I would love to upload photos if anyone can make them available for download. Please let me know.
I am going to post a comprehensive show review with a few limitations. The equipment I own I did not listen to. This includes the Highwater Sound room. It sounded so much better w. the Hornings setup in Jeffs place it wasn't worth listening. Also, I didn't listen to any Wilson rooms. I have them so why bother. Also, day 3 of the show is when most rooms truly began to sound their best. The rooms I heard on day 1 (Friday) usually sounded poor.
Going from memory & my pictures:
The 1st day. Me & a few Agon members went together. We all seemed to agree in our sound biases within reason.
JM Lab Grand Utopia EM. In theory these speakers should blow me away. I really like the original Grand Utopia Be but I didn't care for the new ones. Something wrong w. the setup on the 1st day? Or maybe, the associated equipment - Boulder vs. VTL which I love. If they only played the speakers w. an SET since they are so efficient I would have probably fallen in love. As they were used in a controled demo, they sounded dry and my seat, while not bad didn't help.
Vivid Audio Room. Got offered some Irish Whisky by Philip Ohanlon. What a great guy. I couldn't make it due to too much to do & not enough time. But this room was a revelation. They played a simple Luxman 30 Watt Class A integrated amp in a very large room, w. the Vivid speakers. This sounded musical and great. They played CD through a Luxman CD player which also sounded great. And they played some Master TApe. This was incredible. We all loved it. And the CD was very good as well. I love the simplicity of the integrated w. the Vivid speakers. What a room. They were using the Synergistic Research cables & some active shielding. They turned it on & off. Me & my friends all felt it sounded better w. it off when using master tape. Better turned on w. CD. Go figure. The Luxman integrated deserves to be on a short list. It didn't sweat & I could see the meters the entire time.
The Von Schweikert VR9s didn't sound too great. But the next day the new VR3s? sounded incredible. The Hansens (big ones) sounded just like they are described in the review I read on the flight back in TAS. Enough said. I have heard them elsewhere and they can sound better but their character is as described. Nice to know that reviews can be spot on. If you want a summary, slightly bright but nice overall. They were using a Clearaudio Goldfinger that I was interested in. But noone could set it up. I listened to this room a few times. Both w. digital & analogue.
The Oswald Mills room, w. the Slate Table & the Horn Speakers. I actually really liked this room a lot. A beautiful natural sound that was not hifi at all. I don't like the looks of the speakers. I do of the turntable. I can't isolate anything apart, but he was playing the horns w. 2A3 tube amps. So SWEET. I just loved it. Maybe too sweet, but I think I could live with it. A friend tried his amp instead of the 2A3 amps and everything just went bye bye. So as a system I really liked it. And what cartridge was playing? The Voice from Soundsmith. A great cartridge. I wanted to buy it, but I spent all my money on Vinyl. A great collection that I got to sift through. It made my day.
I am at the bottom here and some people will get upset if they read this far, but I didn't care for the strain guage. Every time I hear it I find it thin & detailed. Not my sound. As a contrast I love the Voice. Great body. Sounds like music. People say the strain guage never shows itself off at shows, but no having compared it to the Voice which I heard in a few rooms, I can say it is not the room, but the cartridge. I have heard it in other shows as well. Some might love it as it can resolve detail extremely well, but I want a fuller (more tone) sound. The Voice is one of those great bargains in cartridges. If you want a cartridge to do it all, for cheap get it. $2200 Retail. From what others say, no one wants to say how good it is for fear of hurting sales of higher end cartridges. They just might be right.
Rooms I heard that I remember but left no impression include the RAAL room. Cool speakers, but I was told they had problems when I bumped into them on day 3. Probably true. Atmasphere in any room w. the Classic Audio Reproduction Speakers. My friend loved it. I didn't. I realize I don't like in your face tweeters (and I have Wilsons, what does that tell you.) and the TAD tweeters didn't do it. Any speaker sporting Bereylium tweeters just sounded wrong for me. A little hissy. As a friend of mine explained, like they are spitting. So well put.
Feel free to email w. questions etc.