RMAF 2017 Show Report
Focal, Naim, Pass Labs, WyWires, Dedalius, ModWright, TW Acustic, Constellation Audio, Wilson Audio, Raven Audio, and Legacy.

  Focal had an early press conference to announce their new Kanta N^o2 floorstanding speaker ($10,000). They are available in a variety of finishes and sounded fairly good given non-optimal show setup and Naim electronics front-end. Kanta N^o2 is a three-way floor standing loudspeaker equipped with a new generation IAL tweeter featuring a Beryllium inverted dome and Flax sandwich cone speaker drivers. This combination of technologies is said to produce precise, detailed and warm sound. As a side note, am loving the sound of the Focal car speakers i installed, along with a powered sub, Dynamat, etc, within the Dinan Stage 4 equipped BMW 4-series daily beater. Have a feeling the new Focal Katana N^o2 speakers have great potential given proper set-up and a high quality front-end / amplification.

It's now over an hour after the show opened and there was a still a line to get tickets. RMAF 2017 looks to be a very well-attended event. Look forward to seeing the numbers when they are released from the show organizers.

Chad Stelly of Acoustic Sounds with Pass Labs pre and massive Sony VFET amplifier designed by Nelson Pas of Pass Labs fame. Did you know there are only seven of these amplifiers in the world due to needing closely matched output devices of the Sony 2SK82 and 2SJ28 VFET transistors, which are hard to get or some such.

Sony's VFET amplifier has about a 6 Ampere bias and draws about 400 Watts from the wall at idle. The output stage leaves Class A at about 8 Amperes peak, which is enough to produce about 250 Watts peak into 4 Ohms.

WyWires, Dedalius, and ModWright teamed up here at RMAF 2017. Daedalus Audio's debuted their new Zeus! Love the Maple with ebonized walnut base cabinets. Daedalus isolation devices DiD-SPK for speakers ($80 each) and DiD (for electronics, $480 per set) were put to good use. ModWright Instruments had their Ambrose A30 30 Watt Class A tube monoblocks ($15,000 in standard finish). New for the company is their Ambrose One ($12,000), which is a  Class A balanced reference tube preamplifier with external dual mono power supply. Rounding out the system is WyWires impressive Diamond Series Power Broker AC distributor ($4495), Diamond Series interconnects (starting at $4495), Silver Series power cords (starting at $429) plus other cables. The room has excellent imaging and clean, tight bass. Heather and i enjoyed the music :)

TW Acustic AC Anniversary with Black Night upgrade and two 10.5" arms ($47,000)

Irv Gross of Constellation Audio happily poses in front of their mighty audio system, at RMAF 2017. Normal show system setup with Wilson Audio and Transparent Cables. Must say the Wilson Audio speakers are getting quite impressive sounding with each new generation. Among its many improvements are the implementation of a new tweeter, increasing the volume of the internal enclosure, and doubling the number of possible tweeter module adjustments for more precise time-domain correction. Rack is by Artesania Audio.

Constellation Audio was very pleased to announce two major introductions. The first is the new Wilson Audio Alexia Series 2 loudspeakers in a system driven by their Performance Series components. In addition, they had the Continuum Audio Labs Obsidian turntable with Viper tonearm. Of note is that their Roon Ready media player is an update of the company's Cygnus media player/DAC ($38,000). 

Note the lovely, and interestingly-shaped, carbon fiber Viper tonearm on the turntable.

The ravishing-in-red Raven vacuum tube stereo integrated amplifier.

Legacy Audio always makes a great sound at RMAF and this year was no exception.

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