I think this thread perfectly encapsulates the subjective and personal nature of audio preferences. Some of the rooms that others named as top I did not care for at all, while the best sounding room to me has not been mentioned yet. I will caveat that I didn’t have time to visit every single room but did go to most of them.
--Best of Show--
My best of show by a LONG shot was the Kharma Exquisite Midi with Conrad Johnson Art 300 monos and GAT S2 Pre. This room had it all, power, dynamics, grace, refinement, nth degree of detail, naturalness, liquidity, cohesive and huge soundstage, and no matter what music was playing, you NEVER heard the speakers, it was just the performance in the front of the room. The craziest thing is they had trouble with their Aurender server so the source was just a 15 yr CambridgeAudio 740C CD player with dual Wolfson onboard DAC direct analogue out to the pre. This room was a surprise all the way through, never heard Kharma speakers, never thought CJ gear and Kimber cables could sound like this. I would take this room over the $1M von schweikert + VAC room. It is now my new reference point and absolutely mind boggling. Met a few industry insiders and they agreed as well.
--Good rooms--
The Von Schweikert obviously has fantastic sound, crystal clarity with beautiful imaging and scale. The clean sound provided so much insight into the music, not just information, but intention as well. My only criticism was that both through the Esoteric N01-XD dac and through the turntable, it lacked a bit of tonal body, not sure if it was the room or which part of the system causing that.
The Gobel room with the Wadax reference dac and server, CH precision L1 pre and the Parasound JC1+, this was a great sounding room, but can’t help but think it could have been in top contention had they used better amps.
The Joseph Audio Pearl 20/20 with all Emm Labs electronics. Great sounding room, really transparent and dynamic, however the speakers were toed in too much to give the wow effect, a bit bright after awhile, if the speakers were toed out more like how JA speakers are usually set up, would have been even better. The little JA Pulsars with the Bel Canto integrated amp in a small room upstairs was also a good sounding room, but not at this reference level.
The Genesis Maestro speaker was a great sounding room when it was playing from the $150K Genesis Turntable System source. When they switched to digital through the Emm labs DA2, the sound got a bit hard and bright but only on certain recordings. The brightness from the JA Pearl 20/20 room might have something to do with the Emm Labs gear as well, not sure.
-- Pleasantly surprised --
Volti Razz with Border Patrol P21X amp and Border Patrol DAC - Never heard Volti speakers before, but these are dynamic, coherent, engaging and effortless. Maybe not the last word in detail, but you just kept on wanting to listen. I owned the Border Patrol DAC before and thought they were too colored, but in this system it works. I would take this room as a fun second system, but would still switch out to something more neutral.
Spatial Audio X4 driven by LTA integrated amp and Holo May KTE DAC - This system sounded fantastic, refined and balanced top end, pressurized the room with clean, tight yet impactful bass, the room was pretty packed so didn’t get to sit in the sweet spot to gauge soundstage, but pretty impressed
Daedalus (small one upstairs), Lampizator Baltic dac, LTA Pre and Amp - These are really coherent speakers, fast and clean sound built on balanced bass foundation, impact with no overhang, sparkle without brightness, great tonal density and dynamics on piano strokes which is a hard thing to do. Criticism is that in that room, the soundstage was stuck between the speakers, didn’t play big, but really good sounding overall
AGD pre and monos with Oceanway speakerr - Really clear sound with polish, refinement and a touch of sweetness, confirmed all the praise AGD has been getting on the forums for great value in high performance. It was in a small room with speakers almost up against the wall, hard to gauge the full potential of the electronics for soundstage depth, criticism is that the sound sometimes had a touch of brightness to them, but suspect it was the speakers.
-- Disappointements --
JBL Everest, T+A electronics, VPI Turntable - Some people at the show told me how amazing this room sounded, huge soundstage and very un-horn like sound, and I walked in there expecting that and was sorely disappointed. I sat in the middle of the first row of seats (out of 2 rows), should have been the sweet spot. The two giant horns were pretty close to the listening position and toed all the way in directly to each year. Over 2 songs (Black Crow - Steely Dan and Hungarian Rhapsodies classical piece), the sound was entirely localized to each speaker, sounded very forward and brash, could not make myself to stay for a 3rd song. It's possible that front row was too close to the speakers, and people standing behind the 2nd row were getting the magic.
Borressen 05 Silver with Thrax R2R DAC and Thrax Hybrid Monos - it sounded harsh and bright, couldn’t keep me engaged in the room, I kept on wanting to leave
Audionote UK NE - SPE -HE speakers, Meishu integrated amp, - sounds very pleasant, natural and open with certain type of music, I can see why certain types of audio file loves this gear. But to me, it lacks transparency, scale and dynamic impact, all of which I hold as very important. When you put on a song like Thriller, it just sounded small, uncertain and outmatched
Cube audio speakers, Pass labs electronics, Lampizator DAC, Silversmith speaker cables - might have been a difficult room as the system was setup almost right in the middle of the space, but it sounded boxed in, and the sound utterly confined to the speakers, sounded like...radio. Granted this was on the first day, they might have dialed it in better later
All in all a great show, definitely raised my reference bar for certain things.
--Best of Show--
My best of show by a LONG shot was the Kharma Exquisite Midi with Conrad Johnson Art 300 monos and GAT S2 Pre. This room had it all, power, dynamics, grace, refinement, nth degree of detail, naturalness, liquidity, cohesive and huge soundstage, and no matter what music was playing, you NEVER heard the speakers, it was just the performance in the front of the room. The craziest thing is they had trouble with their Aurender server so the source was just a 15 yr CambridgeAudio 740C CD player with dual Wolfson onboard DAC direct analogue out to the pre. This room was a surprise all the way through, never heard Kharma speakers, never thought CJ gear and Kimber cables could sound like this. I would take this room over the $1M von schweikert + VAC room. It is now my new reference point and absolutely mind boggling. Met a few industry insiders and they agreed as well.
--Good rooms--
The Von Schweikert obviously has fantastic sound, crystal clarity with beautiful imaging and scale. The clean sound provided so much insight into the music, not just information, but intention as well. My only criticism was that both through the Esoteric N01-XD dac and through the turntable, it lacked a bit of tonal body, not sure if it was the room or which part of the system causing that.
The Gobel room with the Wadax reference dac and server, CH precision L1 pre and the Parasound JC1+, this was a great sounding room, but can’t help but think it could have been in top contention had they used better amps.
The Joseph Audio Pearl 20/20 with all Emm Labs electronics. Great sounding room, really transparent and dynamic, however the speakers were toed in too much to give the wow effect, a bit bright after awhile, if the speakers were toed out more like how JA speakers are usually set up, would have been even better. The little JA Pulsars with the Bel Canto integrated amp in a small room upstairs was also a good sounding room, but not at this reference level.
The Genesis Maestro speaker was a great sounding room when it was playing from the $150K Genesis Turntable System source. When they switched to digital through the Emm labs DA2, the sound got a bit hard and bright but only on certain recordings. The brightness from the JA Pearl 20/20 room might have something to do with the Emm Labs gear as well, not sure.
-- Pleasantly surprised --
Volti Razz with Border Patrol P21X amp and Border Patrol DAC - Never heard Volti speakers before, but these are dynamic, coherent, engaging and effortless. Maybe not the last word in detail, but you just kept on wanting to listen. I owned the Border Patrol DAC before and thought they were too colored, but in this system it works. I would take this room as a fun second system, but would still switch out to something more neutral.
Spatial Audio X4 driven by LTA integrated amp and Holo May KTE DAC - This system sounded fantastic, refined and balanced top end, pressurized the room with clean, tight yet impactful bass, the room was pretty packed so didn’t get to sit in the sweet spot to gauge soundstage, but pretty impressed
Daedalus (small one upstairs), Lampizator Baltic dac, LTA Pre and Amp - These are really coherent speakers, fast and clean sound built on balanced bass foundation, impact with no overhang, sparkle without brightness, great tonal density and dynamics on piano strokes which is a hard thing to do. Criticism is that in that room, the soundstage was stuck between the speakers, didn’t play big, but really good sounding overall
AGD pre and monos with Oceanway speakerr - Really clear sound with polish, refinement and a touch of sweetness, confirmed all the praise AGD has been getting on the forums for great value in high performance. It was in a small room with speakers almost up against the wall, hard to gauge the full potential of the electronics for soundstage depth, criticism is that the sound sometimes had a touch of brightness to them, but suspect it was the speakers.
-- Disappointements --
JBL Everest, T+A electronics, VPI Turntable - Some people at the show told me how amazing this room sounded, huge soundstage and very un-horn like sound, and I walked in there expecting that and was sorely disappointed. I sat in the middle of the first row of seats (out of 2 rows), should have been the sweet spot. The two giant horns were pretty close to the listening position and toed all the way in directly to each year. Over 2 songs (Black Crow - Steely Dan and Hungarian Rhapsodies classical piece), the sound was entirely localized to each speaker, sounded very forward and brash, could not make myself to stay for a 3rd song. It's possible that front row was too close to the speakers, and people standing behind the 2nd row were getting the magic.
Borressen 05 Silver with Thrax R2R DAC and Thrax Hybrid Monos - it sounded harsh and bright, couldn’t keep me engaged in the room, I kept on wanting to leave
Audionote UK NE - SPE -HE speakers, Meishu integrated amp, - sounds very pleasant, natural and open with certain type of music, I can see why certain types of audio file loves this gear. But to me, it lacks transparency, scale and dynamic impact, all of which I hold as very important. When you put on a song like Thriller, it just sounded small, uncertain and outmatched
Cube audio speakers, Pass labs electronics, Lampizator DAC, Silversmith speaker cables - might have been a difficult room as the system was setup almost right in the middle of the space, but it sounded boxed in, and the sound utterly confined to the speakers, sounded like...radio. Granted this was on the first day, they might have dialed it in better later
All in all a great show, definitely raised my reference bar for certain things.