Le Festival Son et Image de Montréal 2006 Show Report
The Home Entertainment and Electronics Show

Report By Rick Becker
Page 6

 

  McIntosh acquitted themselves very nicely after last year's debacle in a room with acoustic properties that reminded me of dances in my high school gymnasium. This year, in another very large room, with a stereo system that totaled in the neighborhood of $200K, they put together a stereo rig with 2K watts per channel. The digital music server they premiered last year was the front end. The $95K loudspeakers linked 40 domed tweeters and 64 midrange drivers in a line source on a panel that was positioned directly in front of the towers containing six bass drivers each. An amplifier stack was positioned beside each loudspeaker that included two 1000-watt amplifiers and a unit that combined their power as well as provided a huge meter. The meters glowed blue in the McIntosh tradition and could be read from afar. What distinguished this room was a big sound in a big space and I thought this rig did an admirable job. I could easily close my eyes and pretend I was at the concert. Not only did the system give you the detail and nuance of the recording, but you heard the reflection and reverberation of the large room it was playing in. While my personal preference is for tube amplification, the McIntosh system, too, was among the Best Rooms at the show. In the photos you see the video screen that displayed information necessary for retrieving music from the server. The photo of the meter module shows the system drawing almost 20 watts during a moderately loud passage.  With the grilles off, you can see the multitude of drivers involved in this loudspeaker. I have not seen very many systems in my life that could handle a room this large.  Obviously, this was a serious statement rig, but McIntosh makes gear of equal quality for more modest circumstances, and even for your car — right down to the blue power meters, if you choose.

I had high hopes for the Audioville room as I immediately noticed they had taken a different tack this year. Instead of emptying their brick and mortar showroom into their room at the Sheraton, they set up a single system of high quality, coming in at a little more than $50K CN. The front end was a digital playback including the Chord transport and dac that has been renowned for its unique design. A conrad-johnson CT-5 tube preamplifier was of particular interest to me as I have the little brother, CT-6, in for review. The new conrad-johnson 140 monoblocks had been introduced only two weeks prior to the show. The revised version of the Totem Mani-2 stand mounted monitors with their isobaric woofers looked splendid in light maple finish on black stands. In fact, the entire system had a very refined and tasteful look about it. The music, too, was excellent and accessible.  Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me at the time to pull a chair up closer to the rig. The prearranged seating was set quite far back in the room. Usually the hosts of a room have this pretty well figured out, but after the show, I had a gnawing "What if…?" feeling about the room. And I wondered about the large glass covered paintings behind the loudspeakers. Most unfortunate was the location of the room itself. It was not clearly noticeable from the large hallway/foyer, and I'll bet a lot of people missed it. If you were among those who didn't catch this rig, a visit to Audioville is in order.

The next room, with the help of more signage, had a bigger crowd, as well it deserved.

The Avalon Eidilon Diamond loudspeakers were driven by the VTL Sigfried monoblocks and sounded far superior to the Eidilon Diamonds I heard last year. At the front end a JA Michell Orbe turntable fed into a VTL 6.5 phono stage that was at the show for evaluation before the design is finalized. The preamplifier was the VTL 7.5 and the lighter gear was all mounted in an HRS rack. The massive VTL monoblocks, as excellent as they may sound, leave a lot to be desired from the interior design standpoint. Nonetheless, at about $140K, this rig was certainly among the Best Rooms at the show. There were enough big guns lying around to suggest that you might have heard a different set-up in this room. Most notable were a large Jeff Rowland power amplifier and my first sighting of one of Andy Payor's acclaimed Rockport Technologies loudspeakers. Andy graciously gave me a tour of his facility two summers ago when Linda and I were on vacation, but he had just shipped out his most recently completed pair of loudspeakers. BTW, this room also gets my annual award for the Best (and only) Floral Display at the show. Thanks go to Graeme Humfrey who helped me sort out the actual products in use here.

Strolling through the small booth area I introduced Linda to the Sennheiser Orpheus headphone amplifier, which is one of the finest in the world as well as my personal favorite. Certainly, none is more beautiful. This amplifier surfaces from time to time at shows, and while I believe it is out of production, I heard a rumor that they are still available. Linda loved it, too!

At another booth, we encountered Francois Carrier, a jazz musician, selling his group's latest double CD, Happening, a live recording which he had available for sampling on his laptop. Perhaps the whole group should have been there playing live! Next year...?

 

At the Gutwire booth I saw not only the power cords that my friend and colleague Art Shapiro swears by, but their unique invention to hold them in the sockets, aptly named "The Lock."

 

I know these devices have been around for quite some time, but this is the first time I've seen one up close and personal—and at a height I could actually lean on. It was incredibly sturdy, and offers a solution for bi-polar audio/video types who want to have their screen and push it out of the way, too.

 

AUDIYO.com is a High-End audio parts supplier and they had a small room where they displayed parts as well as small products. Among them was this very handsome Furutech eTP-609 power distribution box with an EMI-absorbing internal coating as well as cryogenic treating and a demagnetizing process applied. Furutech makes one of the few quality boxes that does not have filtration built in.  The eTP-609 lists for $1600 CN.

I have to admit that I have been remiss in reviewing the silver plated interconnects that I DIY'd from wire and rca connectors that the AUDIYO.com folks lavished on me two years ago. So let me tell you now that they sound terrific and I use them in my reference system every Sunday night when I listen to Hearts of Space on National Public Radio. Space music never had such a silent background, and the soundstaging was positively inter-galactic! Seriously, though, for about 20 percent of the cost you get about 95 percent of the performance of the high priced wires, which is what the DIY crowd is all about. Highly recommended if you can wield a soldering iron! We gathered the Gang of Four together again for a commemorative photo of our first meeting two years ago, and we look forward to seeing them all in good health next year.

On my final sweep through the hotel at the end of the show, I revisited one of the Triangle rooms where the Antals were being driven exquisitely by a little Jasmine tube amplifier with 11 wpc. The Jasmine has three inputs plus a USB input for listening from your computer.  In the quiet room the Triangles were sounding noticeably better than I've ever heard them before. I mentioned to Robin Landry of Fix Audio, a company that repairs and modifies equipment and is also the importer of Jasmine, that the Triangles sounded fuller throughout and stronger in the bass than before, and he confirmed that yes, indeed, Triangle had re-voiced the current models for the North American market. If you thought, like I did in the past, that Triangles were a little too thin and lightweight, do yourself a favor and give them another audition. Of course, the little Jasmine certainly had something to do with the presentation, too.

 

Home Theater

To facilitate finding info on surround sound and home theater rooms, I've clustered them here at the end of the report. The rooms, however, were spread throughout the show on various floors, and seen over the course of both days. Obviously, I did not pay as much attention to these rooms or home theater in general as I did to the two channel systems. Color me guilty.

On Sunday morning we started out in a home theater presentation with Lexicon electronics and Proac loudspeakers that sounded warm and inviting — a gentle entre into the show at that hour. Proacs can easily fit into traditional and country décor, unlike most of the surround sound rigs at the show. This is fairly expensive gear, but not outrageous in the Grand Scheme of things, with the entire rig coming in at about $25K.

 

NHT showed a 4.2 surround system utilizing the digital loudspeakers I heard as a stereo pair last year at New York. Even in the noisy room where it competed with other home theater systems, it was obvious this $15K CN system was superb. No need for a center channel speaker with this rig. A black box takes care of all the signal distribution and balance while individual internal amplifiers power each driver. The subs were special, too with drivers on each side. Also on display were the monitors finished in piano gloss black which transformed them from the retro-modern look of the two-tone finish to contemporary or art deco.

Playing some heavy metal concert material with a surround sound track that was both visually and acoustically obnoxious was a $4K Mirage ensemble powered by an AV receiver. The material prohibited any observation of the quality of the rig, aside from it being loud. It didn't seem to be drawing much of a crowd, either.

Atoll Electronique, from France powered a nice set of surround loudspeakers by Highland Loudspeakers, an affordable brand from France that is new to me. With Diana Krall on the video screen the presentation was plenty adequate in a situation where the visual tends to dominate the audio presentation. I thought this was very reasonable quality for the modest price.

Anthem electronics powered a home theater system employing Paragidgm's Signature series loudspeakers and Eric Clapton sounded pretty good in the round, here. The system priced out about $30K with another $5K for the video. This should be a fairly easy combination to find for audition, since Paradigm owns Anthem.

In the Home Theater side of the Totem Acoustics space they were playing a cute video highlighting not only the singer but also the Blue Man Group. Using an Arcam DVD player and an Arcam surround sound receiver, they achieved a very musical presentation with their new Tribe series of wall-hung loudspeakers. These break from their tradition of beautiful wood veneers and fall into the category of ubiquitous long, thin black boxes that hang on three sides of a video display. An appropriately sized subwoofer filled out the bass. For more sophisticated home theater set-ups where the loudspeakers need not be hung on the walls, they offer three levels, two of which can incorporate their finely finished two-channel loudspeakers with equally well-finished centers, surrounds and subwoofers.

 

Why So Many Best Rooms?

There are two basic reasons. The first is because there is so much good equipment out there that deserves attention. This is an industry that is (or should be) about enjoying the music; it is not the Olympics. And there was also plenty of outstanding equipment in rooms that I did not consider to be among the best, too. We all know the importance of synergy and matching the system to the room. Hopefully your room at home is more suitable and more comfortable than the rooms at the show.

My purpose in writing this report is to suggest some directions you might want to explore and evaluate on the basis of your own personal taste. Reviewers have their own tastes, preferences, biases — whatever you want to call them, as well as their own preferences in music. And so do I. And I accept the probability that yours may differ from mine. The most important skill in this hobby is to learn to trust your ears. To that end I hope this report encourages you to go out and listen to as much of this equipment as you can find if you didn't attend the show.

Most of the Best Rooms come home at a pretty high price. Don't let that scare you. Most manufacturers have a variety of models at a variety of price points. Moving down in size or power need not mean settling for second best. The system has to fit the room just as the shoe has to fit the foot. Keep your focus on your music and the enjoyment it brings to your life.

And secondly, I'm fallible. I make mistakes. I breeze through some rooms where I should spend more time and I miss some rooms altogether. Sometimes the music that is playing doesn't pique my interest, and sometimes the room is so noisy or so full of people that it is difficult to hear the music. Sometimes I don't take sufficient notes and sometimes I forget to take pictures to share. Forgive me if you've felt ignored or slighted, or if I've overlooked an item you wanted to read about. I hope there was something of value here for you.

Since I missed the $268M Mega Millions Jackpot by only five numbers, I will not be flying out to cover the LA show.  Therefore I will pass the torch to my peers here at Enjoy the Music.com^®, and to my good friend Art Shapiro who will commute to the show on his megabuck titanium bicycle. Carry on, gentlemen, as I have some reviews to catch up on — like the one on the Smart Car for Road and Pothole Magazine.

 

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