What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?

Tom,

Thanks for your explanation.

Best of luck to you in your pursuit of listening pleasure, wherever it takes you.

Jeff

I was surprised how much I didn't like the Shelter Harmony. I've always thought that if one came up on Audiogon for half price I would jump on it. Glad now that it didn't come up.
On the other hand, I got to hear the new Shelter 901 mkII. The original 901 is my go-to right now, and wow! What nice improvements! Something I can afford is something I want. Go figure...
The Ascendo System F's, as usual, sounded magnificent. I'd never heard the Lotus Group's Granadas before. Open-baffled masterpieces, IMHO.
You Bel Canto guys didn't mention the CD player. I was pretty impressed with that little thing.
Jeff, your improvements to the Pearl are wonderful (I'm the guy who asked about upgrading the originals).
A couple of my favorite rooms were the Tri and Wavelength rooms. I also loved listening in the TW Acustic (sic) room. I tend to want to not be impressed at first. I want a system that I have to drag myself away from after hours of listening. I had to drag myself away from these rooms; whereas in a lot of other rooms that I was bowled over by (the sound) when I first walked in, I found myself saying to my audio cohort "OK, what's next?" after ten minutes.
The Wavelength room didn't have a component (not to mention cable!) that was $10,000.00, and yet it was one of the best listens I had. I made it a point to go back on Sunday and enjoy the feed from that great server system one last time. Still, that's maybe my biggest complaint about the show. The servers bar me from injecting my reference tracks into the process of evaluating the different systems/components. The thing that I like about these shows is that I get to hear what Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark" sounds like in dozens of guys' (and gals'... Won't under appreciate you, Kara!) systems. Basically, I get to hear what different folks feel a hundred K should sound like.
Without reference tracks, I feel that's lost.

Was there a "best of show" at different price points?

Also I started a separate thread for posting "exceptional"
demo tracks. I heard some VERY powerful Orchestral tracks
that I would love to buy on CD if only I knew the composer
or Album name..

Hi Azaud,

Thanks for your comments and asking about the upgrades. We'll be offering an upgrade to the original Pearl, save for the cosmetic changes (no visible screws on the side panels)

The speakers would need to come back to the factory for the upgrades and we haven't worked out the details just yet.

Jeff

My vote for #1 is a tie between MBL room. Much smaller display that past years and they picked a great ensemble to present. Balance of the tie was the Audio Research Ref 5 with the Wilson Sashas. Third I would say the Naim and Wilson Duettes produced remarkable sound. Worst first off I think the Legacy Audio was disapointing for the price range. The honerable mention was the chairs from I-Fi. Those were just too cool and would solve so many problems for a small apt. or condo.