RMAF 2012 Postmortem


Doesn't seem to be an RMAF 2012 thread yet.

Wondering what people thought, so I'll make a start.

Best in Show:

The big Ventures. Hard to describe how good these speakers sounded without being sappy. IMHO, embarrassing to other "statement" speakers at the show, like the big TAD and Lansche.

I was mostly interested in high efficiency speakers. Especially good were:

Zu Defintion IV
Devore Gibbon 93 and 96
Sonist C4

The Sonists, playing in the Snake River system, sounded especially good considering their (comparatively) reasonable price.

A few other noteworthy speakers were

Vapor's new 3 way

Vivid's space alien rendition of a mini-tower in the Tweak geek room

The Evolution mini-monitor was the best (reasonably) accessible speaker I heard, at 2500. Very good.

Opinions based on information overload, over a day and a half of listening.

Any other impressions?

John
jdoris
Dpe:

Yes, I meant the Orangutans, not the Gibbons. I expect the 96s were better than the 93s, but at a cost uptick from 8 to 12k, and I thought the 93s had *a lot* of what I liked in the 96s, particularly a certain sweetness of sound. My hunch is that for me, the 93 would be the way to go.

I agree completely that John D. is an unusually nice man, and a lot of fun to talk to. I'd expect Devore to be a great company to deal with.

John
I have attended every year since the inception of RMAF and I found this year to be a little disappointing in some of the manfacturers that weren't there. However, I did enjoy seeing/hearing some products that I had not seen before. Adam-Audio stands out in my mind as a speaker that is fairly affordable and quite good in sound. Also getting to hear the new Totems was a good opportunity, I did find that some rooms were playing the same equipment and music they have for the past few years and it makes me wonder why they don't show something new. I wanted to hear the New Magicos and if they were there I didn't find them. Also it seemed that the TurnTable count was down this year. I always like to see what each manufacture has developed in vinyl playback but I would say about half as many were repesented. I would say attendance was down from past yeasr and according to one dealer I spoke with yesterday, many vendors were packing up early Sunday as they realized the show was over. Regardless of how the show came off I hope that it returns next year as I know I will attend. It is is a wonderful opportunity to see equipment not sold in the area and meet some people that share this passion. I just really hope I win the PowerBall before next years show, so that I can really enjoy it!
were there any panel speakers at the show ?

was there any interesting hirez software ?

was there any great sounding digital hardware ??

obviously i did not attend the whow.
Mrtennis:Sanders and Magnepan. I was very very impressed with the Sanders. Really have intergrated the sub well and the bass came thru extremely well. I didn't hear the Maggies but one thing I noticed is how many speakers are using the planar or Air Motion transformers. And sounding quite well. As far as your other questions, I can't say as I have not been bit by the digital bug beyond SACD yet.
Hi Jdoris, Focusing on efficient speakers, did you get a chance to hear the Vaughn Cabernet lls. I couldn’t make the show and would welcome any comments and comparisons on these speakers.
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