I've been sitting on these notes since the RMAF in hopes of adding more as time goes on. Unfortunately, I haven't made time to write more thoughts. Therefore, I'll just post the first three rooms I started writing about.
Hope you enjoy....
RMAF 2008
The Saskia turntable in the Oswaldsmill Audio room.
I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked in this room but I did get to hear two of the more difficult Classical LP I had brought along with me. One of them was by chance because I entered the room during the middle of a Liszt piano sonata performed by Nojima. This LP was in my bag of LPs I brought along. This is a very well recorded (and performed) piece of music. The table was my main focus so I tried to listen through the rest of the electronics and the speakers. The sound throughout the mid-band was very good as well as the top end of the spectrum. Win’s table is very sturdy, dynamic, and engaging. This aspect of the music was conveyed very well. Once the gentleman before me was finished with his LP, I asked to play one of my own. Having heard what I thought was a bit of slowness in the lower register of the piano on the Liszt Sonata, I asked Win to play a piece of music performed by bassist Gunter Klaus. This is a modern piece of music by Jean Francaix called Concerto pour contrebasse et orchestre (1974). I asked Win to start with the second movement since it would get to the meat of my curiosity. What I heard was very good tracking and solid playback through all three movements. This confirmed for me the quality of the turntable is excellent. I must say however that there was a slowness in the bass along with a bit of bloat in the low 30Hz range. The majority of the bloat is most likely an issue with room setup and show conditions. The speakers or the amps driving them did not capture the lower registers of the piano on the Nojima recording and this was confirmed to my ears on the Gunter Klaus performance. In the context of the show, this was a very satisfying listening session. The sound, save for the lowest register of bass that is lost or not fully captured by many systems costing much, much, more than these electronics/speakers, was one of two 4th floor oasis’ for me.
The Ridge Street Audio Sasons
Each time I entered this room, the music was being played at a modest level. Having the system sourced from a server discouraged me from asking to play some of my favorite music pieces that I had brought along on the silver disc. However, even though some of the music was more mainstream including one of the few rooms playing Patty Barber, the sound on the three or four visits was warm and non-fatiguing. These big little speakers did a very good job at the levels they were being played. I have a local audio pal that will be getting a pair of these soon and now I understand why he’s so excited to get them. These speakers were an oasis for the 4th floor…
Matrix Audio
This year the Matrix crew had the dCS Puccini SACD player, Lamm Electronics , and Tidal speakers combined to make great sound. It was unfortunate that this room didn’t have the ability to playback vinyl. I had to enjoy Clark Terry via and SACD. I know the SACD is not as dynamic as the original vinyl pressing but it was a very pleasant experience nonetheless. This room was my 5th floor oasis pick.
