I will start the ball rolling. I heard lots of good things but not perfection. What do you expect this side of heaven? Notable rooms in no particular order of preference were:
1. Voxativ/Schimmel: very kool custom single driver speaker housed in a spectacular cabinet by Schimmel pianos driven by single ended flea-watt Fi triode tube amps. I will have to confess that I am a sucker for single driver speakers. These speakers produced the most textured and organic midrange I heard at the show. We pushed them a little with a very dynamic piece off of Duke Ellington's Jazz Party, and you could hear its limitations. Still, a speaker/system I could happily live with for the rest of my days.
2. Highwater Sound: Horning Eufrodite Ultimate Zigma Plus speakers, TW Acustic table, Horning Hybrid Sati 1605 SE amp, Tron phono pre-amp. I am a child of the digital age and do not own a table, but this room made me want one. Very three dimensional, organic sound with a very deep sound stage and good imaging. Bass was also very tuneful and musical. Tres bien.
3. Lee Island Audio: Acapella High Violinncello II, Ypsilon electronics and a Bergmann turntable. I am a fan of the speed and dynamics of horns and also find the plasma tweeter appealing. It seems to extend smoothly without the brittleness of a standard cone tweeter. At times I felt the midrange in this system was a little too smooth. I am not sure. The Acapellas did a brilliant job with a Duke Ellington Jazz Party test CD. I also heard Albert Cummings "Together as one", and it was simply stunning.
4. Sanders Sound: an all-Sanders system with the 10c hybrid panels with digital x-over, Sanders amps, cabling, and a cheap digital front end. I like a lot of what panels do, and the 10cs were fast, uber transparent with great transmission line bass. A friend of mine who is a panel purist poo-poo'd the hybrid and felt the panel and TL were not well integrated. I thought it sounded good and for a little over 13K was the biggest sonic bang for the buck IMO.
5. Transmission Audio/MA Recordings: the relatively petite M1i speakers with a ribbon tweeter had a big and spacious sound with ghost-like imaging. The bass was lacking, but the hotel was apparently a black hole in this department. Associated gear included Klimo pre and amps from Italy along with the latest Oppo universal player. What I enjoyed most about was gasing with Todd Garfinkle from MA Recordings. He had a bunch of his hi rez recordings on hand (I bought 5) that focused on sparse, dual mic recordings in large, non-studio spaces. Awesome music. I am still unsure what to think of the Oppo and that Sabre chip.
6. Cruz Audio/Aaudio imports: This system consisted of Lansche No. 5.1 speakers, BMC AMP M1 monoblock amps, BDCD1 belt-drive CD player/transport, DAC1 PRE D/A converter/preamp, MCCI MC phono preamp, and Bergmann Magne turntable and tonearm. That plasma tweeter strikes again. The system had a smooth, delicate, and yet big sound. The speakers, being German, were absolute perfection in terms of fit and finish.
One final impression to report: I was privy to an after-hours demo of Miguel Alvarez's (Tripoint Audio) new Orion conditioner and Troy. The A+B session was quite stark.....so stark in fact that my good friend Gary (Glory) Anderson turned around and asked if anyone in the audience was deaf. The Tripoint gear injected a lifelike energy and palpability to the images that was frankly shocking. It was the best sound I heard at the show by a significant margin. Miguel is obviously beating a path into the 21st century of power conditioning. It is no longer a accessory or afterthought IMO. It should be the center piece to any good system.
