RMAF 2018 Show Report -- High-End Home Audio
Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest 2018

The Denver Chronicles Part 1
RMAF 2018 Show Report By Rick Becker

Across the hall in room 1010 at RMAF 2018 was the High End by Oz room, hosted by Ozan Turan. Oz is a Los Angeles retailer and importer of the Audio Solutions speaker from Lithuania I heard here. My audio notes say the front end was an mbl CD player leading to a Vitus amp that was driving the Audio Solutions Figaro XL speakers ($15,000). My fuzzy photos show a Vitus CD player, Vitus integrated amp and the Audio Solutions Figaro M speaker ($7000). Must have been two rigs. In any case, the fronts of the speakers are finished in a Nextel-like finish, similar to what you may have seen on 3A speakers. Much of the sides and back are finished in a high-gloss wood veneer that is available in a lot of custom stains to feed your inner decorator or delight your significant other. A unique construction technique allows them to lower the cost below their previous top-line models. Cabling was by Ansuz, again, with the active shielding unit. Given that you'd be buying the speakers directly from the importer, the Audio Solutions seem to be a very high value line. I liked what I heard here a lot!

Moving on to room 1019 I entered the Jeff Rowland room which had an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio since all his products were on silent display. Somehow I eked out a photo with reasonable focus in spite of the paper thin depth of field. I feared my auto-focus mode had gone bonkers. Anyhow, the Rowland gear with its trademark faceplates is gorgeous. Here's a look at the gorgeous back-side.

Bryston showed up with a more modest rig in 1018 than I'm accustomed to hearing at the Canadian shows. It probably all fit in a standard van. I was so frustrated with my camera situation I barely noticed the music here. It was good solid sound, for sure, because that's what they do... across the board as well as across the border. I noticed they were using Straightwire Cables here.

In room 1025 was a rig that can only be described as weird. The amp was by Bakoon International which immediately elicits a squiggly red line for spell-check on my computer. It is small, as you can tell from the photo. The large round pod beneath the left front corner is actually the toroidal transformer that protrudes through the chassis to become one of three feet for the amp. That also clues us in to the fact that it is a Class AB integrated amp with 25 Wpc, but doesn't prepare us for the $5850 price. This JET Satri amplifier Amp-13R also includes a headphone jack and patent pending auto-bias control using software. The beautiful red Urushi lacquered volume knob comes from Japan and ads a touch of Zen to the high technology of this amp. Designed in California / Engineered in Japan/Manufactured in Korea.

The Soundkaos Liberation speaker looks like a retro-modern design from the 1950's. Adjusted for inflation, its 1952 price becomes $18,800. It is an open baffle design with a brass mesh surround to keep your cats from shredding the drivers. The upper part houses two 8" Enviee widebanders and a Raal super-tweeter. The lower part houses an 18" woofer. It claims a frequency response of 28 Hz to 50 kHz and with a sensitivity of 95dB/W/m you could probably do quite well with a tube amplifier in spite of the 6 Ohm impedance. The rig stops being weird when the music starts. In my case it was Stevie Ray Vaughan doing Tin Pan Alley. I was expecting Frank Sinatra. Someone needs to slip this rig across the DMZ to Kim Jong Un. It would probably qualify for a Nobel Peace Prize. Open, transparent, dynamic, holographic and one of the Best Rooms at the show.

Across the hall I stepped into the Raidho room 1024 for the USA premiere of the tall TD-4.8 that represents their future direction with Tantalum-Diamond Technology. At this point my camcorder died. (Did I mention that I was having a bad year?) Now, I was working with a lame still camera and no verbal notes. The very tall TD-4.8 was very impressive with its gorgeous veneer but it was not connected to the rig which was featuring a Scansonic floorstander. Scansonic, as you probably know, is the high-value, lower priced line designed by Michal Borensen the designer of Raidho speakers. Pardon the blurry photos, please.

At the end of the hall in 1030 was an expensive rig with Nagra electronics driving expensive, high-gloss speakers. You can sort of figure that out from the photo. My friend Rene LaFlamme from Montreal is the importer for Nagra and he slipped me a room list, saving the day, at least for this half-million dollar room. Those HD monoblock amplifiers, for example, are $86,000 and the new HD-DAC-X is $65,000. It was a treat to hear Andy Payor's Rockport Technologies Cygnus loudspeakers ($62,000). Depending on when you visited, you might have heard music sourced from a DeBaer turntable (a $77,000 rig) with a Top Wing Red sparrow MC cartridge ($16,500), or a Nagra open reel tape deck (N/A) or a humble AURALiC Aries G2 streamer ($4000). Cables from Argento ranged from about $15,000 to almost $25,000. And the Box Furniture Company Claro Walnut three-shelf double-wide rack alone was $10,000. Gear like this will grab the attention of billionaires. Unfortunately, with my camcorder down, I have little recollection of the sound here, except to suspect that it was pretty good. Knowing Rene's recording skills, I can guarantee that the room was set up to perfection.

Having finished the 10^th floor, I'll call this a wrap for Part 1. I hit a few rooms on the 9^th floor before calling it quits on Friday and tackling my camera problems. Rest assured that things got better for me on Saturday. Obviously there is a lot more to cover, and with luck and all that is going on in my life, I'll finish these Denver Chronicles by Thanksgiving(!). Stay tuned!

---> Onward to RMAF Part 2 show report by Rick Becker

---> Back to main RMAF 2018 show report page.