Salon Audio Montréal Audiofest Show Report Part 5
The Lower Level continued, plus Best Rooms and a post-show adventure!
Report By Rick Becker

Outremont 1  Yamaha Canada Music LLC
Yamaha traditionally shows in a large room at Montreal and this year was no different. Foregoing traditional chairs for pouf stools was a flashback to the international furniture shows in High Point, NC, for me where everything wild and crazy can be found.

In addition to some instruments on display from another division of the corporation, the single active system was comprised of their GT 5000 turntable ($8k USD), preamplifier ($10k USD), and a pair of stereo power amplifiers ($10k USD, each) which can be run as dual mono or bridged. You can also run fully balanced from the turntable through to the amplifiers. The preamp has tone controls, phono stage, and headphone jack and controls.

Not shown here, but not to be overlooked, were the floorstander speakers shown on the upper level of the show.

Walking back down the hall to the very large St. Laurent 8 room, we will again work our way toward the escalators. These rooms were so large they were usually partitioned off with silent displays as you first walked in, followed by an active listening area, though the first one, here, was an exception with the partition closer to the rear of the room concealing the shipping crates, etc.

St. Laurent8  Oracle Audio Technologies, Gershman Acoustics, Eon Art Canada, And Cardas Audio
I had been given a 'heads-up' from the Gershmans that they would be playing two different speakers and that I should come on both Saturday and Sunday to hear both of them. I had heard about their new 30th Anniversary Grand Avant Garde; it was one of the hits of the Florida show.

The other was a new stand-mounted Studio Xdb monitor (12k$, including the stand and Gaia footers) that was outstanding, not just for the sound quality, but also because it is a very wide-range speaker that could play exceptionally well in this large room.

My problem in this room is that I know the people too well and I get doubly distracted by the sound quality. Hence, it is my error that I forgot to take photos of the monitors. (Pictured on their website.)

Coming back on Sunday, the 30th Grand Avant Garde was singing loud and clear, filling this large room with wonderful music, regardless of the genre — and I stayed long enough to hear several.  As for the photos…well, the room was dark and the speakers were black with a hot spotlight on them. That's not important. All you had to do here was close your eyes and listen. And at something like 17k$, this is a very high-value speaker that should be on the radar of a lot more people.

The form factor of the new Grand Avant Garde has changed for the better. Instead of the platform that sticks out the back along the floor, there is now a separate box beneath the traditional Avant Garde form. Both of these appendages are actually additional volume added to the speaker to extend the bass lower. The new form suggests the granite base under the top models of Vandersteen's more expensive speakers, so it is conceptually already an accepted form factor that makes the Grand Avant Garde... well, even more Grand. For those with pets with curious noses, there is an unusual, but elegant wood grill offered.

The music heard here was courtesy of the very fine Oracle Delphi Mk VI Signature turntable and their Paris PH200 Mk III phono stage. Amplification was through the extraordinary Eon Arts integrated amplifier, seen duplicated here so the drawer of the lower unit could be pulled out to reveal the sophisticated engineering within. Cabling was by Cardas.

Jacques Riendeau of Oracle was very enthusiastic about a new tonearm that they had whipped up in just a week before the show. With a carbon fiber arm, it has an effective mass of 20 grams with a heavy counterweight. I was very impressed with the gorgeous sculpting of headshell. At the bearing end, there is a trough for silicone damping of the arm and a built-in tonearm auto-lift. The tonearm rest and lock were beefy and finely finished, looking kind of like a Zippo lighter.

There is also a VTA tower for VTA adjustment. This was the first prototype of the Oracle Reference 1 tonearm which will be priced at 7,500$ (CDN). Production will begin in a couple of months, initially for the Oracle turntable, but eventually for a separate base that will allow it to fit on many other turntables. (I have two in mind.) The tonearm was shown on a limited edition turntable with a special pearl white finish that I had seen last year.

Also on silent display was a Riopelle, an Oracle Paris, Limited Edition turntable with a musical score etched in the acrylic cover and a painted plinth. The commemorative edition goes for 7,977$ for someone who can appreciate this work of art.

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