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Anyone else attend the California Audio Show in Oakland?

I went yesterday 7/28, heard some really good stuff, including:

Old Forge Studios room. The Soundkaos Vox 3F standmounted 3 ways were incredible! My favorites of the show. Tiny boxes and 35Hz on the low end had many of us looking for a subwoofer. The Wand tt and PureAudio electronics were excellent.

Tidal Contriva speakers speakers were my 2nd choice as favorites. Just a bit more expensive than the Soundkaos at $65,000, they were beautiful to look at and gorgeous to listen to, or vice versa. Open and airy, great bass extension, with the equally fine Bricasti amps and preamp, they would surely be even better in a larger room.

Aurender streamers and dacs also pulled me in. I’m looking for new gear, and they have a great selection. The combo dacs and streamers start at around $3500 and run to $22,000 for the W22SE, which was playing in their room. 

On on the down side:

Audio Vision SF Room
I didn’t care for the Naim/Rega/Focal gear. It sounded very shut in, muffled to me. Sibilance was not pronounced, and the Focal speakers sounded blurred. 

Wyred4sound

I've never been a fan, so maybe I’m biased, but the new gear just didn’t add up to me. Disjointed is the word I come up with. The new W4S speakers were these hulking boxes, with drivers arranged in MTM configuration. The tweeters are ribbons, which I usually enjoy, but these sounded too laid back to me. 

Any other attendee thoughts?

pumper24

Showing 6 responses by audio_phool

audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
@auxinput @pumper24 @russbutton  If you could post your detailed impressions of Vox 3F speakers then that would be of great help. I request you to put them on a separate thread that I have started at below link.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/need-impressions-of-soundkaos-vox
I would really appreciate your inputs as actual user impressions are a rarity for these speakers.
Regads,Saurabh
audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
@auxinput thanks for the your impressions. You have raised one very interesting point of not treating real walls and ceiling because of top mounted ribbon tweeter. This would make it even more interesting case for Indian small homes where treating the room is not always possible.
Do you remember anything about it's imaging and soundstage capabilities?
Regards,Saurabh
audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
@auxinput Thanks for your reply. Yes, I agree that having a top mounted tweeter would help in having large sound-stage. I have seen many of the very high end speakers such as ones from Von Schweikert Audio use an additional tweeter (usually ribbon) mounted on the back side of the speaker for the ambience/sound-stage. Hence top mounted tweeter seems to be a very clever design alternative to using separate back-mounted one.
I just want to know all these clever designs are not causing any glaring issues in the overall sound of the speaker as having a clever design is one part but implementing them to have good sound is different story.
I agree on the pre-amp/amp part regarding soundstage. IMO your entire upstream chain is going to decide how how well these sound as every component has contribution to overall final sound of your system. Thankfully I have Bakoon Amp 13-R (doing dual duty of headphone amp and stereo integrated amp) which is supposed to have one of the best pairing with these speakers as Martin from SoundKaos has designed the speaekrs with this amp.

Regards,Saurabh
audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
@auxinput Yes, Bakoon's Amp 13 R is a very well regarded amp both Headphone as well as stereo. So having quality amp for both Stereo and Headphone at this price makes it a good value. Also it saves on buying and matching pre and power amps as it is an integrated amp. So after considering all that and very small size & weight (just 5 kgs) it is an excellent choice for people like me who are short on space and still want high end stuff.

Yes it's a low power amp 25 Watts into 8 ohms and 50 in 4 watts, but its pretty stable even in difficult loads because of it's proprietary Satri Circuit which is kind of Current Amplification.
Yes, I have already gone through the 6moons review along with all available reviews (Hifi Knights, Positive Feedback and HiFiStatement which is in German)
http://hifiknights.com/reviews/speakers/soundkaos-vox-3afw/

https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/sound-kaos-3f-loudspeakers/

https://www.hifistatement.net/tests/item/2813-sound-kaos-vox-3f?start=0
While I have gone through all these reviews, I always take them with a pinch of salt (no, actually with bucket-full of salt). Over these review I value the impressions/reviews from the real world users who provide much more honest thoughts. Since real world user impressions/reviews are almost non-existent, hence I have asked you to provide your feedback which would help me to decide whether or not pull such a costly trigger.
Regards,Saurabh
audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
There is another German review which I forgot to mention.
https://www.lowbeats.de/kompaktbox-soundkaos-vox-3ff-huebscher-geht-es-kaum/
Saurabh
audio_phool's avatar
audio_phool
58 posts
 
@larsman yes, Bakoon Korea has split from Bakoon Japan & now Bakoon Korea is Enleum. Their new Amp 23-R is essentially repackaged & renamed amp 13-R. Though I personally feel construction (chassis) of 13-R is much better than new one as old was CNC machined with transformer, power board in separate compartments also the capacitor bank for power section was slightly bigger than new one. This is the reason why the newer 23-R is at-least $500 cheaper than old 13-R.
https://www.bakoon.com/product/amp-13r/
https://enleum.com/#amp_23r


Regards,
Saurabh
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