Scottsdale Speakerfest, 6/29/19
Hi All,
I don't know if anyone else on these forums attended the first annual Scottsdale Speakerfest yesterday: but I did and wanted to offer my impressions. I suppose like any first time, it would have benefitted form better organization. Fortunately, I don't think any more than 100 people showed up, and it was sponsored by the Arizona Audio Video Club, so a good number of those in attendance were members.
It was held in a very nice venue; 2 rooms in a large modern office building in a large office park. The only dealer there was a very nice gent named Tom from a new ATC dealer in Tempe. His system was all ATC from CD player to amp, with Cardas clear cabling, the speaker being the SCM 40. This system sounded amazing on all music, and it seemed that there was no argument about that.
The other speakers were:
Joseph Audio Pulsar - I was really looking forward to this because I had never heard it before. It was set up with a small Hegel integrated and an Oppo CD player after the laptop used for streaming gave out, and the sound was pleasant but underwhelming. They changed the set up later, but I missed the demo, and whatever the change was, but those in the room said it was much better. I must say that in person, they look like 9k...those binding posts! Geez.
Tekton Double Impact - My first time hearing them, and they impressed me by not being impressive. Big wide open stage, focused vocals, very good separation and dynamics, but what I noticed most was balance over the range from bass to treble. Nothing stood out. They did sound "all of a piece" in spite of all those drivers. I'd love to hear them in a well sorted and optimized system, which this wasn't.
Sanders Electrostatic - Wow... Something must have been terribly wrong. They just can't sound this bad!. My friend and I were shocked by the sound. After the first 15 minutes of playing it, they never bothered again as far as I could tell. And they were using 2 Magtech monos to drive them.
LSA monitors - Never saw these in person before and I had no idea that they were so deep front tp back! Unfortunately, the sound was really disappointing. They sounded small and muffled, closed in you would say. gain, I think they must be pretty good speakers under better circumstances.
Spatial Sapphire - This was loaned by the designer as a new model. It was a 15" bass driver with a dome tweeter up top. It was very disappointing in almost every way. The original ones with a 15" bass and a 15" coaxial must be a lot better.
Zu Audio Soul Supreme - This really sounded nice overall, a bit treble-centric and the bass didn't reach that low, but it was a lively and fun speaker.
Salk Tower - I don't know what this tower was called, but they were 4k and had a beautiful exotic high gloss veneer. They have a beryllium tweeter, and boy was it clear and detailed! It also had a 5" mid driver, and way down near the bottom, an 8" woofer. It had a slot that suggested a transmission line at the front bottom. This speaker sounded really nice, and was immediately "impressive" with that tweeter, but I had the feeling that it would be very unkind to recordings that had distorted or overly prominent high frequencies.
The ATCs were the flat out winner, just because they are so good at making music sound real, and are completely enjoyable. Impossible to know if the Tektons could have competed, but it would have been very informative to hear them in that same system with the ATC electronics.
All in all, a nice day, and not overcrowded. I wonder what next year will be like.
