RMAF 2016 Show Report
Raidho Acoustics
Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest & CanJam 2016
RMAF 2016 Show Report By Kemper Holt

  The Raidho room was dominated by the D-4.1 towers, and Lars Christensen. Lars was as friendly as he was informative, and he had one of the few rooms where you could play a CD, and he was happy to play it for you. The trend I've been noticing is the increasing offerings of integrated amps / DACs / streamers, Swiss Army knife type of kit that range in price from under a grand to almost $40,000, and I believe the industry is better serving the music lover with these units. Lars paired the powerful Aavik U-300 integrated amplifier ($30,000) with a Nagra CD player, and the beautiful Raidho D-4.1 speakers ($110,000 per pair), using Ansuz cables to connect everything. 

The solid looking Aavik U-300 delivers 300W @ 8 Ohms, doubles to 600W @ 4 Ohms, and provides about 450W to the 6 Ohm load the D-4.1s have. The U is for unity and the U-300 has three analog inputs as well as a phono stage, and a DAC designed by some of the analog and digital designers available for another versatile do it all integrated that sounds sensational.

I was drawn in from the hall because Joe Satriani was slaying on guitar, big dynamics, pounding drums, great bass impact, huge soundstage, it was very live sounding. Lars changed direction and played a live version of "My Name is Luka" from Suzanne Vega, again she sounded live, vocals perfect with great detail, deep taut bass, extended effortless highs, she seemed to appear 6 feet behind the speakers and the band further back. On Sunday I visited again and it was worth it, Lars put on some Brian Bromberg, bassist extraordinaire, and it was spellbinding, meaty mid bass with both punch and definition, harmonically rich with great tone, drum kit pulverizing the room, and floating shimmering cymbals, one of my very favorite rooms.

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