Montreal Salon Audio / Montreal Audio Fest 2016 Show Report
Part 1 By Rick Becker

I found my way to the Grado Lounge in 2414 to find Sarah Tremblay and pick up a press pass. Inside was an extraordinary experience with, first, a duet with pianist and singer Anne Bisson and cellist Vincent Belanger, both whom have individually become "regulars" at the Montreal and Toronto shows. The music was available both acoustically direct, through a very handsome set of Focal Professional Trio6 BE studio powered monitors, and also through a large number of Grado headphones, courtesy of Audio Group, the Canadian distributor of Grado run by Sarah Tremblay and Stephan Ritch. Available headphones ranged from the lower end of the line, all the way to the top. Every seat in the suite was taken, and people were standing along the walls of the room. I squeezed my way into the room and crouched down on the floor. A bit later a harpist, whose name I regrettably did not catch, and Stephan Ritch on electric bass guitar joined to perform a more intricate piece. It was a wonderful way to recalibrate my ears and compare my newly acquired SR 325e headphones with some of their best models.

Along with the Focal studio monitors and mixing and distribution equipment, a pedal board full of colorful stomp boxes, presumably for the electric bass, was noted. The studio monitors, as is common in pro audio, had tone adjustments on the back. Lauten Audio supplied the microphones seen here and SPL Canada supplied the pro audio electronics.

After the performance, Sarah fixed me up with a press badge. With the hotel rooms being jammed, I decided to reverse my tradition and take on the conference rooms on the lower level, hoping they would be less congested. Plan B was the correct one.

Behind the escalators were the ClaeCast Loudspeakers out in front of a concrete wall covered with astro turf, right where I had left them last year. Powered by electronics from the mind of Zdenko Zivkovic, formerly from Sonic Frontiers, the speakers were not as sweet sounding as last year when I named this rig one of the best at the show. Seen here with Zdenko is Sam Rota, another principle in ClaeCast. Zdenko explained they were on the brink of finishing a new version of the speaker for the show using dynamic drivers, but when they learned the show was canceled, they told the buy building the crossover to relax and take his time. By the time they learned the show was on again, it was too late to complete the crossovers. Prior to the show, one of the designers of the crossover for the version seen here with bipolar planar drivers had tweaked it to his liking, but I thought it was a little too hard and the edges too sharp in the treble.

The previous settings were more forgiving of harsh recordings. The move to dynamic drivers was necessitated by B&G, the manufacturer, discontinuing the planar drivers. They tried getting copies made in China, but the quality was not there. More recently, because so many of them are in use in the field already, The Parts Connection has persuaded B&G to continue making them again but they will be sourced from the Philippines.  So soon, ClaeCast will have two models in their line-up. I saw photos of the new version with a more intricate support structure for the open baffle dynamic drivers. It will be interesting to hear the comparison of the two models, hopefully in a couple of months. The silver DAC seen here will retail for around $10,000 and will wear the new name for Zdenko's company that will manufacture electronics, once the legal registration is complete. Sam leaned on me for suggestions of a distributor to seek out, but perhaps the best I can do is let the whole world know that this was a very fine sounding rig, in spite of what I said about the treble. The speakers, btw, include a pair of open baffle planar midranges, a ribbon tweeter and a pair of woofers in a ported enclosure. Reasonably efficient, they should be drivable with a strong SET amp with 845 or parallel 300B tubes if you're so inclined.

Around the corner at his usual table was Steven Huang of Audio Sensibility who hopes to become as famous for his new speaker as he is for his affordable line of cables, distribution boxes, custom headphone cables and various other tweaks. Several of his products are in constant use in my various rigs. Steven was so impressed with the crossover design of Mundorf's kit speaker, first seen at the previous TAVES 2015 show, and so un-impressed with the wiring and chassis of the speaker, he decided to re-invent it. He started with new wire, and then developed a carbon fiber plate to mount improved speaker binding posts. While the original chassis was attractive, it was not a sturdy design, so he up-graded the construction and added a machined and anodized baffle to mount the ceramic mid-woofer and ribbon tweeter. I thought the logo engraved on the faceplate was particularly attractive and well thought out. While not inexpensive at a projected price of $3500 to $5000, it is expected to compete with much more expensive speakers. The first run should become available within a couple months and I hope to get up to Toronto to hear them.

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