RMAF 2019!

I attended all day Friday and half a day Saturday. This was my first RMAF. I have attended the last three AXPONAs in Chicago. I stayed at the venue hotel. Here are my impressions. The facilities were very nice but registration was a long hike from the rest of the action. And registration didn't open Friday until 30 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin. This produced a very long line of folks, many of whom were pre-registered to attend. The RMAF staff didn't show up at the registration table until 9:15am and didn't have an initial plan to have two lines: one for pre-registered folks and one who needed to buy tickets. Basically, pretty unorganized.Classic Album Sundays--This is a great idea! The room was the Jeff Rowland/Grand Prix Monaco TT/Vivid Kaya 90 set up. Great sound coming from this room IMO.Goebel/CH Precision/Nordost/Kronos--This room was over the top. I went both days. For whatever reason (insert your theories here), it sounded more cohesive bottom to top on day two. Day 1 the bass seemed a bit untamed.Joseph Audio/Doshi/Cardas--Let's face it, Jeff Joseph can make his speakers sound really good in any room. This is the first time I have seen Jeff significantly toe in Pearl 3s, but he had them in a small room. These Pearl 3s had the Graphene 2 in them and I believe the new name will be Pearl 20.20s. It appears the retail price is going to be around $36,900 or so. Jeff says he hasn't determined how much it will cost for current Pearl 3 owners to upgrade. (Full disclosure--I own Pearl 3s.)YG Acoustics/VTL/Nordost--This room had the Sonja 2.2 in it. Friday it sounded mediocre in my opinion. Saturday it sounded much better.University of Colorado Denver room--Nothing for sale in this room, just a demonstration that was worth the time. Jeff Merkel, a professor at UofC, was using a two channel signal sent to a ring of 16 speakers (I think) equidistantly spaced apart with 8 speakers at a lower level (I'm guessing 4-5 feet or so) and 8 more speakers on the same height pole but another 4-5 feet above them. The listening positions were placed in a ring facing towards the speakers. He then played a track and would move the lead instrument (in the track I heard, a cello) around the speakers in the circle so that the cello moved completely round the listening position. Hopefully folks made their way into this room. Smart people experimenting with musical presentation gives this hobby its lifeblood IMO.Finally, the weirdest room award goes to Wilson Audio. They debuted a static Chronosonic XVX right next to a static WAMM Chronomaster. The Chronomaster retails at $685,000 or so. The Chronosonic XVX is set to retail for $325K or so. So, picture two enormous speakers on static display in a small room off to your left with a professional photographer taking pictures and Daryl Wilson all dressed up, looking good smiling between them. There is champagne for all. In the listening room right beside all this there is a pair of Wilson Sasha DAWs with a pair of Wilson's smaller passive subwoofers playing digital files. One million dollars worth of static display with pictures and the bubbly while a $38K pair of speakers in a small crammed room sounded, well...pedestrian as it provided the soundtrack to the static display. BTW I have heard those DAWs sound very good at Audio Concepts being driven by Audio Research M160s with Transparent Cables, and AR's Ref 10 pre-amp. So it wasn't that the DAWs can't deliver. It just appeared more energy had been put into the unveiling of something we couldn't hear and little thought was put into what we were actually hearing.   

@andrewkelley Thanks for reaching out. I am a Dallas guy. PM me and I will put you in touch with a local network of like-minded folks. And I will stop by and check your place out.

I heard the Audio Solutions Virtuoso M speakers paired with Vitus amplification gear. The source was the top of the line UHA reel to reel. I thought they sounded pretty good overall and very good with rock material. The bass was not dialed in, but candidly, that is true on almost all the hotel room or conference room set-ups. The star of that room was the UHA reel to reel IMO. I'm fairly certain that it will make anything downstream of it sound pretty darn good provided the recording is up to par. I was impressed that the highendbyoz guys running the room pushed rock tracks through the system--not exclusively, but enough to show they knew their system could take it and make the genre sound enjoyable in an audiophile setup.  

I basically agree with this list (although not the order), with one exception, although I didn't get close to listening to very room. Instead of the Revel room, I would replace it with Goebel/CH Precision/Kronos/Nordost room.

@prof I understand your point about the Vivid sound, except that the Vivid/Rowland/Grand Prix room at AXPONA 2019 and the Vivid/Rowland/Grand Prix room at RMAF 2019 translated in a different way to my ears. For whatever reason, IMO this combination on two occasions this year has walked the line of pleasing resolution without sacrificing "musicality." Because I know we both are partial to the Perspective/Pearl sound, I would have liked to have heard your take on those rooms. The Pearl 20.20s at RMAF were exhibiting greater clarity than Pearl3s without giving up any "musical" ground whatsoever (IMO).