Stats and Stuff
This
is the fifth consecutive year the Colorado Audio Society has produced, "The
Largest Consumer Audio and Home Entertainment Show in the Nation".
Every year the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) has evolved and this year the show was bigger and better
than ever. For the first time the show spilled over into the nearby Hyatt
Hotel. There were ten demonstration spaces added at the Hyatt with two
additional rooms set aside for daily seminars. I am convinced that the success
of the RMAF is due to the fact that it is a grassroots effort produced
by an Audiophile Society. I have watched what was once a hobby changed by
corporate bean counters that do not understand the values that guide
audiophiles.
I believe that
the CAS succeeds because they understand how high quality audio nurtures our
love of music. This fifth annual RMAF provides an affordable venue that even a
garage based audio start up might use to get the word out. And that is exactly
what this beleaguered business of audio needs. Hear are some statistics from
the RMAF show co-directors Allan Stiefel and Marjorie Baumert. There were
nearly 3500 people at this year’s 2008 show that’s an increase of seven percent over last year. Sunday the last day of the show things usually taper
off but this year they had 406 last minute attendees, a significant increase
over the previous year. This year there were audiophiles from 21 foreign
countries in attendance.
I had a
delightful conversation with two of these people, a Mr. Nicolas Noack and his
wife. They flew 28 hours from their home in Pretoria South Africa to attend
this RMAF, now that’s my kind of people.
In 2007 the
Colorado Audio Society booked 328 exhibitors on line for the show. This year
the show printed an additional 437 exhibitor badges. Now most of these
exhibitors share rooms and expenses and some of these exhibitors booked more
than one room so an exact count is difficult. To illustrate I found AV123.com direct marketing had products on display in
multiple rooms. And as befits human nature, the CAS expects some rooms
have products and people inhabiting them that they don’t know about.
The Rooms At The show, In No Particular
Order.
As usual
far too much to see and write about but now just a few highlights worth a
shout.
As it happened the
first room I walked into was producing some very decent sound. It was housing Nola
Accent Speakers. Carl Marchisoto was demonstrating the Nola Baby
Grand Reference speakers powered by Audio Research CD-7, Reference 210 mono
amplifiers and Reference 3 preamp. The $55,000 speakers have eight open baffle
dipole midrange cone drivers and eight 4-inch ribbon tweeters above a bass
cabinet housing four 9-inch magnesium woofers. The music I sampled had power
without edges, smooth and very life like it was one of the most natural sounds
at the show.
Down the hall in
the Audioengine room was a
demonstration of a self-powered two-way speaker system. The company displayed
3 separate systems. The Audioengine 1 system was playing when I walked in,
this is a wireless transmitter and receiver hook up. The transmitter was an
iPod in a docking device and the tiny receiver was plugged into a USB style
jack on the speaker cabinet. Their literature states that the system has a
100-foot range and is compatible with any media player. It is flexible enough
so that it could also be used as a normal stereo pair. I believe that this
wireless connectivity thing is something that we are going to see a lot more
of. And of course this just might put a lot of wire pulling installers out of
work.
The following is
more of an anecdote than a review. I bumped into a reviewer within the Roberts
Acoustics and Vincent Audio room. He wanted me to listen to a demo
CD that he recorded. It consisted of only two tracks, the first was a
classical music selection he recorded from a vinyl disk and the second track
was the exact same selection played back after the vinyl was demagnetized by
the Furutech Demag, MSRP $1,980. The difference between these two tracks was
not subtle; you could have knocked me over with a feather. The demagnetized
vinyl was dead quiet with an added sense of musical flow. Obviously we have
all grown so accustomed to the extraneous noise content in vinyl recordings
that we are no longer aware of it.
Peter
Ledermann, although his appearance reminds me of some biblical figure his most
notable quality is his innovative influence on high-end audio via his company Soundsmith. This guy is to
high-end audio what Preston Tucker was to the automobile industry. He
manufactures and designs a blue LED lighted glow in the dark DC powered strain
gauge cartridge. The preamplifier system provides the power and compensation
for disk playback. There are 7 Cartridge and preamplifier combinations. The
base model is the SG-400, $7,499 six steps up in the product line is the
SG-810 $14,999 it has a remote control and all the bells and whistles. In
various combinations you can opt for remote control, full input switching,
cartridge performance displays, front panel lighting controls and an
additional line input. Cartridge tweakers delight: he makes six different
replacement cartridge styli for his strain gauge cartridge. Get this! All the
stylus assemblies are magnetized you simply pull off the bottom plate holding
the stylus and stick on another stylus with a different contact profile. He
makes speakers and MOSfet power amplifiers and moving magnet cartridges
everything is housed in drop dead gorgeous solid wood. You have a choice of
cherry, walnut, rosewood, maple, mahogany, beech or piano black check it out.
OTL amplifiers are
not quite dead yet. I found yet one more, it is from the McAlister
Audio from Ontario
Canada. They had on static display an Output Transformer-Less mono power
amplifier it is the new top of the line SE44. Interestingly Peter McAlister
uses 16 vintage TV 17Jn6 driver tubes for power. Both monoblock amplifiers
have a separate outboard power supply. That’s four chassis incorporating a
total of 46 tubes. This wood trimmed amplifier produces 165 wpc goes down to 2
Ohms and at $8,500 Canadian they are reasonably priced. He has a full line up
of home hi-fi components every one of them features some very innovative
circuits. I like his unusual designs and he is well worth a second look.
A story not of
equipment made from cold metal but rather a story of wonderful music. It is
about Doctor Mark Waldrep and his recording company AIX records. He recorded the beautiful voice of Jennifer
Warrens in 5-channel surround. I was privileged to here her sing something
called Train Time. Dr. Waldrep
set up an array of five German Physiks HRS 120 speakers. Front, left right
and center and two left, right speakers in the back. After the recording
session was finished she or her lawyer decided not to release the album. I
really do hope that what ever the issues may be that they are resolved so that
we may hear this wonderful performance.
The Moscode
Audio room and the Von Schweikert
VR5 SE speakers. I could hear wonderful sound in this room exhibiting
both fluid ease and subtle details. Power was Supplied by George
Kaye’s new 200-wpc Moscode 402 AU amplifier. This is a Hybrid amplifier with
Class-A tube driver stages coupled to a MOSfet output stage. The new Moscode
amplifier features gold clad printed circuit traces and improved and
simplified circuit design. These innovations lower the noise floor far beyond
what was possible before. I hope to soon get a review sample for Enjoy
The Music.com.
Channel
Islands Audio
room... I call your attention to this room because they had on display what may
be the least expensive quality twin tower line source speakers on the market.
The speaker on display was the two-way LS 6
Focus Line Source and the manufacturer is AV123. They are a direct
marketing business with no show rooms or dealers. You buy this speaker on line
with a 30-day trial, the price is $4,999 and you pay the shipping. Even if you
live on the opposite coast the price and the performance makes it a good deal.
I can think of more than a few small two-way monitors that cost two or three
times the price of these really fine towers. I am still not convinced that all
the problems of digital amplifiers used in a high-end two-speaker audio system
have been resolved. Unfortunately Channel Islands was using the LS 6 to demo
their line of Class-D amplifiers in an untreated room The LS 6 speakers
debuted last year at the RMAF and they performed better.
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