What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?


Of course I have my picks, but what are yours?
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Showing 3 responses by azaud

I was surprised how much I didn't like the Shelter Harmony. I've always thought that if one came up on Audiogon for half price I would jump on it. Glad now that it didn't come up.
On the other hand, I got to hear the new Shelter 901 mkII. The original 901 is my go-to right now, and wow! What nice improvements! Something I can afford is something I want. Go figure...
The Ascendo System F's, as usual, sounded magnificent. I'd never heard the Lotus Group's Granadas before. Open-baffled masterpieces, IMHO.
You Bel Canto guys didn't mention the CD player. I was pretty impressed with that little thing.
Jeff, your improvements to the Pearl are wonderful (I'm the guy who asked about upgrading the originals).
A couple of my favorite rooms were the Tri and Wavelength rooms. I also loved listening in the TW Acustic (sic) room. I tend to want to not be impressed at first. I want a system that I have to drag myself away from after hours of listening. I had to drag myself away from these rooms; whereas in a lot of other rooms that I was bowled over by (the sound) when I first walked in, I found myself saying to my audio cohort "OK, what's next?" after ten minutes.
The Wavelength room didn't have a component (not to mention cable!) that was $10,000.00, and yet it was one of the best listens I had. I made it a point to go back on Sunday and enjoy the feed from that great server system one last time. Still, that's maybe my biggest complaint about the show. The servers bar me from injecting my reference tracks into the process of evaluating the different systems/components. The thing that I like about these shows is that I get to hear what Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark" sounds like in dozens of guys' (and gals'... Won't under appreciate you, Kara!) systems. Basically, I get to hear what different folks feel a hundred K should sound like.
Without reference tracks, I feel that's lost.
Hi Agear,
Ya, and after their (Intuitive Design) no-show last year, I was really looking forward to it. Two years ago I was blown away by the sound with those monster water-cooled muthas. When I heard them this year however, I was underwhelmed, to say the least. I'm not a fan of powered subs integrated into the design of speakers, and the amps that fit into those bases were MIA two years ago, and with just the monitors working, I thought they sounded magnificent. With that woolly, inorganic bass this year? No thank you.
Hi Duane,
Yup, broke my own rule. Had my audio cohort's WHT PR1 mkII's on my Frankenstein's at my house, and they sounded hideous in the nether regions; but in his room, with a 1/3 the cost Rocket 88? Magic. Setting up a room in a hotel, with nasty A/C (when it flowed at all...) in a day's time is a recipe for an OK representation of a speaker's charms at best.
Like I said, I was seriously bummed when I saw the Intuitive Design room unmanned last year, as I LOVED that room two years ago. The product reminds me of those 70's speakers that I fell in love with in my youth.
I should have known better, and that goes double for what my mom always said about "If you can't say anything nice..."
My apologies, and I hope to hear you next year. Maybe the Denali's?