TAVES Consumer Electronics Show 2016 Show Report 
Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show Part 3
TAVES 2016 Show Report By Rick Becker

  There was also a variety of artists working at their displays again this year. But unlike previous years, the themes of their work shifted away from music toward more universal subjects such as the florals from Vera Samarkina in acrylics, ink and watercolor.

The unique stainless steel (?) tube cage of this amp first caught my attention and then I saw the price of the UA-100, a 13 Wpc integrated amp with two inputs for $599. You can check it out at All That Jazz in Gilford, Ontario, and six nearby stores. They sell new and used LPs as well as equipment, and they can tune up the vintage turntable you just bought at a garage sale. Unfortunately the amp was too big to fall into my briefcase.

Make that 1more that specialize in mostly sub-$100 earphones and headphones. Consequently, their table was quite busy, too.

I had to blow by Sarah Tremblay's stand with FiiO music servers and Grado headphones as she was off on a mission to drum up support for the Montreal show that has become a Not-For-Profit event in a bold experiment for the industry. Not that I have anything against Grado — I'm wearing (and loving) a pair as I write to help me make sense of my video notes from the show. They are also doubling as ear muffs now that four-wheel drive season has arrived in Rochester and I'm keeping a low carbon footprint in my home. In French, how do you say…"workhorse"?

Next table had the HiFiMAN HE 400s open back planar magnetic headphones (left, $429) and the HE 400i, also open back (right, $649).

And after that came the Oppo with two of their own headphone amplifiers. I sampled these and found them to be extremely smooth, if that's your cup of tea.

I walked past the table and saw the above photo and thought it must be some kind of high-end atomizer for LP cleaning solution.  Not until my brain shrunk it down an order of magnitude did I realize it was the Tru-Lift automatic tonearm lifter from IntegrityHiFi.com. I had seen and marveled at this little device for your turntable at the Montreal show, and now they have come out with a stainless steel version to complement the polished and anodized aluminum platters of so many tables. You can buy it two ways — first, as a single height lifter for $199 USD, or second, as a package with four different heights for $259 USD, in case you buy a new turntable requiring a different height column or upgrade your VPI with a thicker platter in the future. The Tru-Lift makes a lot of sense, particularly if your listening chair is a power recliner that takes a little longer to get out of than the traditional manual versions. Their website has a video to show you how it works. Look for a review from me if I ever stop having fun writing this show report. As of now, I only give it two Thumbs-Up.

For all the clout Simon Au has at this show, you would think he'd have a bigger table for his day job where he runs AuDIYo.com, a retailer and distributor for a thousand (?) different items relating to audio. For example, as we see here, he distributes Furutech products. My friend Layton Tsang was keeping a close eye on this table which is worth a whole lot more than you might think. It is always interesting to be able to examine products that often are not so exposed. The build quality here is as good as it gets. I bought a right-angle Furutech male plug with Rhodium plated pure copper blades to modify my Synergistic Research Quantum QLS power strip. So I'll soon find out if the performance lives up to the build quality. Maybe next year Simon will have a big banner to draw a crowd three people deep.

Very nice looking headphones and portable devices from TEAC.

And more from Master and Dynamic, who also had IEMs on display, too.

There were numerous tables with LPs for sale and the prices dropped a bit on Sunday. Also notable was the vintage Kenwood turntable for $200 in the top of the photo. A refurbished turntable from the '60s, '70's or '80s is a great way to get into vinyl. And there certainly are a lot of them still out there that have not found their way to the landfill.

It's not often that you can shake the hand of the owner of the company from which you have just bought a product these days. And that's not to mention the free electrical engineering tutorial when that owner is Steven Huang of Audio Sensibility. I think his motto is "Let no consumer buy, uneducated" When I crossed paths with him late on Sunday he could barely talk, yet he insisted on giving me enough information about his new speaker (see my rave, above) that I could morph this show report into a speaker review. Clearly, he is transitioning, or at least broadening out, into a speaker manufacturer. Down the length of his table you can see a sampling of his products including Jelco tonearms, power distribution boxes, lots of cables (his main squeeze), Furutech connectors and even used vinyl (which he only sells at shows). I've had the pleasure to review numerous cables over the years and always found them to be of very high quality and very high value since he sells direct through the internet.

This was truly a dangerous situation, with only my camera between me and four beautiful young women. But actually it is homage to the superbly well staffed crew at TAVES who had to not only keep show goers informed, but also filter out the non-participating guests at the hotels. Of particular note in this photo is the NOVO magazine in the lower right corner which is the evolution of what was formerly known as CANADA HiFi magazine.

I'll call this a wrap for Part 3 and head down to Cleveland for Thanksgiving. Stay tuned for my coverage of the big rooms in the Sheraton with a lot of outstanding presentations in the week to come.

---> Click here for TAVES 2016 Part 4.