Part 2 — 2300 And 2400 Hallways: Montreal Audiofest 2026 Show Report
High-end audio gear reviews, in-depth hi-fi technical details, and exhibit room listening notes.
Montreal Audiofest Show Report By Rick Becker

Part 1: 1200 And 1300 Hallways

This Is Part 2 — 2300 And 2400 Hallways

Coming Soon
Part 3:  Industry Gala Banquet

Part 4:  Lower Level, And Left (St. Laurent / Outremont Rooms)

Part 5:  Lower Level, And Right (Westmount / Montreal Rooms)

Part 6:  Best Rooms And Honorable Mentions

2326  Harmonia Distribution
I've almost missed Room 2326 before, and I did this time, too. As you come up the stairs from the hallway with the duck pond, it is tucked down the hallway immediately to the right. It's the only Audiofest room in that hallway. Sarah needs to hire a School Crossing Guard to direct people to it, as it is often one of the most interesting rooms at the show. Fortunately, I recognized my oversight and dropped in on my sweep of the show late on Sunday.

The speaker company is O/ Audio. Sorry, I don't have a Greek keyboard on my computer. I found a couple of Phi Audio companies on the internet, but not this one.  After searching the Harmonia Distribution website, I found them in Norway, so I guess the company is O Audio, as in "Oh, what an unusual name." I saw a nail-driving competition at Capital Audiofest that suggested something Norse about them. And there was buzz about them at the show, which was pretty good.

The Icon 12 speaker looks to have a near full-range compression driver supplemented by a woofer. Being high-efficiency, it was easily driven by the PrimaLuna Evolution DAC, 400 series preamp, and power amp that had "Floyd" stenciled on the right front corner, indicating that it was something special.

The overall presentation was clearly worth more consideration than I could give it, but my time was short, and I had to move on. The attractive Bassocontinuo rack from Lombardy in northern Italy appeared to have inset stone shelves and was also worthy of mention. I've previously seen one of their two racks featuring carbon fiber construction, which was very attractive. A photo of their flagship model was even more interesting.

2327  Artist Cloner, Saturn Audio, And Tough Nut Audio
I was anxious to hear Artist Cloner's room this year, as it was among the Best Rooms two years ago. This year, rather than being all about Artist Cloner speakers and electronics, the room was shared with Saturn Audio and Tough Nut Audio.

On the Tough Nut rack on the left were the Baetis B-Qore and Prodigy streamer/server in a chassis unlike anything seen from them before. Baetis is one of the top server companies in the industry, made right in Montreal, so I followed up with Joe Makkerh, the CEO of Baetis, about this new entry-level line that is not yet on their website. He sent me the following description:

"The Prodigy Streamer on the right is a standalone unit (CAD$3700), which has the signature Baetis sound. It can handle small to medium libraries in Roon. If you want to boost sound quality even further, you can add the second B-Qore unit on the left, as budget allows (CAD$3300). This will take over Roon server/core duties, as well as being able to handle much larger Roon libraries. It can upsample any music you play to DSD on-the-fly by the HQPlayer software. In the show, we were using 128x DSD, but the unit is capable of upsampling to 1024x DSD. Price is CAD$3300 for 1 TB storage, with additional storage as an option. The CAD$7000 pair yields a soundstage and holographic presentation that rivals our high-end products, and can be achieved via two smaller, sequential investments."

Saturn Audio, from Ontario, Canada, provided the components with a black chassis and illuminated blue bars on the faceplate, which are listed below. This was the best-sounding rig I've heard with Saturn components since they began. The silver component on the right rack was the Artist Cloner Depthware preamp from the series introduced last year. The other components from this boutique manufacturer in Quebec are being upgraded, so they were not demonstrated.

The Artist Cloner Mekanika Prestige speakers were shown two years ago when they received a Best Rooms award. It is a 2.5-way system with the AMT in the center, isolated from the two mid-woofers. The crossover is also in open air, contributing to the mechanical/industrial look of the speaker. Note the stone slab sides on the upper and lower enclosures. Aesthetically, this is one of the most unique loudspeakers within the high-end audio industry, and also one of the best. Again this year, people came and listened for extended periods.

On silent display was a turntable from Stable 33.33. I've been watching Sylvain Pichette's designs mature since he first had his turntable on silent display at Montreal. I will come to his main presentation in Part 5 on the lower level.

In the smaller room of this suite were static displays of Tough Nut Audio top shelves and various aftermarket footers he makes for racks, components, and speakers. I've watched Derrick and Deirdre Francis refine their products and grow their company for several years now, and they have come a long way. New at Montreal were the copper ground blocks that they have incorporated into their racks, which I had first learned about at the Toronto show last fall. Their demonstration also exhibited scientific measurements of the effectiveness of their footers. A visit to their website reveals the complexity and diverse materials used in their designs.

Also on silent display was a Luceo tube preamplifier that has been in the Artist Cloner portfolio for many years. And not pictured was a sample of one of their more affordable Ether 2.5 conventional speakers—conventional, except it features a rock chassis, and has earned high praise from me in previous shows.

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