Montreal Salon Audio / Montreal Audio Fest 2017 Show Report
Part 2 Show Report By Rick Becker

  The grand display was as you entered with the huge Clearaudio TT1 Statement turntable, appropriately cordoned off, fronting a system culminating with the massive Focal Utopia speakers driven by the Naim Statement mono amps ($180,000US). (Note periphery ring casually leaning against this mega-buck turntable.) On this first visit to the room they, like most everything else, were on silent display so I wandered through the space without an official host and snapped some photos.

A floorstanding banner proclaimed a lengthy list of show specials for those eager to buy.

Astell&Kern was demoed with Focal headphones.

Crystal Cable's stand mounted monitor has evolved in many ways since it was introduced with a glass cabinet. This looked to be the Arabesque Minissimo Diamond with an ovoid pyramid on top, augmented here with a large Subissimo subwoofer seemingly serving as a stand for another inexplicable speaker and an electronic box.

The IsoAcoustics Gaia 1 footers at $700 for a set of four looks like a serious challenger to the Stillpoints Ultra footers at a much lower cost. The proof, of course, is in the listening. Later, on the lower level, I would encounter an active display of their speaker isolation stands that impressed me.

Devialet had a complete rig to demonstrate their almost-all-in-one component playing with the Devialet Phantom wireless speakers — wireless, except for the power cord, of course. And yes, that's a turntable as the source for this minimalist system.

Not far away was this Clearaudio Double Matrix Professional Sonic vacuum record cleaner with lots of buttons to control even the speed and the direction of the LP.

Clearaudio showed up again in this modest rig with a turntable from their Innovation series as the front end of a stack of SPL 3/4 size components with red anodized faceplates giving it more lifestyle presentation. But don't be fooled—these are serious components. I believe I was told at TAVES last October that the phono section of the preamp was particularly good.

Music Hall's mmf 1.3 has been replaced by the mmf 2.3 so the card was made out TBD for the show, but somebody wrote in $399. So it's not clear if this was an end-of-model price for the mmf 1.3 or the price for the new mmf 2.3. Time will tell. Music hall has also recently come out with some new phono stages that should be quite interesting and affordable.

Micromega's answer to Devialet, the M-One, has typically been paired with Focal speakers in a matching color. Shown here is Nogaro Blue with the M1 driving the new Sopra No. 3 model. This is lifestyle at a high level of style and audio quality, for sure.

Wharfedale's Reva 4 speaker at $2499 is a stylistic departure in the contemporary direction that is sweeping both the audio and home furnishing industries.

Musical Fidelity's MX-Vynl fully balanced phono stage looked very user friendly with the large dial on the right allowing for loading of both MC and MM cartridges and toggle switches for EQ (both IED and RIAA) and a 6dB boost in gain.

As I was on my way out they fired up the Devialet rig which drew an instant crowd that listened with rapt attention.

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