A regular at the Montreal show for many years, Vince Scalzitti always has some interesting high-end components to show in the Tri-Cell room. New from Acoustic Arts are the Drive 1 Mk2 and the DAC 1 Mk4. The top loader features the Philips CDM Pro 2M drive, while the DAC is a new multi-bit design, fully balanced with upsampling to 66 bits at 1536kH. Vince tells me this is seriously good kit, and he's a good fellow, so I believe him.
But Vince is really a vinyl man at heart, and he has a new turntable on show. This is the Musical Life Basic 80 with a Musical Life "Conductor" Cocobolo tonearm. Cocobolo? That's a South American wood to you and me. The Conductor arm is a unipivot design using a magnetic bearing.
It is available in seven types of exotic wood in three different lengths. The Basic 80 is string driven off a freestanding DC motor and sports an 80mm steel platter - can you guess the thickness of the platter on the cheaper Basic 40 turntable? The Basic 80 features inverted ball bearings and slate-stone plinth, platter-mat and armboard. Musical Life is a German company and the Basic 80 sells for $4,999 Cdn plus $4,200 Cdn for the tonearm, a good value considering the weight of the platter. The Basic 40 comes in at $3,600
Cdn.
Tri-Cell is also showing three ModWright components. On the middle shelf is the LS 36.5 Balanced Tube Linestage whose components include ModWright's own custom designed capacitors, 6H30 Russian Super tubes in Teflon tube sockets and a 5AR4 Tube rectified power supply. The LS 36.5 ($4,995) starts shipping this month. Below it sits the SWL9.0SE linestage at $2,495 with solid-state rectification or $2,995 with tube rectification. Above them both is the new SWP9.0SE phono stage ($2,995). These are inviting prices for some very well specified and good sounding preamps.
Another Vince, Vince Bruzzese is of course Mr. Totem, having founded that company 20 years ago. With fine supporting electronics from Accuphase and Halcro, the Totem Mani-2 sounded excellent.
Vince demo'd a new on wall speaker that shows great potential. Sound is comparable to the stand mounted models in the Totem lineup, so this can have interesting implications for both 2 and five channel setups.
The Nuforce P-9 is a new two chassis preamplifier, designed by Demian Martin, which can be set side by side as pictured here
or stacked vertically. The box with one knob contains the analog amplifier and analog volume control, which is a motorized Alps volume pot. The second box containing the logic circuitry and power supplies has two knobs - the left for source selection, the right another volume control that actually controls the motor on the analog volume pot. This seems a bit odd to me and I asked why. You need a digital control mechanism for the remote control, so why not throw one in on the unit. The analog control could have been hidden, but then you wouldn't get infinite control of level. Confused? So am I, but there was plenty of good sound in this room, dynamic and colorful, so they must know what they're doing. The P-9 retails for around three grand.
The P9 is working with Ref 9 and Ref 9SE monoblocks to drive the big Joseph D'Appolito designed Usher BE10 floorstanders with their Beryllium cones. The digital source is a Lector CDP. Left to right are Anthony Kouris, Kerry Legeard, Nicholas Fournier and Constantine
Moussis.
Bernard Li of Charisma Audio introduced the new Audiospace Reference Two Vacuum Tube Preamplifier ($12,000
Cdn), with built in MM/MC phono stage offering adjustable cartridge loading and gain. Audio Space claim a frequency response flat to within ±1dB from 20Hz to 100kHz and distortion below 0.2% from 20Hz to 20kHz. The tube complement is four
SNP9, four 300B, two 12AX7 and two 6922. That should keep the room warm. Very nice fit and finish but I didn't get a chance to hear it.
Bernard also showed me the 3wpc MC-30 Music Centre from Shanling.
If it sounds anything like as good as it looks, this will be another winner. This tube based CD receiver with iPod docking station sells for $1,099 Cdn. The input and volume controls are at the top of the front legs - ingenious.
Best sound in the show? Son or Filtronique, a Montreal dealer paired the wonderful new Sonus Faber Elipsa ($20,000) with Ref CD7 CD Player and Ref 3 Preamp from ARC and Ayre MX-R Monoblocs ($16,500) to bring home the prize in my book.The music flows with such ease and pace you just know this is what the hobby is all about. On the left is Son or Filtronique's Gilles Champoux and next to him Ayre's Steve Silberman, who told me how much he admires the ARC preamp. Stay tuned for some very exciting new products from Ayre over the next year or two. My lips are sealed.
The last stop on the tour is the Linn room, and I was particularly interested in the A/B comparison between the two Linn Sondek LP12s on display.
One was a fully tricked out 2006 model, and the other is upgraded to the latest specs. Linn make all the turntable upgrades available to current owners so here's what's on offer. There's the Keel subchassis, armboard and collar, milled from solid aluminum, eliminating screws, fixings and joins for increased rigidity. And there's a new version of the Trampolin baseboard, also made from aluminum. Rumors abound of a solid aluminum plinth but there has been no announcement to date. Finally there's a new version of the Ekos tonearm - the Ekos SE, which has been thoroughly reengineered to increase rigidity. Yes there was a big difference in the sound between the two LP12s, but I would like to do a more careful examination in due course. Pictured here with the new LP12 is Gilles Gagnon from Linn's Canadian distributor, Aldburn Electronics. My own LP12 dates back to 1980. How many other products have been so well supported over such a long period of time? Kudos to Linn, and maybe that could be the name of their next component.
So there you have it. That's the Festival Son & Image for 2007. I didn't cover every room - life's too short. Next year, let me recommend that you make the trip yourself. Unlike CES, this show is open to the public and a lot easier on the legs. Montreal is a fabulous city with wonderful people and great food. Can't say much about the weather in April but Quebec is always beautiful and the people staffing the exhibit rooms could not be more helpful or welcoming. Bienvenue à Montreal.
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High-Performance Audio Reviews
