2008 RMAF – – – all things analog.

I'll be there, along with Trelja, and several others from our Listening Group including Badboss429. My oldest (23 yo son) will be his first RMAF. He and I are driving from the East Coast, making it into the Great American Road Trip...

Doug-

It was great getting a chance to meet you and Paul on Friday at Garcia's. Thanks to Larry (Cello) for making the get together happen. I enjoyed putting faces to names.

There was much to like at RMAF this year and much that was disappointing. The biggest surprise for me was a digital based system in the Hilton: CEC belt drive transport driving a Lessloss DAC w/volume control, into 845 based Mastersound amps from Italy and speakers with a billeted aluminum tweeter that was adjustable for position. The speakers were from Germany - Kaiser (sp?)

On to analog: The TW Raven in Highwater Sounds room sounded very good to these ears. For the first time at RMAF I actually enjoyed the music in the Continuum room. I agree with many that the music in the Oswald Mill's room was right on a lot of levels, as was the LP playback in Mike and Nelli's room via the Brinkmann Balance/Lamm ML-3/Coultrane Supreme.

Tape playback on the Technics 1500 sounded good in the Synergistic Cable room via the Vivid Loudspeakers. I am surprised that there were not more comments posted yet about the resonance treatments that Ted Denny and company were showing. Design appears to be along the same same lines as the Acoustic System of Frank Tchang, but at a lower retail for a complete system. They had several sets available at a "show special" price that were gone by Sat. night. One of the members of my listening group bought a set and I will be anxious to see what they can do.

The production version of the Symposium Panorama speaker looks very nice and sounds good too, but at around $110,000/pair.

Disappointing: The new Focal Grand, the Acapella Triolons. Every year I look forward to hearing Audio Limits large rooms with big ticket products, and every year I am disappointed. The Clearaudio TT and Goldfinger cart should sound much better than it does. I don't think they know how to set the table up properly. It always sounds as if the VTA is way off, and the people running the demos are not inclined to adjust it, even when asked.

Once again, it was great seeing so many of you there - I liked the Two-for-one room at Garcia's a lot!