What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?

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.

In the same fashion people may wonder how I could have been so disappointed in the Bel Canto Room, I must admit that I am shocked someone could be disappointed with the "Audio Note" room.

When I was in the Audio Note room I heard Holographic images dancing about in the room that were absolutely spooky good. I couldn't believe all that was coming from those two smallish "Harbeth looking" speakers which sat in the corners of the room. To me, that was an extremely pleasurable (and fun) sounding room to visit and spend time in.