There were 3 rooms that really impressed me.
There was a new company, April Electronics, with several product lines (Oasis, Eximus, Stello)of amps, dacs, cd players. Their products were featured in the Dali and Metal Sound Design rooms, both of which had very rich, detailed, and exciting yet non-fatiguing sound.
Audiopax' room had a sound that combined the best of solid state with the best of tube sound; detailed, musical, reasonably deep and tight bass.
Audio Aero's booth had a sound that really made you forget about the equipment, and listen to the music - rich, detailed, non-fatiguing. Bass transients were very soft,though, although sustained notes went very deep, and bowed bass notes had an appropriate level of vibrance. Synthesized bass didn't have the excitement factor of a good solid state system. If I didn't think about it, I didn't bother me, but on recordings that I knew had serious bottom-end oomph, it never materialized.
I was quite disappointed in the Rowland / Rockport room. The system really spotlighted the upper midrange, resulting in a very fatiguing sound. This was surprising, due to all the very positive press given to the ICE amps here recently, and the raves from the big mags over Rockport's speakers.
Vmps was also disappointing, as they often like to tout their best-of-show votes in their advertising. The system was very boomy. I understand VMPS has a way to adjust the boom factor, but it sounded like they didn't bother.
There was a new company, April Electronics, with several product lines (Oasis, Eximus, Stello)of amps, dacs, cd players. Their products were featured in the Dali and Metal Sound Design rooms, both of which had very rich, detailed, and exciting yet non-fatiguing sound.
Audiopax' room had a sound that combined the best of solid state with the best of tube sound; detailed, musical, reasonably deep and tight bass.
Audio Aero's booth had a sound that really made you forget about the equipment, and listen to the music - rich, detailed, non-fatiguing. Bass transients were very soft,though, although sustained notes went very deep, and bowed bass notes had an appropriate level of vibrance. Synthesized bass didn't have the excitement factor of a good solid state system. If I didn't think about it, I didn't bother me, but on recordings that I knew had serious bottom-end oomph, it never materialized.
I was quite disappointed in the Rowland / Rockport room. The system really spotlighted the upper midrange, resulting in a very fatiguing sound. This was surprising, due to all the very positive press given to the ICE amps here recently, and the raves from the big mags over Rockport's speakers.
Vmps was also disappointing, as they often like to tout their best-of-show votes in their advertising. The system was very boomy. I understand VMPS has a way to adjust the boom factor, but it sounded like they didn't bother.