Salon Audio Montréal Audiofest Show Report Part 4
It's Sunday, let's take a look n' listen at the Lower Level.
Report By Rick Becker

Montreal 7  AudioQuest, Golden Ear, Vileneuve Audio Video, And Marchand Audio Video
Montreal 7 was filled with a large projection home (not my home) theater with a screen that nearly filled the front wall. Given the sponsors, I presume the rig included Audioquest cables and GoldenEar speakers.

There wasn't much to see in the dark, but near the door was the display of a Golden Ear Triton in a new red finish that may appeal to audiophiles.

Montreal 8  CapitalSound.ca
The last room in this short hallway was another room for people with very large rooms. The Klipsch Jubilee speakers (56k$) look like they were designed to fit into corners in the age of mono but the fashion today is to bring them out into the room and face them forward as if they were normal speakers. They are anything but normal.

With compression horn drivers on top and a lot of cubic feet behind the woofer, I expect it only takes a handful of watts to drive them... unless you're making concert-level sound in a large room. Then you might need a few more.

The two components on the bottom of the rack were Teac stereo power amps and from the wiring on the back of the speaker, it looks like they were bi-amp'ing the Jubilee. The smallest component on the rack was a Teac CD player/ FM tuner. I'm not sure what the other gear was. It was pretty dark in there.

Moving back to the long hallway, I backtracked toward the elevators, ducking into Westmount 1.

Westmount 1  Hegel America
Hegel is celebrating their 25th anniversary — no small feat, and I felt like I was stepping into a Western movie set. Even the floor was covered with a canvas printed to look like wood flooring.

The front end was comprised of an Innuos Phoenixnet and Innuos Zenith. A Hegel preamp on top of the rack fed the Hegel power amp on the side stand. The Apertura speakers sounded as good as I typically perceive them at post-Covid shows. But where was the band for the live versus recorded comparison?

Westmount 2  Motet Distribution
The Motet Distribution presentation was a familiar combination with the tall PMC speakers driven by an Accuphase E-5000 integrated amp.

Westmount 3  Kevro International
The London Bridge theme of the Kevro International room was familiar as was the excellent sound from the Monitor PL300 speakers (22k$) driven by Michi monoblocks (10k$ea.). They were running a Roon Nucleus into the DAC of the Rotel DT-6000 CD player (3k$). From there, the signal went to the Michi P-5 preamp (5600$). Excluding cables, the whole system retails for 50,000$.

On a side stand was a Michi X5 integrated amp.

In the hall were a Monitor PL200 floorstander (17,500$) and PL100 stand-mounted monitor (8500$). All three speakers were 3^rd generation versions of this Platinum series.

The wood cabinets of the Platinum series are gorgeous with their piano gloss wood veneer.

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