2008 RMAF – – – all things analog.

Too busy catching up at work for a full report. Quick impressions...

A huge thank you from Paul and me to Larry and Steve for the A'gon receptions at "Garcia's". Friday night was great, Saturday night was better! I got to meet many A'goners for the first time. I didn’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!

BEST COMPONENTS
Win's (Mosin's) Saskia turntable. WOW! I expected a lot and it's much better. We brought an LP specifically chosen to reveal certain shortcomings which we'd predicted. The Saskia proved us wrong by playing it beautifully. Macrodynamic pace and microdynamic timbre were both rock-steady through transients of every description, the best speed performance of any table I've heard. Win's beauty deserves a better arm and cartridge than it had, nothing but the best in fact. My vote for Best Component in Show. I'd only want to hear it in a quiet environment with top class companions before saying it's completely worth the rather impressive asking price.

Reinhardt Thoress' 300B mono amps (in the Highwater Sound room). New to me, but they made extraordinary music.

Odeon Speakers (being driven by the above amps), a completely involving musical performance from very small floorstanders. Proof again, if it were needed, that efficient, easy to drive speakers and a great low powered amp are the key to clarity and musical honesty.

Audio Kharma speakers (here and there). If only they did bass, they do everything else so well.

BEST ROOMS
Highwater Sound (room 1116), with the Thoress amps, Odeon speakers plus Thomas's TW-Acustic Raven and four tonearm/cartridge combos. Fully integrated sound, slightly softer than a Kharma or a screen but not so much that we objected, and fully engaging on each of our three visits. A room worth coming back to. Paul's vote for Best Room in Show.

Oswaldsmille Audio (room 464), with Win's table, Schroeder Model 2 + Soundsmith Voice (this table deserves much better), a little Tectron amp and the only large horn speakers Paul and I have ever been able to tolerate. Not only did we tolerate, we stayed for nearly two hours, more time than we spent in any other room.

INTERESTING STUFF
Nordost Quantum QX2 and QX4 power circuit treatments/conditioners/thingies. We're still puzzling out how they work, but work they do.

MISSING STUFF
Wish Coincident speakers had been there. Something I haven't heard but want to.

OTHER STUFF
Room after room that sounded boring, wretched or downright painful. Paul's long time fantasy of buying a certain speaker was shattered: we heard it in three rooms, ran screaming from all three. Somebody must enjoy them.

BIGGEST/SADDEST MYSTERY
I know show conditions are tough, but why would a premier speaker manufacturer whose products I know are good, plus a premier electronics manufacturer whose products have impressed me in both my system and others, showcase their elite models using a mid-market CD player. I suppose some other arrangement must have fallen through, but they should have begged, borrowed, bought or stolen one of the umpteen top shelf digital players floating around the hotel. As it was, they spent a fortune on the largest ballroom in the show to demonstrate the ability of superb electronics and speakers to reveal the inadequacies of a third rate CDP. High hopes going in, very sad going out (about 30 seconds later).

MOST FRIGHTENING
Frighteningly expensive speakers that looked like robots on LSD, and sang like them too.

MOST FUN
Meeting so many of my friends, dinner with Tim (Piedpiper), watching Paul get schnockered at Tri Mai's free single malt reception (now that's a class act), seeing Chris Brady's new tonearm and hearing his enthusiastic explanation of some of its features, watching Thom and DocSavage not panic on Thursday night when he realized the phono stage they'd just delivered was in fact a line stage and he couldn't play anything but a 60hz hum, learning that Vacman, Dave Slagle and another guy we met are near neighbors so we can trade visits, discovering there was a Starbucks in the lobby so I didn't have to drink the so-called coffee in the restaurant at breakfast, sleeping in on a weekday, chatting with other audio geeks while waiting for the ever stalled elevators, etc........

Great time! Thanks to all who make it possible.

Doug,

It was very nice meeting you and Paul; I also happen to agree that the Oswald Mills room was entirely engaging and gets my vote for Best of Show; I spent more time there than in any other room - aside from perhaps the Highwater Sound rooms, both of which I enjoyed considerably (although for different reasons - Jeff brought great LPs, and had a mono cart). Win is doing something quite right with his Saskia table, and the entire system was extremely revealing yet tuneful, capable of exquisite low-level resolution with a temporal correctness that was nothing short of open-reel quality. All this with 2 watts of 2A3 - cool. I also liked the full-range Feastrex room in the back-loaded Urushi cabinets - I thought the system had coherency in spades, even with a digital front-end. There were a few other things here and there that made me linger for a bit and I'd say on whole, this year featured more good-sounding rooms than last year's show.

My thanks also to Larry for the Fri/Sat evening GTGs. Fun was had by all (despite Garcia's mediocre "margaritas" which tasted more like Slushys to me..) and it was nice to finally attach some faces to the usernames. Until next year...

-Richard

Twer definitely a pleasure putting faces to names, and thanks again to Cello for his kind facilitation.

Aside from all the human connections, A'gon member and otherwise, that are always a stimulating and gratifying aspect of the shows, there were a few standout rooms for me, in various capacities. Intuiting which components are doing what, in the context of a system and room, is always an interesting sport. Doing this without reference discs is a losing battle. I brought a CDR of minimalist acoustic reference tracks including a couple that I engineered myself, as well as a wonderful test pressing of Analogue Productions Li'l Hatch LP, which impressed and revealed wherever I went. It shouldn't be too surprising how many rooms had minor to major set up problems, from accidental channel reversal to phase problems, not to mention the usual room reflections in the midrange and bass.

It was a major coup to connect with Todd Garfinkle of MA Recordings and hear his treasure trove of stunning CDs of mind blowing music form his world travels. Beautifully and naturally recorded, they came to life through the always magically nuanced VivA Solista amp and Trenner and Friedl Ella speakers, although not my favorite model in their line. I came home with nine CDs, and that from someone who rarely buys anything but LPs anymore. Another highlight was hearing live unamplified music up close and personal in the Soundsmith room, associated with a charity recording project that should be quite special from a number of angles.

I was gratified to hear how well the Wilson Benesch Speakers coupled with a new DeHaviland integrated push-pull amp. There were a number of successful implementations of Lowther style drivers that didn't exhibit the mid treble peakiness and lack of bass, albeit usually supplemented with woofers. One of the best of show for me was the Sante Fe Audio room featuring the Continuum Criterium/Copperhead table/arm fitted with a PC-1 mated with Wavac electronics and Lansche Speakers. The system was delicately articulate and dynamic through the entire range. No surprise there.

One interesting demo sticks in my mind in the always entertaining Acoustic Revive room of the Ultra Low Frequency Pulse Generator. Although the sound, both before and after, was not great, the difference with the device activated was astounding to all present, and better.

So many rooms... so little time.

Hello Doug,

I was also at the RMAF and had a great time getting to know new people as well spending time with old friends. I agree with you that the sound at the Oswaldsmill room was among the best at the show. However, I’m puzzled by one of your comments.

Win's beauty deserves a better arm and cartridge than it had, nothing but the best in fact. My vote for Best Component in Show.

How were you able to separate which components contributed to or detracted from the wonderful sound in that room? I have listened to Schroder arms and the Voice cartridge in several highly revealing systems. In all of these systems, the Schroder arms and the Voice cartridge didn’t appear to be mediocre but rather clearly outperformed the previous arms and cartridges. It wasn’t even close. I believe the Schroder arm is nothing but the best. And while the Voice is not the best cartridge I have ever listened to, cartridges that bettered it carried a much higher price tag. The Voice at its current price seems to be a steal.
Thanks for your quick review. I am eagerly awaiting your in-depth report.

John

Before I forget it, many thanks to Cello and Vetterone for making possible the wonderful evenings. I had a great time in the two-for-one room!!!

John