Part 2: Montreal Audiofest Chronicles 2024
Let's explore the 1300 hallway.
Montreal Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

  Going from the 1200 hallway to the 1300 one was more of a zig-zag than a simple left turn.

1306  Brosseau.ca
The cheat sheet for Brosseau lists a large and a small rig. This was the smaller one with a Lyngdorf TDAI-1120 integrated amplifier ($2k USD) with built-in streaming and room correction. It's the smaller box in the photo above. It features digital and analog inputs and when connected to your Wi-Fi it can access a multitude of streaming services. It also connects directly to your TV vis HDMI to provide quality sound and room correction. The two-channel amplifier puts out 60W @ 8 Ohms, 120W @ 4 Ohms and 30A peak power. One of the analog inputs is for the built-in MM phono stage. At 7.3 lbs., it is not a heavy weight, but a serious unit for people who want serious two-channel sound without all the complexity and cost of a decked-out home theater.

If you want to get even more serious, there is the TDAI-3400 below it which has Lyngdorf's most powerful amplifier plus a lot more functionality. This appears to be the unit in play and I was very impressed by the sound quality here — even before I knew what equipment was playing. I was impressed by Lyngdorf's room correction efforts many years ago but they had fallen off my radar. A friend in Tennessee had been raving about his older unit and now I understand his enthusiasm.

The speaker here was the Dali Minuet which also explains some of the excellent sound quality, as does the Analysis Plus cabling used here. This was a deceptively simple yet very fine sounding system.

1309  KEF And ABSOLU par Centre Hi-Fi

The gentleman here seems to be trying to get music from the T+A Caruso all-in-one system sitting atop the Solidsteel rack. Below it was the T+A R1000E multi-source receiver. Those were KEF monitors on the stands and a rather large KEF subwoofer in front of the rack

1314  Heaven 11 Audio And PureAudioProject

Walking into room 1314, it looked like Ze'ev Schlik's PureAudioProject had shrunk. Actually, it's his latest model, the Trio-10, pricing out just below $6k USD.

The latest Billie amp from Heaven 11 is a hybrid Class D amp with a pair of 12AX7 tubes in the preamp stage. It puts out 215 Wpc @ 4 Ohms and 120 Wpc @ 8 Ohms and is priced at $2400 CDN.

That's a Heil AMT tweeter placed above the two 10" woofers to keep it at ear level. The efficiency is 88dB/W/m, significantly lower than his larger models, so Ze'ev recommends solid state amplification for this model which loves power. They sounded good, as expected from PureAudioProject and the Billie amp certainly provided all the power they needed.

1318  Yamaha

Yamaha went all Yamaha on this Solidsteel rack with an Audioquest power conditioner on the bottom shelf. The two-way ported NS 800A monitor looks deceptively simple, concealing state-of-the-art technology including the use of laser vibrometer and Finite Element Method analysis. It's priced at $2400 USD.

1319  Stable 33.33, Accuphase And KEF

Sylvain Pichette is showing great staying power in this industry with his Stable 33.33 turntable company. His table is seen here along with an Accuphase integrated amplifier, KEF monitors, and a DR Acoustics Polynice power conditioner.

Sylvain, whose work I've admired from his earliest days, was anxious to show me how vibration resistant his design is — literally pounding on the top shelf with his fist without any distortion to the sound or skipping of the grooves. You can see him perform this same feat in a video on his website.

Sylvain was using a Dynavector DV-20X2 moving coil (MC) phono cartridge.

The suspension is within the three massive pillars. Note the under-hung weights beneath the thick acrylic patter. While his turntables are marketed through a variety of dealers in Canada — primarily in Quebec. This is a turntable that deserves broader distribution.

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