Best Sound at the California Audio Show, thoughts?


Personally my favorite was the (unknown to me) Mythology M1 monitors by Enigmacoustics driven by Ayre. 15K but so uncolored yet gorgeous sounding.The mounted super tweeter lent it some fullness yet fatigue, but on the whole, I love shows that introduce me to products I would have never known.
essrand
This was my first audio show and I was in hog heaven.

My favorite room was Wilson Audio speakers being driven by Spectral monos. I've never heard such a big sound before with a humongous soundstage.

There were many rooms I also enjoyed: The Salk room with the SS8 with the Salk Stream source sounded Awesome.

Also really liked the Kef Blades.
The super-tweeter has a high-pass filter that you can set at 8K, 10K or 12K. It feeds off the terminals of your speakers, which continue to run full range. This may be different in the Mythology M1's, which were built specifically to take advantage of this tweeter.
There is great sounding gear and then there's music. Certainly plenty of the former to go around. Plus one for the Music First Room as well as Loggies' Audio collection; although I didn't feel the Acapella room was tuned quite as well as past shows ... seemed just a little too "in your face."

As far as music, I really enjoyed the Sumiko/ Sonus Faber setup. The other really natural sounding room was Zu. Both of these featured tubes and vinyl .. go figure. Legacy did a great job of creating "you are there" at the festival feel. Best large speakers IMHO.

Also want to give big thumbs up to Fritz Speakers Rev 5 with all WyWyires cabling. Very similar character to Sonus Faber in their ability to do great mid-range along with quality bass sans the woofer (down to about 30Hz).

All in all, another very good show.