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California Audio Show 2012

It was just serendipity that we happened to be on a family visit to Northern California the same weekend as the start of the 2012 California Audio Show in
Burlingame, California. I literally had only about 90 minutes to poke around today on the opening day of the show, so take my impressions with a very large grain of salt... but I wanted to get a thread started for others who may have their own impressions to post.

Sweetest sound in my whirlwind tour of the show was in the Audio Note UK room. Amplification was some $20K+ 8 watt tube amp. Speakers were large stand mounts... didn't get the model number. Sound was extraordinarily musical... mesmerizing, really, so much so that I had to get back to that room one more time for a second listen before I had to leave. The AN rep was playing some "audiophile" discs I'd never heard before. Would've loved to have heard some familiar tunes on that setup. But wow, that system was very sweet, indeed.

YG Acoustics room.... sounded rather "hi-fi" to me, but again, I spent very little time there.

Magico rooms -- the big Magico's sounded terrific playing orchestral music. The small monitors $27K, yikes!) sounded good too, if a little tipped up in the high end.

Biggest disappointment in my brief time there was the room playing the new Gallo CL-4's. They sounded congested and muffled. I have to believe there was a set up problem of some sort... a company of Gallo's reputation wouldn't unleash anything sounding that mediocre!

Anybody else get to the show with impressions to share?
rebbi
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Thanks for mentioning those little monitors by Franco Serblin. I liked them, too, very holographic. They were, what, something like $20K?

Wanted to hear the Tannoy's in the Blue Room but couldn't find them... drat!
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drubin
3,274 posts
 
The Gallos sounded much better on Saturday. I also spent more time with the Dynaudio Focus 340's and Margules yesterday. Excellent. And as Audioquest was part of that room, the digital source was a Macbook Pro with the Dragonfly USB DAC (which looks like and is deployed like a USB thumb drive). Very impressive.

Agree about the Tone of Music room -- lovely sound. And that Simon Yorke TT is a work of art. There sure are a lot of small monitors these days at you-could-buy-a-nice-car-for-this prices.

Another shout out for the Voce Audio speakers on the third floor. The way they are put together is very interesting and sonically they ticked a great many boxes for me.

I thought the show was great overall and I hope it was a success for the exhibitors and Constantine. Small, but plenty of good and interesting rooms. And because it wasn't too large or crowded, I felt very comfortable spending a decent amount time in rooms that interested me, or going back a second time. Had a lot of good conversations with exhibitors. I made two extended visits to the Zu Audio room, which, as always, had the most interesting music. Sean Casey is The Man as far as I'm concerned.
magnumpi205
504 posts
 
Tone of Music had the best sound at the show but it was a snoozer overall.
toneofmusicaudio
11 posts
 
Thank you Mortsnets and Drubin for you kind words about sound of the Tone of Music Audio room with the Franco Serblin Accordos, they are $13K.

by the way, Franco also makes a larger model named the Ktema which I also have on demo and plan to show at next CAS,

thank you again for taking time to check out my system.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,222 posts
 
I find myself growing extremely skeptical of megabuck small monitor speakers. Once cost goes beyond that of say a Totem Mani or Dynaudio C1, is there really anything more accomplished to justify other than uber-build quality and aesthetic appeal perhaps? I have heard a number of these designs and seriously wonder.
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