Part 6: The Lower Level, Montreal, And Westmount Rooms
Robots, high-end audio exhibition rooms, plus audiophile rock 'n' roll.
Montreal Audiofest 2025 Show Report By Rick Becker

Solen, Inc.
Crawling out from the shadows of the escalators into the main hallway of Part 6, before coming to Westmount 1, there was a table from Solen featuring everything from speaker drivers to crossover parts to Russian vacuum tubes to complete amplifiers to microphones for making critical room and speaker measurements. They've been a regular at Canadian shows since... forever.

Westmont Rooms

W1 ASONA Ltd.
Cabasse, from France, has been making high end speakers with round enclosures for years... or is it decades? The original ones with integral stands were at the intersection of high art and technology, but as this room suggests, they've found greater success in trending toward more affordable lifestyle speakers. Fortunately, the sound quality has not been lost, and these active speakers performed amazingly well despite their small, decorative footprint. Both novice and well-seasoned Enjoy the Music.com show visitors will notice the sparseness of the room, and know that it belied the musical experience of being showcased there at the Montreal Audiofest 2025 audiophile show.

The appropriate dedicated stands for this new Myuki model in the Pearl Series did not make it to the show, but you can get the idea from the black speaker in the previous photo. The speakers can easily be positioned on a mantel or a shelf if you're willing to sacrifice some soundstage in favor of additional bass. But the twin, side-firing bass drivers do surprisingly well out in the open, as shown. It is an active speaker, so you need the included white AC ---> DC converter shown at the base of the speaker stand. Controls are little touch-sensitive buttons on top, and the Myuki is also available in black.

The Cabasse Myuki are about 6.5" in diameter and priced at $1008 each. You can use it for a monaural source or combine two for stereo. It is Wi-Fi compatible and has an available app, so yes, you can use it with your TV. It will also work as a multi-zone solution throughout your house. There is an analog input, an Ethernet input, and an optical digital input for system flexibility. Because it also runs on batteries, you can pick it up and take it to the beach if you're not concerned about drawing an audience. Very much Devialet's well-received Phantom.

Those reading Enjoy the Music.com for many years know it would be a mistake not to take this loudspeaker seriously because of its small size, which some did when first seeing the Devialet at HIGH END 2015 in Munich version many years ago. Specs include frequency response of 30Hz to 23kHz, amplification of 65 Watts for treble, and 76 Watts for woofer. Proof of performance can be found in the outstanding Rialto, the first Cabasse wireless Hi-fi system in a bookshelf format that premiered to rave reviews at Axpona a couple of years ago. Although the Rialto is twice as expensive, it was a missed opportunity for ASONA not to showcase both of these fine active speakers.

W2   Motet Distribution
Motet was getting a lot of interest in their presentation from the Triangle floorstanders. The music was holographic, floating in the air when I was in the room.

The Triangle Magellan Cello 40th Anniversary speaker ($19k) was dressed in Zebrano finish with a high gloss. There is a larger floorstander and a two-way monitor in this series that comes in four finishes. Surprisingly, with many fine cable manufacturers in France, Triangle turned to the American company AudioQuest for internal cabling.

The special magnesium alloy dome tweeter was recessed with a brass phase plug, a decorative aluminum horn, and a surround flange that concealed any screw heads.

The components on the rack were a little confusing. A Lumin TX3 Network music player ($7499) was the source on the top shelf. Below that was a PS Audio Stellar Gold preamp ($5600) used primarily because the Audio Note Meishu Phono 300B Tonemeister integrated amp ($24k) did not have a remote control. On the bottom shelf was a PS Audio DirectStream Power Plant 20 power regenerator ($14.7k) that gave the music a very black background.

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