What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?

Cost No Object:

Ypsilon Electronics/Bergman Table/Tidal Speakers

Upper-Mid Price:

Bel Canto Electronics/Joseph Audio Pearls

Luxman Electronics/Synergistic Cable/Vivid Speakers

Kimber/EMM Labs/TAD

Moderate Price:

Dehavilin/Wilson Benesch

AMR Electronics/Feikert Woodpecker Table/Rethm Speakers

Hegen Electronics/Dali

There were few other good rooms. These simply stood out to me. By in large, IMHO, the sound was very poor this year. A great many systems were poorly setup.

I echo TVAD's assessment of the fabulous Bel Canto room. . . incredibly engaging and refined.

My absolute preference in the hotel, regardless of price goes to the GamuT room with their big mono amps and the large GamuT towers. Performance of the Bach organ Toccata Adagio and Fugue in C minor was visceral, 3 dymensional, emotionally engrossing, and superbly listenable without a hint of fatigue.

If I include suites outside the hotel, my preference would go to the large showroom at Soundings Hifi across the parking lot: Boulder CDp, Boulder 2010 pre, Rowland 312 stereo amp, Vienna Die Muzick speakers. Similar to the Gamut room for staging, imaging, authority, extension, fantastic ease of listening. . . exceeding GamuT for low level detail and harmonic resolution. speakers in both rooms were set up by true masters of the craft. . . the designer of the GamuT speakers and Rod Tomson at Soundings. . . both Masters of the craft.

I was also delighted by the Belles/Usher/JPS room. . . what a graceful and revealing amp Belles makes. . . definitely the kind of amp I'd be proud to own and the Usher speakers are delicious. . . . but everything would not have worked if the wiring had been any less synergistic than the JPS wires.

I really wanted to hear the new Chapter electronics based on a very advanced class D design but they were not connected.

Cullen/Wired4Sound was quite delightful in the $2K price range fine imaging and speed and particularly fine treble resolution. W4S is working on a reference level amp that will include a user selectable tube/SS input section. . . very promising and I am very much looking forward to hearing it.

Perhaps the most Uber-Bestest room of them all was. . . the bar in the evenings. . . mixing with fellow audiophools is the most fun experience of the show!

Saluti e buone cose,

Guido

PS. The very worst rooms were very very very bad and are left. . . anonymous.

IMO GamuT had serious problems with muddy mid-bass. I don't get the buzz about Classic horns(w/Galibier and in several other rooms.)

Cost-no-object best of show was close between Janszen(w/Bryston & Wadia), Dynaudio Consequence(w/Octave & Wadia), The Lotus Group's Granada (Feastrex hybrid), Tidal(w/Bergman & Ypsilon). I heard several other Feastrexes and Lowthers-- none which came close to Granada. I wanted to like YG Anat(w/Solution Audio), but the demo was too quiet for critical evaluation.

In compact floorstanders I was impressed by how well the US/Canadian cottage industry is doing in the $5-$15K range-- some are direct-to-consumer with exceptional performance & value. Stand-outs were Merlin, Daedalus, Sonist, Vaughn, Bamberg, Silverline, Sentient, Eficion, and in small monitors, Green Mountain, Joseph(w/Bel Canto), Ref 3A(w/Naim), and Omega.

I like battery power. The stand-out in this regard was Veloce electronics with Gemme Katana ceramic speakers-- in an altogether different league(and price) from Dodd. Veloce also has the only hybrid Class D amp I can't find fault with.

Just getting familiar with the Hansen sound. The best match was Prince 2 with very expensive Silicon Arts Design electronics.

I heard only one truly awful room at the show and am not telling tales. However, the designer in that room introduced himself by saying that he makes "the best amplifier in the world."