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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
calgarian5355
146 posts
 
This was my first year at RMAF and I'll be back for sure. I had a GREAT time...getting to listen to dream systems that I wouldn't be able to audition anywhere.

My favorites were as follows:
-The MBL 101's ...stunning sound! I visited this room 3 times!
-The Vandersteen Model 7 with Audio Research
-The Vivid Audio Speakers in the Tweak Geek room paired up with Luxman equipment.
-Joseph Audio Room
-Roger Sanders Electrostatic Speakers
-Estelon Room
-Gershman Black Swan

I know I'm missing many other rooms that I enjoyed as well....but that's my quick and dirty run down!
jdoris OP
972 posts
 
Mrtennis: Like others, I found the Sanders impressive. The MSRP seemed pretty reasonable, as these things go, at 10k -- although I note that's a lot more than the Maggie 3.7. Unsurprisingly, the Sanders are big: not super wide, but maybe 7' tall.

Phaelon: did not hear the Vaughns. Probably should have. Lots to hear, though.

John

stickman451
553 posts
 
I thought that the big Ventures were the best sounding rig that I have heard in my last 5 trips to the RMAF. It's too bad that they retail for $139,000; none of us will ever own a pair...Saturday evening at 8pm they switched-out the FM Acoustics SS amps for a set of Thrax Audio class A tube mono blocks and the sound got even better!

The April Music room with the Stello Ai 700 and Marten speakers sounded really nice as did the Devore room.
jdoris OP
972 posts
 
I totally agree, Stickman, the big Ventures were jaw dropping; surprised the are not on every best of show list. For example, I thought they were in a completely different category -- and obviously so -- than the new Wilsons, which made some people's list.

Do you suppose Venture offers mortgages?
sgr's avatar
sgr
689 posts
 
I liked the big Ventures too as well as the Sanders room. But I'm amazed more were not smitten with the Leonardo ribbon speakers along with the $179,000 tube amps and Memory player. The system was beautiful in sound as well as looks. The ribbons reminded me of the Apogee sound and look. But much more efficient to drive. Voices were just uncanny. Great dynamics and bass too. If I had $65,000 to spare I'd have a pair.

I listened to the Ventures both with the FM Acoustics and the tube set up. Either way they were the best at the show.

I was kind of disappointed in the Wilson room. They were playing their new speakers with the big VTL amps. The room needed to be the same size as the Venture room.

The little Silverlines were impressive as well and run by the small chassis Parasound amp as well.

I was afraid I wouldn't like my humble setup at home after hearing multi thousand dollar setups at the show, but was delighted to find my little Legacy system could more than hold its own with anything I heard at the show.

Steve
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