Part 1: Magical Music At The Montreal Audiofest 2025 High-End Audio Show
Starting our exploration of great sound at the Montreal show.
Montreal Audiofest 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker

1204   Audiofiles Presentees par Marantz
After passing the pool and entering the 1200 wing of the main floor, I looked to my right to check for a room that was easily missed. There was no bowed signage above any of the doors indicating an Audiofest presence, so I proceeded straight ahead to the Phonographe room (1215).

It was only after returning home that I noticed room 1204, beyond a zig-zag in the hallway, dedicated to Audiochicks by Marantz [my translation] — something of a lounge for women interested in audio as I recall from last year's show. Deep apology here and also an opportunity to mention many more women were attending the show in Montreal than I recall seeing at AXPONA or Capital Audiofest in recent years.

1215   Phonographe Inc., Sugden Audio, Wattson Audio, And Revival Audio
Phonographe is a Canadian distributor who featured an outstanding minimal rig that struck me as a contender for one of the Best Rooms at the show, but this being the first room I had entered, I knew I would have to return here on my sweep at the end of the show to confirm it.

The speaker was the Atalante 5 model from Revival Audio — a French manufacturer with a 40-year history that made a very favorable impression on me not just for sound quality, but for outstanding craftsmanship with their fine woodworking. I noted the rare use of a 3" soft-dome midrange on this design and an unusually deep bass for a cabinet of this size. The transparency, resolution, and musicality of this speaker drew me right into the music. On my second visit at the end of the show, Danny Labrecque of Luna Cables expressed astonishment that this speaker was only $7495, stands being extra.

Sugden Audio, from Sweden, is a brand I recognized from many years ago but it had almost faded from memory. The presentation here put it top of mind with their Masterclass IA4 integrated amp ($10,285) with an attractive green anodized faceplate. Green seemed to be the "in" color last year at the Toronto Audiofest and Capital Audiofest. It looked just as fresh at Montreal with spring still being a month or two away.

The Sugden amp was fed from a Wattson Audio Madison LE (Lounge Edition) streamer / DAC ($6995) that also had a headphone jack and volume control. Cabling in this room, as well as at least a half-dozen others, was by Luna Cables.

1216   Lemay Audio, Grimm Audio, Audio Sensibility, And Tenor Audio
Lemay Audio has been a multiple winner of Best Rooms awards and it was a strong contender again this year. At this early hour on Saturday, the room had yet to fill up with attendees so I had a good listen.

Robert Lemay, who was also a principal in the Tenor Audio brand, is fanatical about maximizing the sound quality of his products as well as the complete system. He was eager to tell me about his use of the XACT Phantom LAN cable ($4500) from Poland which he had optimized by hard-wiring directly to the board of the Grimm Audio MU2 preamplifier ($24k) integrated with Roon server, Qobuz, and DAC, achieving what he felt was a 15% improvement. He completely eliminated the use of an Ethernet switch in doing so. (I've had a similar breakthrough hard-wiring an Audio Sensibility power cord to a vintage Sony FM tuner that was equipped with a zip-cord power cable.)

He was so impressed with the cable he used a coupler to create the required length, as it is only available in a short length. The new Polish XACT is not to be confused with XACT-USA, an offshoot of XACT Engineered Manufacturing Solutions, a privately owned manufacturing company founded in 1999 in Calgary, Alberta. Both of those companies are major players in industrial and military cables.

The "monoblocks" used here are the innovative creations of Jocelyn Jeanson, who is instrumental in the development of the speaker. On top are three transformers that develop a 6000 Volt DC supply" for the electrostatic speaker.

Each "monoblock" comes in two pieces as seen here where Francois revealed a massive transformer necessary to raise the voltage for the audio signal by 100x for the electrostatic speaker. I believe Francois said the large transformer was designed by Mr. Hammond (of Hammond Transformer fame) 50 years ago. The loudspeaker power supply alone is $14k. The audio signal for this large transformer comes directly from the Tenor Audio 175S stereo amplifier ($160k) with the wood faceplate seen in the rack. The copper and aluminum footers used between the layers here, like the audio rack, were from Modulum.

The Lemay Audio electrostatic speaker is called the Dayton Wright Hommage 9.4 as it is constructed using refurbished Dayton Wright electrostatic panels (9 of them, in this model). Francois said they had only enough panels to make 12 pairs of speakers when they started and six have been sold so far. Your opportunity is dwindling. The pair shown here is fitted with 1" thick side panels of book-matched exotic wood in Noyer Claro finish that adds an additional $20k to the price. So you are listening to a world-class speaker with a one-of-a-kind exotic finish for only $102k, a true bargain in the realm of high end audio.

Francois also showed me this diagram revealing the construction of the speaker chassis. Other items of interest in the rig included Silversmith Fidelium RCA interconnect ($1600) and ribbon speaker cable ($1600) which were also seen in other rooms at the show. Synergistic Research supplied the UEF Router ($4k) and Master fuse ($800). Power cables were from Inakustik (AC-4005, $5k). An Inakustik AC-4500 120V line filter ($8k) was also used.

As often happens, when I stopped by on my sweep at the end of the show on Sunday, the room was sounding even better.

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