Some impressions from the 2007 RMAF:
*FOOTNOTE: The "clod" comment is meant to refer to and poke a little fun at me and me alone, not any other consumers or attendees. Honest. Really.
Here's how the original post regarding Rau Audio (NOT Rao Audio) SHOULD have read: 2. Rau Audio launched their company on the first day of the 2007 RMAF. I thought the sound from their room was just OUTSTANDING, and went back for more. They designed their entire system, except perhaps for the CD player or turntable (I don’t remember which they were using; I think it was a CD player but am not sure, and either way their room sounded fantastic.) Premp: Rau Alpha 2000P bipolar solid state preamp, all class A Amp: Rau Alpha 2000, three years in the making, 20 watt solid state class A monoblocks, selling for $9K. Speakers: Rau Towers. Four way towers using first order (6 dB slope) crossovers. A HORN is used as one of the drivers in an unconventional (and perhaps unique?) manner: The horn is used as a “frequency generator” to augment only selected frequencies, with very low power sent to the horn, and this is done to add “spaciousness” to the sound. It WORKED, in my opinion. (It reminds me of the Rel philosophy of using subsonic frequency augmentation to do essentially the same thing. That works too, in my opinion.) A VERY SPECIAL ROOM. Tonality was outstanding, VERY holographic and precise, stable imaging with depth front to back and width side to side. The designer is BOTH a musician AND an engineer and it SHOWS. I still don’t really understand how they’re able to get those dynamics from a 20 watt solid state amp with only 86 dB efficient speakers, but the proof was in the listening for me. Rau Audio. Maybe they should call it Wow Audio. ADDENDUM: It took the designer something like TEN YEARS to come up with this system. It SHOWED--in terms of sonic excellence--to my ears at least. |
OK gang, after falling in love with them at RMAF 2006 and 2007, my new Mahlers have finally arrived. I have just started a thread to discuss their break in process and other Mahler-related matters. See you all at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1195845334&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona |
Correction to item #2 in the original post above: It's Rau Audio, NOT Rao Audio. My mistake. Apologies. Here's the website url: www.rau-audio.com Here's a link: http://www.rau-audio.com |
Anyone visited the Odyssey suite? I was tremendously impressed with what Klaus did for $5K consisting of a 12AX7 pre, a solid state amp and speakers equipped with ScanSpeak drivers. With my test CD the system sounded fast, musical, harmonically textured, spatial and very involving. I visited the Soundings suite several times. Like last year the 'big' system consisted of a Primare CDp, Rowland Concerto Pre, Rowland 312 amp, and Vienna Mahler speakers. Like last year, the sound was sweet, spacious, refined and powerful. . . the system had impressed me so much that I did order a pair of Mahlers over the summer; but I must admit that the suite did not sound as magnificent as last year, where the same system played in much more favorable conditions. . . this year the twin 10 inch Scanspeak drivers of the Mahlers were generating a slight amount of bass overpressure, which was ameliorated but not eliminated when the external Rel sub was finally turned off. I did attempt to walk out of the suite with the 312 discretely tucked under my arm, but Jeff Rowland -- who was standing at the door -- pointed out from his almost 7 ft of height that I looked a bit funny that way. . . oh well, perhaps next year I might be able to afford one if SWMBO permits. One last thing about the Soundings suite: has anyone listened to the Primare CDp made in Sweeden? This seems a very remarkable device for its moderate price tag of $2500. For the first time I enjoyed Wilson Audio speakers without Reservations. I thought the WP8s and the Maxes were achieving magnificent musicality in addition to the well renouned Wilson spectacular sonics and staging. . . . but, why only shiny car laquers? What's wrong with subdued and satiny woodgrain finishes? By sheer serendipity I landed into the Nordost room. . . and did not move from there for one hour. I have never been a particular fan of Valhalla, but the new Oden wires sounded stunning and Anne-Sophie Mutter moved me to tears! Heard the Spectron Musician 3 Signature amp at Steve Chang's (Schang) place. As I already wrote elsewhere on Audiogon, in spite of it being almost fresh out of the factory, the amp was incredibly enjoyable and is definitely worth a very careful and long listen with an open mind. Close your eyes and ignore for a spell whether its underlying technology is switching, MOS-FET, tubed or otherwise. . . just ask yourselves it it makes music. . . it did for me and I am looking forward to listening in the future to a fully broken-in Spectron. I spent an inordinate amount of time at Emotive. . . and. . . emotive is certainly the operative word that applied to the wonderful system in room 550. Visited the Avotar room and held a bronze Acoustic Resonator in my hand. The room had been entirely treated with Resonators. Not sure if Resonators were the cause, but the cappuccino I was offered tasted truly great! And then there were all the old and new friends I met. . . Steve Chang (Schang), Albert Porter, Tri of TriPlanar, Eric Chinta, Brent Rainwater, Bruce, Norm (TBG), Angie from American Sound, Jim Rebman and Lynda, Mike Lavigne, Neely and Mike of Audio Federation, the entire TAS gang, my partner in crime Peter Scialli (Scialli, Jim Aud, Jeff Rowland, Slipknot1, Bruce Strass of May Audio, Klaus Bunge of Odyssey, Tim crable from TEAC, Larry Borden, Fred Volz of Emotive, and so many more. . . you are the reason being an audiophile is such a great human experience! Guido |
Whart I attended many CES shows when they were in Chicago years ago. Back then the good stuff was in the hotel rooms separate from the mass produced stuff. The show was intended for dealers but it was still a good time for the hobbiest like us. The RMAF is deffinently more fun though. I will not be going next year but possibly the following year. Would like to meet more folks like yourself. |
Bflowers, I read your impression of the Kharma/mbl room playing a "...very well recorded test CD that I know well. The sound was awful. Bass notes that were painful to listen to..." I am not that surprised by your reaction and I suspect it was not becoause of a bad set up or "show conditions." I noticed that you own a very nice system with Wilson Maxx II's which I must assume you enjoy a great deal. I find that Wilson and Kharma speakers have VERY different sonic signatures. I base this impression on having auditioned Wilson Alexandria X-2's at a local dealer's well set up dedicated room on several occasions and owning a Kharma/mbl system similar to what you heard at RMAF. Depending on the kind of music you prefer and what you are looking for in reproduced music, I believe one could find one system to be terrific and the other unlistenable. It is all a matter on one's taste. |
Bflowers, I heard a particular brand of speakers sound bad at the show, and that was the first time I had heard them. People I trust very much have said that they are great speakers. They are known to require a large room and this one was small. I believe that the set-up must have been screwy and I basically discounted that listening session. Normally I wouldn't discount what my own ears heard, but these speakers are just too well regarded by people who are critical listeners. It's almost certain that the set-up was incorrect. Maybe that's the case with the room you were listening in with respect to the bass. I feel pretty strongly that although the show was really great, any conclusions drawn, at least negative ones, would have to be tentative, at least for me. Why not make positive ones tentative too? Well, they are, but less so I think because for most systems, it's hard to get things to sound GOOD by accident, i.e., because the voltage got screwed up, or the speaker placement was bad, etc. But relatively small flaws in the setup easily compromise the sound, and can make things get BAD sounding very quickly. |
Reading the reports over the last few days has been very interesting/enlightening. One of the rooms I had been told was a must listen was the Karma room (535 I believe) with their larger speakers. As I walked in they were playing vinyl and it sounded very nice. He obliged me by putting in a very well recorded test CD that I know well. The sound was awful. Bass notes that were painful to listen to. I began to be a bit embarrased for him and gestured for him to give me the disc back as I didn't want to have him lose any customers because my CD screwed up his demo. He didn't notice, and let it play. The second song was as bad as the first. (Ray Charles, and Patricia Barber) I assumed the room was suboptimal for low frequency, but it is really surprising to hear so many consider it the best sound at the show. It just shows how tastes vary, and impressions can be so different based on source, source material, etc. They may be excellent speakers, but they sounded dreadful in this limited listening session. |
Hi Bill. Thanks for the complement. I wish we had met also. I agree Dales room was one of the finer rooms. A room that got my attention and my wifes as we walked by was Usher. We walked by it about 10 feet, we both stopped looked at each other like, is that a real singer in their? Went inside and it was the little Usher Be-718. About $2,800. That speaker made the biggest impression on me at the show from the mid bass up.My wife is not into audio but she was impressed with Ushers room also. That is really saying something. Met Steve Mccormack will be interested in his line stage down the road,Duke,Dale Pitcher and Bruce Jacobs. Got some questions answered. I am really glad we went this being our first time at the show. I had a very good time and to get to hear so much in 2 days I learned a lot. |
Did anyone hear the new Acoustic Zen Crescendo loudspeaker at the RMAF? What was your impression? When I was there Sat afternoon, the sound was incredible. It is a 3-way full range, 20-30 kHz, uses underhung drivers for very low distortion (rare), and has both amazing speed and delicacy also. I think it will turn out to be one of the world's truly great speakers. |
Your first room mentioned was room 535 and I also thought it was the very best that I heard at the show. 33k for the speaker. After the first tune with the Vyger TT, Airtight cart, I told mister Kubala not to turn a cd on as it was the very best sound in the building. David Robinson from Positive Feedback turned around and told mister K that he was giving them best sound. He took pics of them all and the gear. A no brainer. I do not think that room had a CDP in it. What a smart group of Gents they were. |
