbook.  Even in a small room, within a minute of listening the speakers had disappeared.  Probably best in show.

[WGH]

This year I decided to do something a little different. Pez and Tyson are doing a terrific job documenting the show, so I am just photographing the rooms with the best sound. I have a couple of requirements: a nice low end and clear non-pearcing highs. You won't find many monitors in my list or single driver speakers no matter how well they image, just not my thing.

I was at RMAF for only 2 days so if your favorite speaker was at the show and not on my list then maybe I didn't make it to the room or the sound sucked one way or another. I won't be making too many comments since I didn't take any notes, I'll have a new rating system next year.

So on with the show...




GamuT M7 speakers with GamuT electronics










Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOne  $2000/pr




The Beat turntable room, I believe the Wilson speakers are the exhibitor's personal pair.




Fritz Speakers always has a fine sounding room and he throws a mean happy hour party on Friday night.










The Roland room sounded good with Thiel CS3.7 speakers.




The Clue monitors had a huge soundstage with room filling bass.

[WGH]

There were quite a few reel-to-reel machines around this year.




Vandersteen Model 7, consistently one of the rooms with the best sound of the show.




The Magico Q1, this is the first time a Magico speaker actually sounded good at a show.




Acoustic Zen Crescendo




The new Vandersteen Treo




Theil SCS4T




The brand new Odyddey Kismet speakers have a big bold sound, these use the best drivers available.



New Odyssey Kismet electronics.







Prana Fidelity




Friday night out on the town.

[WGH]

The new Von Schweikert VR44 was sounding excellent on Saturday.




Chapman and Cary shared a room, the speakers have a very refined sound but at $8995 they have a lot of competition. Search them out for a listen if you can.




April Music




Linkwitz Orion had a nice spacious sound with a deep base foundation.




I surprised myself by liking the sound of the Dali Fazon




Hanson Knight




Part of the excellent sound was due to a $9000 cartridge in this table. lonewolf might remember the room and cartridge info.










Nice sound from the very efficient Coincident Pure Reference Extreme (T).

[WGH]

The Von Schweikert VR5 Anniversary has the potential to make great sound but due to either a poor recording or mis-matched electronics (Jolida) the highs were a little sharp.




The Nola room always have some of the show's best sound, this year they brought the Baby Grand Reference.




I spent a lot of time in the GR Research room, great music, fun people, battery power, and bass response that went down to 18 Hz, too much fun.




The TAD CR1, easily the best sound of the show, even beating out the big Tad's.




The big TAD Reference One had excellent sound too but you got to have the space, not bass shy at all but in order to get best of show in that big room they would need to add two subs.




Vivid had amazingly good bass though a little loose in this room.




The big Focal speakers.




I'm glad I found the Kimber room, the most amazing clear surround sound I have ever heard.




Analysis speaker has a narrow sweet spot but the sound is quite interesting in a good way.




The Acapella was making beautiful music, they use a plasma tweeter and you can see it glowing inside the small horn.




Legacy always has a big bold dynamic sound, if you like your symphonic music played at life like levels and drums that sound real get these speakers.




Salk Soundscapes always sound good with Van Alstine electronics, this year Frank was showing his new Fet Valve series.




The Salk Songtower is one of the best small tower loudspeaker made anywhere.


That's it, my picks for the best of RMAF 2011.

Wayne

[jimdgoulding]

Those Sonus Faber's in the Peachtree room on page 1 sure are purty.  Wouldn't mind a pair around here, assuming I liked their sound.

[S Clark]

Those Sonus Faber's in the Peachtree room on page 1 sure are purty.  Wouldn't mind a pair around here, assuming I liked their sound.

Well, I just drove back from Denver a couple of hours ago, and I can tell you for sure that you would have liked them. So, just make out that check for $23,000 .... or was that $32,000. Regardless, the coolest thing in the Peachtree room was a little pair of bookshelf speakers in about a .4 cu ft box that absolutely were amazing. I thought they were far more impressive than the big Sonus Fabers (which, although very good, were so much like the ubiquitous hoard of large expensive speakers at the RMAF).  Tomorrow after a day to recoup, I'll post my notes.
Scott

[taoggniklat]

But without a doubt, my favorite room of this year was the TAD room. I ended up spending most of Sunday in this room just enjoying the music, which to me is what this is all about. When I can "forget" about analyzing the system and just enjoy the experience, that is a "winning" system to me.

I ended up spending about 2 hours in this room on Sunday till the close of the show. He played samples of all types of music and all of them sounded great. For the finale track of the show he played one that I don't know the name, but it had gunshots in it and it was nothing short of stunning. Well done TAD.

http://youtu.be/ZXMP4cKaVtM


Thanks again Jason and Tyson for letting me hang out with you guys.

[blutto]

...great work everybody...thank you so very much for an absolutely awesome report....

Cheers

blutto

[standub]

1. I need an Ipad to do show coverage, i'm really bad at typing up what I think after I leave the room.
2. Flash drive from now on.  It seems like this was the cross over year and most every one has gone to computer only as a source.

*I'm going to do this write up in parts since I never seem to get a big block of free time in my day to day life.

Ok my favorite rooms first (in alphabetical order). (this also maybe biased but they all are AC people and their systems aren't in the realm of "hey my car cost less than these speakers/amp/cables")

1. Odyssey - My favorite whole system at the show, other than restrictions because of room size I could find nothing wrong with this set up.  This set up sounded as good as any of the expensive rooms with maybe the exception of the low low end.  I'm welling to bet in a blind set up with the Kismet integrated and the Kismet Reference Monitors (Scan-speak beryllium and revelator) vs. say a Plinus integrated and Magico bookshelves, one would be hard press to tell the difference.  So just buy this set and tell your audiophile friends you spend 5x what  you really did and they will eat it up.

2. Soundfield - Not only great speakers but AJ also has great taste in music. I would say these bookshelves had the best bass of any of the small rooms.  AJ was able to totally dial it in with the build in subs, something a lot of the bigger speakers couldn't do at the show.  Unless you have a huge listening room or a family room open to the second floor, these babies will give you room filling full range sound.

*On a side not I think Klaus and AJ were in a competition to see who can build the largest bookshelves possible, I mean these were big speakers for bookshelves.  But then again bass has to follow some physical laws.

3. Vapor Audio -  While not an official room, Ryan was able to get into the BPT room after hours.  Am I glad I went, these where my favorite speakers of the show.  WOW is about all I can say not sure how he got these to sound like they do, I would have guess these where floor standers if I had seen them.  Yeah these are awesome, if you have a change to hear them do yourself the favor and do it.

More postings to come later.

[jimdgoulding]

Wow!  Nice feedback on speakers that are reasonble for the majority of listeners and our rooms.  Thanls

[twitch54]

Flash drive from now on.  It seems like this was the cross over year and most every one has gone to computer only as a source.

Interesting.................I saw lots of great analog front ends.

[taoggniklat]

Magico





Sibilieus sounds great technically speaking. Same with difranco. I find that I have yet to emotionally connect to the sound I'm hearing. It's doing everything well, but hmmm.

Mahler a bit of compression dynamically. But not too much after all they are bookshelf speakers.

Ya bass is a touch reticent on these, the just not very enthusiastic on dynamic passages. The guy running the room actually turned down the sound during the tool track.

TBH this room was quite boring to me. Lifeless sound. Next.

[taoggniklat]

Orpheus, bogdan audio, densen







The little ones are playing I am in the corner again. Wait for Tyson's coverage for this one sorry dudes.

These were interesting. When we came in it was the little guys on the outside (next to the wall) that were playing. It had a very nice full sound which too me, was surprising considering the size and placement. I did ask the gentleman running the system if they were meant to be loaded on the wall like that due to their construction and he said "no they work anywhere in the room". Shrug.

When I did get tot he sweet spot, it was very hard to actually find the sweet spot. The image was lost. In fact due to the shortness of the speaker I felt like I had to duck down to get the best sound. I think these speakers might work, they just need some help in room treatments and placement and the imaging might get ironed out.

[taoggniklat]

Nola







The Nola's are a very lively sounding speaker especially with the open design. I don't care for this kind of sound typically and this experience is no exception. Yet another open box speaker company that failed to treat the room and no I don't count ferns as room treatment. The sound is big and bold and that I like, but there is no soundstage or imaging to speak of. They just smear all that information by splattering it agains the glass windows. Sorry, but big fail IMO.

Totally agree with this. I really want to like this room, these have the potential to be amazing, yet just like last year (same exact setup), it failed to deliver. Its almost as if they are saying "well we are Nola so therefore its the best and we dont need to do it better".

Listen up NOLA, change your setup...its selling your speaker short.

[dminches]

Interesting.................I saw lots of great analog front ends.

Agreed. Lots of turntables and reel to reel!  However, not many brought their own vinyl and I doubt anyone brought their own reels.

Next year I  will bring both a thumb drive and a CD.

[rollo]

  Again thanks for the photos. I'm very surprised the Analysis room did not get more  comments. Same for Soundfield speakers room.


charles
SMA

[TONEPUB]

Hey, WGH:

Glad to see you liked the ARC room so much. I'm biased being a REF owner, but I enjoyed it tremendously, especially when they were spinning vinyl with the Spiral Groove and Olympos cartridge...

I wish all the rooms at RMAF could have been that size - all the mfrs could have shown off what they do a lot better!

All in all a great show.

[lonewolfny42]

Room  550 ....Kaiser GmbH Kawero! speakers with Concert Fidelity electronics....sounded very good this year.

If it wasn't for their price tag....List $66,000.00  ..... I'd like a pair of the Kawero's....






http://www.soundstageglobal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=187&catid=75&Itemid=231