Salon Audio Montreal / Audio Fest 2019 Show Report
Part 3
Salon Audio Montreal / Audio Fest 2019 Show Report By Rick Becker

  Yamaha teamed up with Luna Cables again this year and the music coming from their stand mounted monitor was sounding much more appropriate for the price. It looked like a Yamaha turntable was feeing into a Yamaha integrated that was in turn feeding a Yamaha power amp with twin power meters, all of which retained the feel of their classic forebearers.

I heard some modern music (I'd hate to try and guess the genre) by the Nina Hagen Band that gave me no point of reference to accurately evaluate the system.

Lots of people were constantly flipping through the vinyl for sale in St. Laurent 2 where some dreadful partisanship was shown by one Scottish vendor.

Someone had created a brief history of media formats along with a print-out of a patent for a turntable.

The AMA, not the motorcycle association, but rather the Association Montrealaise des Audiophiles had their usual recruiting table set up along with a member-made speaker that reminded me of a certain cartoon character whose name escapes my mind. I didn't realize until I later tweaked the photo that there was probably a rear-firing woofer on the back side. Unfortunately, it was on silent display.

There was a tribute to the Beatles with a stage full of instruments that was representative of the ones they played supplied by local music shops. Very Cool. And a wall full of John Lennon's art work. Even more cool.

Across the hall in Outremont 2 was the unlikely combination of Klipsch cornerhorn speakers being driven by very high-end Tenor amplification from Montreal. The rig displayed considerably better soundstage than I expected, possibly because the speakers were pulled out a foot or so away from each wall, giving them room to breathe. More typically seen in the wood stain finish shown above, this rig was dressed in black, though I thought a combination of black metal with medium grey stain on the wood would have been even more sophisticated. As expensive as the Tenor equipment is, I was told it is on back-order.

Next door down, in Outremont 1 was the Bryston room where they had taken a page from history and duplicated the Double-Advent trick with their own floorstanding speaker to create a tall D'Appolito tower. You can start with the bottom pair and add the top when room and finances permit. Metal clamps hold the inverted top pair and the binding posts are installed behind the tweeter for the top pair to keep the cables more contained. On the poster for their active speaker offerings you can see they also offer a more conventional tower speaker. Everything in the rig was Bryston, of course, including the cables.

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