Jaybo....thanks to you I'll come out of the closet and give my opinion. I was at the show all three days, but now realize just how much I missed. I enjoyed many rooms and of course some were spectacular. The aforementioned Merlins and the TW Acustic with the Hornigs and the Trons(this was especially good)both stand out in my mind. The one room that really brought out emotion in me was the Harbeth room. I heard the little P3ESRs Sat. and was amazed at the sound. I went back Sunday to hear the SHL-5s and it was literally a religious experience. I was actually reaching in my back pocket for my check book which I had wisely stashed in my room. I was at the show all three days and this was the only system that left me awestruck. The soundstage was huge. The speakers melted away and I was taken away. The power was provided by a Perreaux integrated amp.
I've only been in this hobby for a couple of years, so what do I know. I do know what I heard and how I was moved. |
Did anyone hear the Audio Acoustic/Art Audio room? What wee your impressions? |
Thanks Duane for clarifying ID room. Having owned Dales speakers for over 15 years because I have yet to hear anything else I like more I just could not understand what Azaud was hearing. Dales speakers are incredibly clean with outstanding tonal balance. In most systems they would not be the weakest link in a system.Thanks again for the detailed info. |
For me the Tidal Contrivas in room 2004 walked away with the "best sound" award, but only by Sunday. Like always the last day is the best. Too often manufacturers bring green electronics and speakers.
Second but quite a step down both in realism and price was the Eficion speakers which were in room 461 with the StillPoints and Exemplar equipment.
There were a few other rooms with acceptable sound such as Reference 3A, but most just had normal show sound which did not excite any interest.
I love the RMAF and will continue attending. |
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? |
Did anyone take note of the signal and speaker cables that were used in the Vandersteen - Audio Research system?
Thanks. |
10-09-09: Microstrip
Did anyone take note of the signal and speaker cables that were used in the Vandersteen - Audio Research system?
Thanks. Shunyata, I believe. |
In Vandersteen room Shunyata was used: King Cobra CX, and Stratos if I recall correctly. G. |
I thought the Vandersteen prototypes at CES sounded better than these production versions, but I might have been an underpowered amp at RMAF. The demonstrator would not turn the volume up much. |
The GamuT room was actually stunning after the speakers were reset. They had too much midbass and were reset on Sunday for better balance, clarity and inner detail.
Dave |
Lesson learned: instead of passing negative judgment on Friday, next time I need to arrive Sunday and leave Monday. Or perhaps vendors should arrive early and take more time for careful set-up. |
Dgarretson, right you are. Friday is useful only to see what you need to come back to hear, to buy software, and to visit with old friends. It is dead on Sunday night, but there are a few of us still around.
Incidentally, this is true at CES also. |
Norm, my feeling about underpowered amplification exactly. . . I felt that the Vandy 7 could have used the more powerful Ref 220s to shine. Guido |
Tbg, I see your point, but it doesn't explain how many exhibitors manage to obtain great sound from the get-go on Friday. If "big" room showcase exhibitors take several days to sort things out, then they are failing the majority of attendees. And if the "true" sound of the show is available to just an exclusive few on the last night of the show, this accomplishes little for the industry or for the state of the art.
With respect to GamuT, any casual visitor walking into that auditorium-sized room on Friday would understand that speakers positioned 25' apart are challenged to produce minimally acceptable performance.
For me the treasure at these shows is off-piste in the small rooms. |
Dgarretson, I did not visit the GamuT room until Sunday, but I don't believe any of the first floor or mezzanine rooms sounded at all good on Friday or even Saturday. Some never! The Acapella room, the YG room, and the Synergistic Research rooms were examples of what I am saying. I would concede that the YG room sounded better than I have ever heard YGs sound, but on Sunday they were much better.
You are suggesting that manufacturers are failing those that attend. I agree, but most can do very little about this as they cannot install until Thurs. and often the equipment has just been finished up for this show and even CES.
I have been to at least forty "shows" and have never heard any exception. I must say that this is only one of the problems, however. Lousy rooms are another. I remember that Quad 57s always sounded good as they did not overload their room and took very little time to breakin. So I entirely agree with your last sentence, but neither problem has a likely solution. |
Last year, Guido and I watched Sumiko and Soundings try to set up their De Muzik Vienna Acoustic speakers in a small room. It was painstaking, backbreaking work, in the end dealing with fractions of inches. After all this work, tweaking continued into the night and into the next morning. The speakers were impressive, but they really didn't show their true potential at the 2008 show.
This year Soundings elected to have a table at RMAF and steer interested parties over to their shop just two-blocks away. The De Muzik's had been tweaked for over a year. Despite this, Guido and I heard some sloppyness in the upper bass, particularly when driven with the massive Boulder 2060. The owner of Soundings and the Sony speaker designer worked further on placement and fixed the issue and greatly improved the top to bottom smoothness and integration before guests started showing up in volume on Friday.
That just shows you how tough the issue is, even in your home. Mike Lavigne even talked about how he's refining his bass absorbtion in his dedicated room that he's been in for years and seems overdamped. One last comment, Lars, the GamuT designer told us after we complained that he knew how to fix our complaint and asked us to come back in a little bit on Sunday. When we came back, the bloom in the bass was replaced by bottom to top coherancy and great inner detail, in that HUGE room. Lars said that he moved each speaker about 2-inches!!!
It's really tough for the exhibitors. At one show, I think it was CES in early 2008, Jeff Rowland struggled with his room for hours and finally elected to do a static display. Maybe more people should do that, but it's easy to understand their reluctance at such an event.
Dave |
Vintage Sansui sp-5500 (made in Japan) "Some say speakers made in the late 60's to mid 70's were the best sounding speakers ever made... period!"..... "Speakers made (TODAY) are made mostly for Home Theater"....... |
Maybe we haven't come too far in speakers since the '70s, but such older speakers are not to be revered, except for Quad 57s. |
The main difference between speakers back then and now is that well built speakers that are large and solid enough to deliver full or near full range sound clearly with muscle behind it in larger rooms in particular will cost a lot more new these days in general. |
hifi, tbg and mapman, maybe there have not been a lot of changes to improve certain quantitative aspects of sound reproduction but there are many that have improved the qualitative aspects. to mention a few, internal wire technology, capacitors types, resistor types, solders, inductor and driver technology. so although the last few posts have a degree of merit, imho i cannot totally agree.
best, bobby at merlin |
I'm with 76doublebass. The best room I heard - and by a stunningly wide margin - was the Win Analog room. Not sure if it's coincidence or not, but it was also the only room I entered with the speakers more than a quarter of the way in to the room.
I was pleasantly surprised by the small Esoteric room, which also featured the Esoteric speakers. I did not hear any leanness in that room, and it actually led me to more strongly consider an Esoteric CD player as a SS alternative to the Ayon CD-2 I enjoy so much. |
I thought that as usual, most of the cost no object rooms with full range speakers, YG acoustics, Focal, were as usual, stymied by room problems, as others have described. The only exception was the Gamut room, which I liked a lot.
I agree with many remarks about other rooms:
TW Accustic Tron was excellent
Daedalus Da-Rama/Modwright were very nice
LSA, which nowone has mentioned, was very good for a low cost set up
The contrast with the Wilson Sassha'a and Duette was interesting. I did'nt like the former at all, they seemed to have a hard edge to them, but the smaller speakers were one of the nicest set ups I heard.
Moscode Von Scheikert were very good indeed. I understand there mmay be a synergy between them. |
I second (or third) the Esoteric room. . . I was particularly taken by comparing on X-01 D2 playback of redbook tracks as PCM, and then repeating listening with conversion to DSD. . . very convincing to my ears and my musical prefs. G. |
Having been there in the 1970's, let me tell you there were a lot more poor sounding speakers then than now.
Some of todays cheaper speakers are much better than those from "good old days"
Hey, the Japanese were buying and listening to 1960 Altecs and not buying Japanese 1970's speakers.
The last thing I would ever contemplate is that good old 70's sound.
Now what coast did you prefer, East or West?
The speakers were so coloured that East coast were for light jazz, folk, classical(AR,)and the West coast rocked hard to JBL.
I think we have come a long ways . |
What amps were driving the Ref 3A Grand Veena? |
Worst sound was Tocaro speakers driven by EMM electronics. The speaker is a full range, single driver design from Germany priced at about $8,000. The sound was dreadful, tinny, and annoying.
The Ref 3A Grand Vs were driven by 30 wpc Belles amps and sounded very nice. |
an interesting aside the all the equipment opinions (which is to be expected) is 'the biggest change of allin sound'...the demographic of the consumer..way older ears ,perhaps more affluent, predominately male, lots of free time....honestly, a completely different 'target' audience than 2 channel stereo was trying to attract 20 years ago or 30 years ago. The hi end portion of CES is looking like 'gods waiting room'....yes I'm an older fart too. |
Did anyone listen to the Dynaudio room? They had some new German made monster tube amps from Octave in there. 6 Moons did a write up about some of the smaller amps and integrated stuff and it does sound to me. I own the smaller tube amps and brothers to the big ones. I wish I went, just to see how all of the new equipment.
Ciao,
Audioquest4life |
