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

Mu-so, an off-shoot of Naim is becoming its own lifestyle brand of audio gear, this time showing off its new Qb ($1299 CDN), a multi-driver cubical speaker in several colors that reminded me of Bose speakers many decades ago. It also appears to house a bunch of electronics that I didn't have time to learn about. I suppose if you want to make a lot of money and get people listening to music without headphones, this is not a bad model to follow. I suspect this little cube sounds a good bit better than Bose, given its heritage. Unfortunately, being on silent display in the hallway, there was no opportunity to hear it.

Back across the hall at the Acoustic Technologies table I spotted this interesting headphone from Meze, the 99 Classic model, with conical wood cups. I listened to it through an Accuphase E260 integrated amp ($8999, on sale for $6995 CDN) and found it to sound very smooth and refined as well as exceptionally comfortable. I thought the 99 Classic headphones were extremely well designed and I was surprised to learn it comes from Romania. Later on at the show I learned it cost about $650 CDN, but I can't verify that at this moment. Also on the table here were a bunch of Tonar turntable mats that come in a variety of different materials (cork, rubber, leather, Perspex, etc.) to allow you to tune your turntable/cartridge to some extent. I saw these on a couple of turntables at the show.

Sorry to be late coming out with Part 1 but my family had to come first this past week. In the face of death we say "yes" to life.

Much more lies ahead.

---> Part 2 of our Montréal Salon Audio / Montreal Audio Fest 2016 show report.