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California Audio Show 2012

It was just serendipity that we happened to be on a family visit to Northern California the same weekend as the start of the 2012 California Audio Show in
Burlingame, California. I literally had only about 90 minutes to poke around today on the opening day of the show, so take my impressions with a very large grain of salt... but I wanted to get a thread started for others who may have their own impressions to post.

Sweetest sound in my whirlwind tour of the show was in the Audio Note UK room. Amplification was some $20K+ 8 watt tube amp. Speakers were large stand mounts... didn't get the model number. Sound was extraordinarily musical... mesmerizing, really, so much so that I had to get back to that room one more time for a second listen before I had to leave. The AN rep was playing some "audiophile" discs I'd never heard before. Would've loved to have heard some familiar tunes on that setup. But wow, that system was very sweet, indeed.

YG Acoustics room.... sounded rather "hi-fi" to me, but again, I spent very little time there.

Magico rooms -- the big Magico's sounded terrific playing orchestral music. The small monitors $27K, yikes!) sounded good too, if a little tipped up in the high end.

Biggest disappointment in my brief time there was the room playing the new Gallo CL-4's. They sounded congested and muffled. I have to believe there was a set up problem of some sort... a company of Gallo's reputation wouldn't unleash anything sounding that mediocre!

Anybody else get to the show with impressions to share?
rebbi
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drubin
3,240 posts
 
Agree with you about Audio Note. Their rooms pretty much always sound the way this one does -- unfailing in communicating the music and connecting you with it, and without much regard to genre or even recording quality.

Also agree about the Gallos and must add that the dealer whose room that was had three others. Only one of the four rooms had anything approaching decent sound (Margules + Dynaudio) despite all sorts of fancy cables and isolation devices and room treatments adorning all of them.

Some other notables for me: Eficion, Voce (check out the vintage Luxman TT in that room in addition to their new speakers), Sonist, and Music First. The Music First room was manned by Jonathan Billington himself (lovely man) and featured their Reference preamp fed by an old Revox R2R and feeding a Bel Canto ICE amp and a pair of Rogers LS3/5a's he picked up in a thrift shop. Hardware store speaker cables. Wonderful sound, I thought.
mortsnets
39 posts
 
Audio Note room was very good as always but I was blown away by the Tannoy Westminster Royal speakers in the Blue Moon Audio room.

Also the vintage audio fair nearby had Tannoy 15" silver speakers that also sounded awesome.

Also liked the vintage Rogers LS3/5as, the Sonists in the Dared room, Franco Serblin's compact monitor the Accordo in the Tone of Music Audio room and the DIY speakers with Audio Nirvana 15" Neo's in the BAAS room.
rebbi OP
1,319 posts
 
Thanks for mentioning those little monitors by Franco Serblin. I liked them, too, very holographic. They were, what, something like $20K?

Wanted to hear the Tannoy's in the Blue Room but couldn't find them... drat!
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