What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?

Tom92602,

I don't think that it is fair for you to blame the Bel Canto amplifiers for your dislike of the sound you heard in their room with our Pearls. When I saw your posting on the Asylum I was puzzled until I looked at your system description.
http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/9260.html

According to that profile, your speakers are the Klipsch RF-82.

Under system goals you write "Trying to make Classic Rock sound warm and rich without loosing refinement and speed."

As you mentioned, the system sounded nice until you played your disc.

I do not share your goal of trying to make Classic Rock recordings sound warm and rich, *unless they were recorded that way in the first place*. I greatly prefer the purity of a natural, even balance that lets me hear what the recording actually sounds like rather than trying to goose up the upper bass to add false warmth. The nice thing about evenly balanced speakers is that you do still have the option of patching in an equalizer to adjust for harsh recordings, as opposed to trying to tame a system that is has errors "locked in" as part of the speaker design.

This hobby is about listening enjoyment, first and foremost. I am not trying to tell you what to enjoy for your personal listening. I just felt that some context and insight into why your perspective would differ from my own and the vast number of visitors like Tvad who were very pleased with how our systems performed at the show would be useful.

And you should not rule out Bel Canto for your system as you cannot predict how that combination might sound based on your audition with my speakers.

This was my first exposure to Audio Note--which IMO sounded surprisingly bland and lacking in depth and imaging. One of the best SET-oriented was the inexpensive Grant Fidelity room(Opera Consonance/Jungson/ShengYa/Shuguang.)

This is a fascinating thread.

It puts into perspective how we all have different priorities, likes, and dislikes.

Having come off many years of uber-resolution, boom and sizzle (in a good way), I find myself shifting away to a different presentation.

To me, the Audio Note rooms reminded me of why I loved playing records in the 70s. The sound just connected with me, for whatever reason, and I'm ready to admit that it may not be the "Absolute Sound", but I've been down that road and I'm looking for a new path...

Since I'm a panel/electrostatic kinda guy, I really liked the King’s Audio Electrostatics. Just wonderful!

I also liked the Bel Canto/Joseph Audio room.

The mbl room was also very well done and sounded good.

I concure also on the Vienna Die Muzick and Rod Tomson is a very cool dude indeed.

Josephaud:

Those happen to be the speakers I use for home theater. I have 2 systems listed if you notice and I have been using different gear for Redbook and different gear for home theater.

I have been trying various speakers out for Redbook over the past year and haven't bothered to update my profile over on the asylum. This year I have owned a variety of speakers including Acoustic Zen Adagios and B&W's as well. I happen to like the sound of Focal as well and may end up buying a pair.

It's a shame you felt the need to go out of your way in an attempt to discredit what I heard at the show. Researching my id on another site to see what you could dig up in hopes to slander me based on system components seems lame and I am sure others will see it that way as well. And to be honest I went to that room to see the Bel Canto. I was fixating on the Bel Canto gear not your speakers. Perhaps the Bel Canto would have sounded better to me with different speakers. Hard to tell.

The track I played in the Bel Canto room was not recorded lean and in fact sounded quite warm on the Focals, Ushers, Legacys, and other speakers which I tried at the show. Of the speakers I tried with this track, the Bel Canto room was only bright and lean sound I heard when playing this track.

I liked many rooms at the show but not yours. Everyone has an opinion and mine was based upon what I heard using the same track on several systems.