Salon Audio Montreal / Audio Fest 2022 Show Report
Montreal Audiofest 2022 show report part 1.
Montreal Audio Fest 2022 Coverage By Rick Becker

First Floor — 1300 Wing
Going back down the stairs to the First Floor and turning down the 1300 wing I spotted these handsome looking aluminum speakers with an air-motion tweeter that appeared to bring aluminum chassis speakers down to a reasonable price point. This was in 1327, a room sponsored by ASONA and Innuos.

Also in this room was a Synthesis Roma integrated amp from Italy sporting an attractive wood faceplate.

The active rig included a gorgeous Apertura Armonia Evolution speaker (~9k CAD) from France driven by the Pathos integrated amp from Italy seen in the photo. The foam to the right of the ribbon driver was a foam-covered waveguide port for the driver. The wood finish on the speaker was exceptional, as you would expect coming from speakers from Europe. This was the larger of two Aperturas heard at the show and the music here was very good. Innuos gear was at the front end of the system.

In an adjacent quiet room was a line of headphone gear featuring headphones from Meze, Dan Clark Audio, Kennerton, and headphone amps from Aune, Pathos, and Shanling. Not seen in the photo, but available for listening were a couple of Stax headphones and amps.

In 1326, hosted by Atelier Audio, a pair of white Diptyque panel speakers were sounding very good, if a little hot on the 's'es, driven by a Miyajima EC-5 preamp and OTL tube power amp. On the top shelf was a Jean Nantais turntable with a pair of nearly unobtainium Bird of Prey tonearms made by a hermit who lives in a grotto in England. The tonearms were shown in straight and bent versions with gold plating on the pivot end which consisted of a unipivot design with both magnetic and oil damping. Yes, Patent Pending. Multiple kinds of wood are used to achieve various sound characteristics. Quoting from a paper that was laying around...

Q: "How do I know which wooden wand section to choose?"

A: "If you want neutrality go for straight Pernambuco.

To emphasize treble go for Satine bloodwood. For greater overall warmth go for ebony/African blackwood. If you want a complex multi-cellular composite wand like this, I'll winkle out our friendly hermit from his grotto to ask you a few questions and make some recommendations"

Don't you just love this hobby? And you can expect to wait at least three months for delivery.

Also in this room were Cube Audio Jazzon speakers from Poland. These use a 10" single full-range driver and the open bottom chassis is tilted back slightly to use the opening at the floor as the outlet for the internal horn structure. Obviously, there is no crossover to compromise the sound. The driver is available for DIY builders and is said to be very effective in open baffle applications, too. I heard the Cube Nenuphar Basis, a similar design with a built-in subwoofer at Capital AudioFest last November and was impressed. The Jazzon shown here is half the price (8,000 Euro) of the highly acclaimed Nenuphar model. I wish I could say I heard this one.

Moving down to 1322 hosted by CapitalSound.ca a complete system of tube electronics by Canor from Slovakia was driving a pair of Klipsch La Scala high-efficiency speakers. Judging from the open monoblocks, it looked like they were putting out far more power than was needed by the La Scala in this room. Canor is a new experience for me and the gear looked very well made. I also liked the fresh styling with the orange read-outs. This was a good-sounding room with ample evidence of why Klipsch has remained popular for all these many years. Lots of dynamics and transparency with this rig on what looked like another Modulum equipment rack.

I'm not sure what was in this room as the auto-focus landed on this lovely lady's t-shirt, but Triangle speakers from France would be a good guess, making this one of many rooms sponsored by Motet Distribution. In going down their list of manufacturers I see I spotted many of the products they represent.

---> Next Page of Salon Audio 2022 report part 1.