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California Audio Show 2012

It was just serendipity that we happened to be on a family visit to Northern California the same weekend as the start of the 2012 California Audio Show in
Burlingame, California. I literally had only about 90 minutes to poke around today on the opening day of the show, so take my impressions with a very large grain of salt... but I wanted to get a thread started for others who may have their own impressions to post.

Sweetest sound in my whirlwind tour of the show was in the Audio Note UK room. Amplification was some $20K+ 8 watt tube amp. Speakers were large stand mounts... didn't get the model number. Sound was extraordinarily musical... mesmerizing, really, so much so that I had to get back to that room one more time for a second listen before I had to leave. The AN rep was playing some "audiophile" discs I'd never heard before. Would've loved to have heard some familiar tunes on that setup. But wow, that system was very sweet, indeed.

YG Acoustics room.... sounded rather "hi-fi" to me, but again, I spent very little time there.

Magico rooms -- the big Magico's sounded terrific playing orchestral music. The small monitors $27K, yikes!) sounded good too, if a little tipped up in the high end.

Biggest disappointment in my brief time there was the room playing the new Gallo CL-4's. They sounded congested and muffled. I have to believe there was a set up problem of some sort... a company of Gallo's reputation wouldn't unleash anything sounding that mediocre!

Anybody else get to the show with impressions to share?
rebbi
toneofmusicaudio
11 posts
 
Thank you Mortsnets and Drubin for you kind words about sound of the Tone of Music Audio room with the Franco Serblin Accordos, they are $13K.

by the way, Franco also makes a larger model named the Ktema which I also have on demo and plan to show at next CAS,

thank you again for taking time to check out my system.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,510 posts
 
I find myself growing extremely skeptical of megabuck small monitor speakers. Once cost goes beyond that of say a Totem Mani or Dynaudio C1, is there really anything more accomplished to justify other than uber-build quality and aesthetic appeal perhaps? I have heard a number of these designs and seriously wonder.
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drubin
3,275 posts
 
I think we're seeing an arms race in several areas: cabinet materials, cabinet construction methods, driver materials, and crossover components. (Just going with top of the line Mundorf caps can send parts costs into the stratosphere.) Whether or not these yield meaningful sonic improvements is another matter, of course.
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Mapman,
I tend not to pay a lot of attention to any monitors over $5000, but that just reflects my budget and life obligations. Those Franco Serblin Accordos were very pretty and sounded quite good for the few minutes I had to spend in that room, but I'll agree that $13,000 for a pair of quite small monitors is a lot of dough. :-)
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
By the way just did a little research and found that those Franco Serblin Accordos are designed by the former Sonus Faber designer. Hmm...
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