Best of RMAF 2008

So I have been saving the best day for last. This is when everything sounded great. I had to start early to get as much in as possible. Many rooms would be packing up but 3-4 pm.

I went into the Usher Room first. They had a great location. I wrote about it above, but he was running the Berning Amps this time. These are great amps. And the Exemplar Ushers (definitely worthe the extra money for the Exemplar modification) are more detailed and more open sounding. What a deal for these speakers.

There already has been some mention about the Veloce Electronics. Battery Based preamp & amp which uses a Hypex Module. They used them on Kharma speakers. This sounded really good. This is the 1st time I have heard Kharma speakers sound really to my liking. Funny as Kharma has their own Hypex module amplifier. I don't get the price though. If I remember 10K for a Hypex based amplifier is too much. They did sound natural and musical. Almost tube like w. power. A sound I could live with but long term listening is a must as it might have too much of a signature. This is not based on what I heard, but based on the design. They were using an Audio Aero CDP which I have owned and loved. For some reason the smaller Kharmas always sounded better than the larger ones in the shows I have heard them. I heard them large Kharmas with Tenors newest electronics in Germany. They sounded very good, but so did these for a fraction of the price.

I then spent some time listening to the Moscode Room w. the Von Schweikert VR5 anniversary speakers. Something didn't fit, maybe the room. As for the sound, it was very forward and agressive. The smaller Unifield 3 speakers are incredible. I heard the Unifield 3 speakers a little later driven by a Push Pull 300B Audiospace integrated amplifier. What a great system. Got me seriously thinking of trying a push pull 300B or one of the 845/300B combination amps. Something magic in that setup. And it fits in small rooms.

I heard the Focal room w some small Focal speakers driven by Marantz separates. This sounded OK. Not a lot of detail, but musical. I was thinking of a Marantz integrated for a separate system, but now realize it isn't me. The sound is too smooth.

The Emerald Physics / Wyred for sound room was one I wanted to hear. I never listened to an open baffle design. There are some limitations w. open baffles. You can hear the rear wave messing w. the front wave. Also the Wyred for sound amps are class D amps w. the typical class D sound. I find class D (except for the Spectron's newest amps) to be missing something in terms of communicating the emotion behind the music.

I then stumbled on to what I consider one of the best sounds at the show. The Symposium Speakers driven by Emotive Audio top of the line amps running 50 Watts from 2 6550 tubes and the top of the line preamp. They were running real to real. These speakers are big & ugly IMO. They just sound incredible. Something about full range ribbons. I gave them a go w. some familiar music and they did great. They need a long wall for setup which is a problem. They also image incredibly wide w. detail and dynamics aplenty. Plenty of speed. Just missing a bit of the warmth and body. I wish I heard them w. SET since they were using just 50 watts of 6550s. The Vita Mono amplifiers. The preamp was the Epiphinea w. the 300B tube. My friend felt bass was lacking. Tough to tell since it was a show and the bass towers are huge. This speaker could be one of the best if your room can handle it. The best part was the room was empty. Speaking w. the designer he mentioned he uses a Wavac amplifier in the design process. I wonder what more these speakers can do.
I sat in the room for 1/2 an hour. But there were more rooms to go, some on my must listen list.

Red Wine integrated and WLM speakers. A lot of talk about both of these products. I heard smaller WLM speakers before. They were great. These were a size or 2 larger. All I can say is they sounded better in Munich. That also tells you that a lot depends on the setup.

I then heard Tidal speakers for the 1st time. I heard them in 2 rooms. The more expensive speakers w. some electronics I didn't know in 1 room. These are beautiful finished speakers. The wood work is gorgeous. Something special. My other favorite as far as woodwork is Odeon.
Back to the Tidal room w. Ceramic drivers. These were using Tidal electronics as well. The model of the speaker was the Contriva.

Then in the adjoining room were a slightly smaller set of Tidal speakers. These are called the Pianos. These had Lamm M1.2 amps, w. the DCS Puccini as source. I don't know anything about price but this was a great sounding room. As a system it just worked. Both rooms were the same size, but maybe the smaller speaker was better in the room. This is the 1st time I liked the Lamm M1.2s. I love the ML2.1s but the 1.2s always left me lacking at shows w. Kharma. Not now. They sounded great. Dynamic, not dark, but not in your face. Great bass. A nice system. The Puccini obviously is excellent, as many have been saying. A nice liquid sound, that is not to warm and didn't have any bloat.

Now on to another great room. A room I wanted to hear for a while. Lets go down the line, Brinkman table, Lyra Titan (not I), EMM's latest 2 channel w. transport, and Lamm ML3s (one of the world's great amps) and Coltrane Speakers. This room had it all. The Lamms w. only 32 watts put out bass. Amazing. Body, inner detail. It is all there. Another great room. Between the Symposium, & this room I would want .........BOTH. Go figure. A diamond tweeter that I liked. A diamond midrange. The sound was natural........but, I didn't like the sound w. the new EMM electronics. It became a bit bright. Maybe not broken in, but I have never heard an EMM sound bright. I own a Titan I and have heard a Lamm Phono w. Titan combination many times (in fact the Lamm phono was in use in a few rooms, and the Titan I, Orpheus & Skala were in quite a few rooms) Back to the sound w. vinyl. Miles Davis. He sounded in the room. Full scale classical. Sounded real. (I heard Miles sound poor in a room in the Hyatt the day before). And then they played some Stevie Ray Vaughn. Wow!!!!. This is it. Why we go to the shows. To hear great systems strut their stuff. More than 1/2 of them flopped but a few did well enough to make it worth the time.

A little anticlimactic but Daedelus Audio w. Manley sounded good. Musical and natural. I could see how some might actually love the sound.

Next is REference 3A Episodes w. ASL 845 tube amps. Reference 3A is one of the great speaker bargains. I have heard them many times and loved them. This time I didn't love them. I just liked them. Not sure why. Maybe the music. I loved the little ones and still they are probably the best stand mounted 2 way I have ever heard for the money.

Next came another very good room. Actually one of the better turntables. The Spiral Groove. 2 of them. One w. a Triplanar and one w. a prototype Spiral Groove. They don't look it but they are quite expensive. They do sound very very good. I want to try the arm on my Raven AC. The counterweight is unique as is the antiskate mechanism. They were using Sonics by Joachim Gerhard speakers. If any of you remember Audio Physic speakers. The Sonics are equally good and worht your consideration. He is one of the great speaker designers. The room is musical, and has flow. The emphasis is musicality over hifi. A nice balance.

I then heard for the 1st time Spectron Musician IIIse amps w. some speaker that I never heard of. These are quite good. I tried to detect a signature that i find anoying with some of the Class D competition. If anything the sound had warmth and body. These amps are worthy of consideration. I didn't know enough about the rest of the system, but I have heard quite a few Class D amps impose their signature instantly. These didn't. They had these room tweeks all over the place that as usual cost much too much money. Do they work? A little. I just wish people charged reasonable prices and not try to become millionaires overnight.

I am going to finish day 3 later. Still a few more items to go through and some recap.

A link to pictures. All titled RMAF.

http://www.internetpro.net/~gofigure/

Enjoy. And thanks to Mosin for the space to support the pictures.

Time to finish up. Got a lot of other things to do. Please don't use my experience to determine if something is good or bad. Use it to confirm an opinion of the room in question. Too many rooms, as the day wore on (especially day 3) my ears were getting tired. You can only absorb so much.

I saw the new Teres tonearm prototype. Pretty cool looking. Running a ZYX Universe, which I know all to well. The design is unique in that it has a low slung counterweight and a different bearing arrangement. Not a unipivot or a dual pivot. Being a Teres, it has a gorgeous wood armwand. Listening was limited due to time being short and some must listens on the list. But ... I got stuck in some rooms for a little time.

There was this room that was very strange to me. And it sounded pretty good. 2 speakers that were small that looked like tiny table pointing up into a glass diffraction plate. A subwoofer, and very good imaging. I think the speakers were active. But what interested me most is the box that controlled everything. Now folks this is where we are going so it was worth hearing/and seeing.

The box had a screen attached to it. The box contains all the digital processing and more. What does it do.
Digital Crossover, Digital preamp, digital converter, and lastly digital phono equalization. You can plug your turntable directly into a A/D converter (I hope I have this right) and all is handled. Different RIAA curves to choose from. It is all touch screen controlled. No need for a A/D convertor for CDs, just a transport that goes straight into the preamp. And more, there is digital room correction. Basically, we are getting close to the point when it will be a box and a speaker. Especially if you have active speakers. The Company was called Yokohama Baysidenet Corporation. Very cool stuff. Worthy of investigating, especially for the PC Audio Crowd or anyone who wants a hidden system. It was so easy to use from the touch screen.

I then went next door to see the one eyed alien looking speaker. A single driver w. a downward firing horn for bass. The coolest part about it is the driver has no rubber suspension. It is supported by the magnetic structure of the speaker. Sound was OK, but the Cool factor was high, especially if you have a bunch of Trekies for friends.

I was talking about some must see rooms. Well one of the most important was Joe Cohen’s room from Lotus Group. They ran the Feastrex full range drivers in the 50K range for a a pair of drivers. The sound was excellent within the limits of what a single driver could do. There was magic in the room. But....I don't think this would satisfy the rock & roller. Maybe the chamber crowd would be in love though. But, there was another big deal going on in the room. Basically a 7.5Hz (I think that was the frequency) pulse generator. We turned it on & off. It is supposed to make the music more enjoyable. I can go into the theory since I have heard about it before. In short, currently the frequency of our environment is near 10 Hz. This is too high and the earths natural frequency is 7.5Hz. The pulse generator restores this frequency and as such it positively affects us. I am the first to discount a myth, but this did work. Diverging for a bit, I sell a watch called Philip Stein w. a Teslar chip that is supposed to protect people from the spurious frequency being emitted by cell phones etc. Same concept. They have a watch you wear that somehow puts this 7.5Hz frequency on your wrist so you can experience this everywhere. Does it work, well it worked in the room, but wearing the watch gives me a headache. I am not kidding. But roughly 10% of the people have an adverse reaction. Many people I know swear by the watch. I suggest you give the pulse generator a try. I don't think you need it just for audio. The retail was around $400.00

I have been trying for year to listen to TAD speakers. I have heard amazing things about them. Friends at shows raved about them, but they are nowhere to be heard. I then missed them at a NY & at the Munich show. They had the new stand mounted 2 way at RMAF. I listened to them. About 60 seconds. Everyone was seated in a room. I just didn't get what they were listening to. All Bel Canto. The worst highs I heard at the show. It just chased me out of the room. Tizzy is the word. Not sure if it is the digital or the Beryllium tweeters. But I have not been too happy w. the sound of Be. This has proven consistent everywhere but in the Usher room which for some reason sounded good w. both SS & Tube electronics. The room was packed so maybe my ears aren't that great. Give it a try. I will listen one more time.

I then heard a big box speaker w. a single driver that was not too much money. I wish I knew what it was called. But it sounded pretty good for the money if you could handle the looks. Made in the US as well. The tweeter was behind the dust cap of the woofer. It was a warm musical sound. Too much on the warm side, but by that time of the day, I was ready for warm and warmed right up to it.

Before I forget, the night before I heard after hours the Pathos room w. the Aluminum Audia Machina speakers. They look kind of cool. All the equipment looked cool. But the room just didn't snap together. The electronics were new out of the box so probably break in is a major issue. Lastly, they were using the BAT Rex preamp. Not one of my favorites having owned it in the past. It does something to the sound, and it did it again.

Back to Sunday afternoon. A lot of idler drives at the show. The Ridge speaker was being shown at the Robyatt room. The Garrard 301 looked gorgeous in the custom plinth. The turntable was sporting 2 arms & 2 cartridges. The speakers were The Ridge speakers and the electronics were Tektron. One of the cartridges was mounted on a cantilevered headshell on the end of an SME 3012. Pretty cool setup. Not sure if it worked. The system sounded good, but I didn't get enough of a chance to truly listen. From when I entered the room I was being sold a cartridge. Also, I wanted to get to a few more rooms. I know there is good money in cartridges these days. Thousands of dollars for something so small. I am thinking of making my own cartridge line myself. Supposedly someone of "considerable analogue fame" purchased a cartridge. I wouldn't know how to evaluate the sound of a cartridge in a completely unfamiliar system especially in a small room which could never produce bass. But I did hear the Voice in a few rooms and it always sounded good. Got me interested. Mind you the cartridge could be very good and it was around 2 grand. I think it came out for under a grand originally before there was an importer. The other arm had a Koetsu Black if I remember right. That wasn't playing though.

I then heard the smaller YG Acoustics w. Krell amplification and DCS for the digital source. The sound was very close to the sound of the YGs w. the FM Acoustics downstairs. These remain the fastest dynamic speaker I have heard. I am sure some will go nuts over them. I found this room less sterile than the FM Acoustics room w. the larger speakers. The Krell match seemed to work well.

And then on to a true disappointment. I heard the Krell Modulare speakers w. Krell Evolution electronics. These sounded amazing in Germany w. the top of the line Krell Evolution gear. In this case, they sounded so bad that it wasn't worth staying. I thought the Modulare were probably the best Dynamic speakers I heard at the Munich show. (The best speakers in Munich were either the Backes & Muller or the Cessaro Horns) At RMAF I felt the opposite. Tells you how everything I say is system dependant. I still like the Modulare. Everything from the design to the looks. Keep them on your radar especially if you like Krell. Mind you, the people in the room mentioned that not having the higher end Evolution gear could be the problem w. the sound. I wonder, as the rooms were the same size (fairly small) so who needs so much power.

And now for the last room of the show. This room should be one of the best. Many people loved this room. I didn't. The speakers were the Lansche w. Ion tweeters. Wavac Phono & Preamp & Amp. EMM's new 2 channel for digital. And Continuum for Analogue. There really wasn't much time, but the Ion tweeter sounded the same in both this room & the Acappela room downstairs. A little thin and hissy for me. Some love the detail, but I find it too detailed. Both system have tubes and still the thin treble. To me treble has more dimension. I hear these speakers didn't do well in the European market, but just might work in the US. The speakers are gorgeous. They can't possibly sound integrated as the speed of a dynamic driver can never equal that of a Ion tweeter. I hope someone else comments on these speakers as I am at a loss. I expected a lot from this room & it was packed w. people.

Putting an end to this review, I came away with a few conclusions for myself. I like Ribbons and old style dome tweeters. Horns can be amazing if well executed, and finally source rules 1st. If you don't get the source right everything goes wrong. I would take a top end source (Analogue or EMM/DCS for digital), and good 300B push pull integrated, from Audiospace or a Thoress integrated amp on some ribbon speakers or well executed horns. A few friends went away wanting to get Reel to Reel systems and join the tape project. Too much for me these days. Also, something that was missing in the rooms I visited. No 24/192 digital being played. This is the future of high res. It will be available for download and honestly well executed it will be near impossible to distinguish from Analogue as a lot is being stored as such. The big deal is converting 24/192 to SACD does change things a bit.

Very few rooms were playing music for music’s sake. Most played audiophile recordings. A lot of new phono stage are coming to market w. multiple inputs or different RIAA curves. The new Tron is very interesting among those.
The Highwater sound room played great music. And before I forget, I got to listen to a great artist in the Pathos/Audio Machina room. The Peter Asplund Quartet / As Knights Concur. This guy sounds a lot like Miles with his own twist. Great trumpet.

Great pictures.

Thank you.

Dgad-

Agree with Audiofeil. Great photo set. Thank you for sharing them with the group.