Best of RMAF 2008

I bought an ebony The Voice. I think it's a great cartridge.

Dave

Finally, I can give my more detailed impressions of RMAF 08,
First off it was a great atmosphere, their is a friendly vibe that CES does not have. I did not have a chance to hear everything but who can, but from what I did hear which was about 70% of the rooms, here are my impressions.

Turntables:

The Saskia Idler is the real deal. It produced the famous Idler PRATT, without the loss of Transparency(tone). This is a very special product, with a big future. Congrats Win! You have raised bar very high.

I liked the Raven in the high water sound room, and the
Sprial Grove in the few rooms I heard it in, these are seriously good tables.

Rooms:

I liked the Classic Audio reproductions room. These are not your fathers Classic Audio Reproductions, these are a whole new animal. I have heard their speakers progress over the years, in the past I thought their older speakers were great rock and roll speakers, with their big dynamics, but thought they lacked the finesse I was used to, this is no longer the case. The new field coil T 1's are still big, bold, dynamic, but now they have the finesse I was looking for. I would love to hear them with a different pair of amps to see if a more iron grip on the bass could be had. Overall GREAT GREAT Room.

The Oswaldsmills room very special. What I find amazing is how enjoyable I found this room, and how enjoyable many others felt it was, under the show conditions. Sure every room is in the same boat "show conditions", but one look at the physical size of these speakers should tell you this is not a speaker for a hotel room. I don't think the pictures I have seen truly capture the scale of these speakers they are 7 feet tall. This speaker system was not heard ANYWHERE near its full potential. The limited listening distance was a huge limiting factor to me, here more than any other room I heard. But still this speaker showed it amazing dynamics and remarkable tonal balance. I would also love to hear these with a more powerful amp. Two watts just can not provide enough bass for any speaker. I would like to put 20 watts on these. I expect these will be SCARY good with a 16-20 foot listening distance so the drivers can "gel", and 8-20 SET watts. These speaker are what SET AMPS are all about. This room was obviously aided by Win's AWESOME turntable. Great Room Guys!!!!

I also enjoyed the Vivid Speakers with the Reel to Reel.
When the tape was playing they were AWESOME. When the turntable was playing they became merely very good ; 0 ).
Source is King, this was further reinforced to me.

Other rooms of interest.

The Da Vinci room and the High Water Sound rooms were very nice sounding, they had sweet, beautiful, balanced tone, only downside not full range.

The JM Labs and Hansen rooms, were cold, lean, thin, and lacked body, horrible displays of big dollar equipment.

The Feastrex room with 5 inch field coil the driver shows potential but the cabinet is still is not right. If this speakers upper octaves were not so sweet and musical I would not bother to complain, but they are. I think their is magic to be had with these drivers, I just have not heard it yet. My complaint the bass is out of step with the music.

The Lansche/Wavac/Continuum room was very musical and balanced, and had great tone. However, it lacked the dynamics of the Oswalds Mill and the Classic Audio Reproductions rooms.

The best small speaker were the little Reimyo Speakers at $6500.00 in the Reimyo Room. I was ready to have them boxed it up, they sounded so good and were so small. I was thinking they would be a great office speakers or for a small listening room. In the limited bandwidth speakers group these are a serious rival to the Magico Mini 2's, and actually better in my mind. How is that for being a great bang for the buck!! Very Very nice.

Just my 2 cents.

I am up to day 2 of the RMAF show. I started at the Hyatt. The rooms on day 2 sounded much better than the rooms on day 1. Goes to show how equipment needs time to settle down. If any of you have done cable comparisons and you notice the system doesn't sound as good after moving your cables. For some reason, cables & tubes & equipment needs to settle. Day 2 was good and there was not enough time to listen on Day 3.

To start, I heard Mastersound 845 monoblocks in a large room in the Hyatt. They were driving a speaker which I really liked. I think it was made in Europe or Turkey but I didn't get the name. Ribbon tweeter on top of speaker cabinet and 3 woofer/ midbass units. One driver facing forward and 2 drivers facing back. The room was large. Very large. And it sounded great. They had lots of blue bottles of water on the table. I didn't listen extensively but it was suprisingly good. Decent dynamics and able to image everywhere. Something to be said for space. The speakers were well out into the room.

I also listened to Acoustic Zen w. Halcro electronics. They had a guitarist playing via the electronics and speakers the night before. Not bad. But for regular listening it wasn't my cup of tea.

I went into the GR Research / AV123 Dodd Audio Room. What a deal for these speakers. $7000.00 for a full range linear array w. a ton of drivers. Talk about getting your money worth. The sound was very good for the money. I have a feeling it could be even better. Something was not just right. I couldn't put my finger on it but they were busy adjusting the room for quite a while w. some crossover equipment.

I then heard the Scaena speakers for the 1st time. They were using VTL S400 amps w. DCS as the front end. These speakers are something special. They sounded excellent, but then again I like the VTL house sound which showed through. The DCS also is excellent. The speakers were easy for me to judge being all the electronics were familiar. 1st of all, these speakers had a custom paint job the looked so cool. 2nd, they are an array w. ribbons. I have a feeling this speaker will only get more poplular over time. They aren't cheap. I also think they might need a touch more development. They are so middle of the road. Basically they did everything well. I gave them a good 1/2 hour & would consider buying them if I was in the market again. But..... there was something missing. I need more time to get to know them.

I will mention a few rooms quickly. I heard the medium Ascendos w. the Behold electronics. They were missing a cable so they couldn't equalize the room. So I was explained. I thought I would love the room, but it was bright. We turned on & off the tweeter in the rear of the speaker but it was still bright. In the end I found a lot of rooms bright. My ears??? Not sure but I am home and nothing is bright & I have Wilsons (which people say is bright).

I heard the Harbeth 40s. I can see why some like them, but beyond the ergonomics, I could hear the box. Mind you the box is musical so some might like it. I also heard Ayon electronics w. Escalante Speakers. They were using a decent analogue front end when I came in. I have heard Escalante Speakers a few times now. They fall outside my taste.

I then headed over to the Marriot. I got lost on the ground floor buying records for a long while and decided to stop and finally listen to more rooms. That will be a 2nd post.

I really enjoyed the Voloce mono's with battery powered preamp. They made the Kharma speakers sound wonderful.

I am back. Day 2 Part 2 & the Marriot is the scene. So many rooms & no time. How do you really get to listen to it all. How do you prioritize. I basically ask others what did they hear that they like. I ended up getting stuck downstairs by a bunch of rooms that were all fairly expensive and a few were surprising in both good & bad ways.

In a theater size room a very large pair of Classic Audio Reproductions Speakers w. TAD drivers that are very expensive, and Atmasphere electronics I was able to listen almost totaly alone in the room. The sound was good. I didn't love it. Found it a little bright. This is my impression of TAD tweeters. Not very mind you, but a touch. Still I wouldn't buy these speakers but some would.

Verity Audio w. Artemis Labs electronics. Not bad but I didn't really stop to sit.

I then heard Analysis Audio ribbon full range speakers and VTL MB450s with VTL phono preamp, VPI TT, and VTL preamp. The sound was excellent. I happen to like these speakers a lot. But I like Apogees of the past. Not huge bass, but good enough. It is very hard to get bass from Ribbon panels. Definitely worth consideration, but getting a bass tower/subwoofer would be amazing. Hard to explain the sound, but full size images that are well defined and with detail but not in your face. The images had nice height and speed and decay of notes was very realistic. Coherence in spades. But to integrate bass and you need a balanced room to make them work. EMM was the other source. I am familiar w. VTL & EMM so I know what I heard as a reference to the speakers.

I should mention VTL's new phono stage. Something very unique in terms of convenience. Full remote control, uses 8 tubes, and has adjustable on load, phase for each channel, gain, RIAA, mono & mute. Quite a nice trick. Has both an MM & MC input.

I got to hear the Big Acapellas w. the Ion tweeter. The electronics were Einstein. A very expensive system. It sounds good but I didn't love the detailed nature of the Ion tweeter. I prefer something more natural sounding, like a well executed ribbon. They are good & I can see why people like it, but there is a certain lack of coherence. Not as seemless as the Ribbons, but definitely more power & effortlessness from the Acapellas. Would love to hear them in a 2nd setup, as the feedback from others was not very good.

I then heard the YG Acoustics, the "best" speaker in the world in its most expensive form driven by FM Acoustics. Not sure what the source is but these are the fastest dynamic speakers I have ever heard. The have a scan speak tweeter which I usually like, but here it sounded a little etchy & hard. It could be anything but I listened to the next size down YG speakers in a different system and the sound was similar.

I bumped into Frank Schroder and asked him a ton of questions. Extremely informative. He really understands all the details of his design and more. It was a great conversation. He & Thomas Woshnick are great designers that are the most approachable. I also met w. Luke & Bea of VTL. Once you get to know them, you understand what it is when you purchase a VTL product. You get a company with dedication for the long haul. They are in it for keeps. I am sure there are more people like this in Audio. RMAF lets you meet with them and know if you want to buy from these people. It is great. I also met Alan Perkins, Peter Lederman, and Reinhardt Thoress (he is a teddy bear personality who loves to keep circuits simple).

I got to listen to the new Exemplar Modified Usher Be 10. Driven by Belles Amplification and w. a Exemplar CD player for source or what appears to be a Feikert Turntable. We listened to both the modified and unmodified Usher Be 10. These speakers are a great value for the money. They just did it all & sounded like music. Something special. Bass, clean open mids, and a Beryllium tweeter that sounds sweet. All this with solid state amplification. A great value for the entire system. These speakers can rock, give detail and just do it all. This is a super system on a budget. The only competition they have is the Horning Speakers which also can do dynamics with detail without excluding bass. I listened to them a 2nd time on Sunday Morning w. the new Berning High Power tube amplifiers. I think they are called Quadrature Z. These can push and sound dynamic. The power on tap was excellent. A great amplifier w. a touch of tube like warmth. Mind you the Belles isn't far off, but there is a magic w.the Berning that was missing. The Berning has a purity that is different than most high power tube amps or solid state designs. I need to listen to it again and I do recommend a listen if you need the power. 220 Watts.

I then listened breifly to the Playback Designs Room w. the Wilson Benesch speakers hooked up to DeHavilland. I like Wilson Benesch speakers but this system wasn't anything special to me. It was a quick listen, but something was missing compared to the Usher Suite just before it. I moved on. I took a close up look of the Playback Designs CDP. It looks nice enough, but definitely not my taste. I like the looks of the Esoteric & even the EMM more.

I started to head up. I spoke w. Allen Perkins about the 3 patents on his new tonearm. It really is amazing. There is an amount of brilliance in the design that gives it potential to be one of the great tonearms of all time. I hope it comes out soon. His analogue setup always sounds great. Something to do with his rooms as well.

I then stopped in to relax in the Horning, Tron Room. Today it settled in and sounded great. I went to the Highwater Sound just to hang out. You can't help but listen to music. Jeff always puts on non audiophile pressings that are way cool. I think everyone who goes there experiences the same thing. The room has the perfect balance between a hifi sound & musicality. You can't believe the bass but each speaker has 4 woofers in a push pull configuration. An amazing design that can rock. Of course the new Tron Phono stage is a must listen. Adjustable RIAA and more features. I don't know the model of Hornings by name, but they are $9000 and worth every penny. They do all the tricks but in a most musical way. Nothing in your face, but in no way closed in. This is a sound I love and I doubt there is much comparable in its price range.

It was getting late, so I ran to the Audiogon meet & greet across the street. I met Cello, PCosta, Danselm and a few others. What great guys. Not enough time in the day or the night for that matter. I wish there was more time. Everyone was tired after dinner and wanted to wake early to get a head start.