Clearly, I was in need of a beer, so I
went to the Social Hour provided by the Festival and had a nice long chat with
my colleague Phil Gold, who later that evening went to see his daughter
perform in a play at nearby McGill University. A proud father, that man, and
impressively knowledgeable as well.
Having been stuck in stop-and-go traffic all
day inside the Sheraton, with only a couple of granola bars and Mt. Dew for
sustenance, I decided to venture out for some exercise and search for
carbohydrates to carry me through Friday. Among the interesting things I
spotted were an audio shop, interesting named Audio Shop, right around the
corner from the Sheraton. A little further down the street I spotted this
Harley Davidson billboard which, loosely translated from the French, I think
means "Speak softly and ride a loud motorcycle." La Queue de Cheval Bar
and Steakhouse with a (hopefully segregated) Salon de Cigares displayed a
window full of aged beef for all to see. My grandfather, who was for much of
his life a butcher, would have loved it! The menu told me to save this
adventure for a trip when Linda could join me, as dinner for two would have
been over a hundred bucks plus drinks. Instead, I ventured into an Italian
restaurant for a more plebeian meal of lasagna washed down with a glass of
Richard's Red dark beer and stole a glimpse of the beautiful young barmaid
from time to time. Later, I had the pleasure of meeting George Short and his
lovely wife as I strolled in the streets of Montreal.
Friday
Since the show opened later on this day (at 11am), I headed
for the Press Room and coffee. A young entrepreneur was exhibiting his Lafleuraudio
X1 stand mounted loudspeaker ($8000) that looked like a smaller
descendant of the famed Magico Mini. (Many people are not aware that the
Magico isn't really very mini
at all). Much attention has been given to vibration isolation in the X1. The
chassis is isolated from the dedicated stand by three cones, the front baffle
has a rubber surround and is anchored to the rear baffle with rods, further
isolating it from the Russian cherry plywood. Even the crossover with high
quality Clarity Audio caps is isolated. Scanspeak drivers combine with the
exponential curve of the cabinet to give a very nice wide-dispersion sound.
Unfortunately, the large table in the middle of the room prohibited listening
from the preferred position. And while this outpost in the Press Room gave
them exposure to writers, I expect precious few show-goers had an opportunity
to hear Emmanuel Lafleur's fine design. Unfortunately, while I took video
notes, I seem to have forgotten to take a photo. Next year!
Powering the Lafleur was a Third
Millenium Audio MCA5200 five channel 200 watt per home theater amplifier that
doubles down to 400 watts at 4 Ohms. TMA is another new French Canadian
company formed by Robin Blanchard, former president of Oracle Audio, and a
member of their design team for 25 years. They also have a matching
preamplifier/processor for home theater, but what attracted me was a prototype
micro-processor controlled integrated amplifier. It looks like major league
muscle, here, and will probably run about $5000 to $7000.
Finally I have been blessed with a decent presentation from Reference
3A. While their loudspeakers have garnered much praise from the
press over the years, their presence at Montreal has often been plagued by
poor rooms for one reason or another. Their Grand Veena ($7995 in gloss black,
$7500 standard finish) driven by Antique
Sound Lab's Cadenza DT monoblocks ($6500), Flora EX DT
preamplifier ($3000) and emmLabs
CD player did supreme justice to a couple of Bruce Springsteen tracks on my
compilation CD. I wasn't going to let this outstanding rig slip by me this
year without hearing some very familiar music. The Grand Veena is every bit as
good as the reviews have claimed. While I may be late to the party, it is
better than not to have shown up at all. I also noted Chang
Lightspeed's new CLS 715 power conditioner in the system. On
silent display when I came through was the new Episode three-way loudspeaker
($3500) from 3A. Looking like a smaller version of the Grand Veenas without
the two large woofers, this new loudspeaker could be a huge bargain, given
that you still do not need speaker stands.
Denon had
a minimalist presentation with a pair of wood clad stand mounted monitors
(SC-CX303, $1295) driven by an integrated amplifier with built-in AM/FM
reception (DRA-CX3, $1295) with their CD/SACD player (DCD-CX3, $1295) as the
source. The electronics were scaled down to about three-quarter scale, making
this a sophisticated lifestyle rig that will be available in May. The music
was reasonable, but the rig and room probably could have benefited from some
tweaking.
Fidelio Audio’s
room is traditionally a listening experience to promote their own CD sales as
they are essentially a premier recording company. Their reference rig included
Nagra electronics and Verity Audio Sarastro II loudspeakers ($40,000 for the
Verities). No turntables here. The sources were CD playback and playback of
the digital masters from computer. Rene
LaFlamme treated me to a direct comparison from a new release that
clearly illustrated the loss of very subtle details and a smidgen of
transparency. If you ever have an opportunity to compare a commercial
reproduction with the master, I urge you to indulge yourself. It will help
educate your listening ear to what is possible and raise your listening bar a
little higher. It is always a delightful experience to listen to enjoy the
music here. And if Rene’s personal demeanor is indicative of the rest of the
company, Fidelio should be a wonderful company with which to work. Following
the emerging trend in high-end audio, Rene tells me that Fidelio will soon be
offering 24-bit/96kHz downloads from their website.
The Sonus Faber
Stradivari Homage made another appearance this year in the Sumiko
room on Level 2, driven by the Audio
Research Reference 610T tube monoblocks rather than the solid state
Ayre seen last year. The preamplifier was Ayre's
new KX-R remote controlled model with a solid aluminum monocoque chassis like
they use on the monoblock power amplifiers. The design has a variable gain
volume control rather than the more commonly seen attenuator. I was told this
design does not affect inductance and capacitance values as the volume is
changed, unlike other systems. With four inputs each in balanced and unbalance
mode, its two outputs are balanced only, which was probably a good thing given
the long run to the power amplifiers in this room. The KX-R has its own
built-in power filter so the power amplifiers were fed from a small Shunyata Hydra conditioner at the other end of the room. The
front end was an SME analog rig
amplified by an Audio Research phono stage. I noticed Siltech's
Eskay Creek speaker cables with an alloy of gold and silver. With gold briefly
toping $1000/ounce this week as commodities continue to surge, you can expect
these to be very expensive. For all the truly great gear in this room, I
thought the system lacked in "jump factor". Perhaps they should have done
something a bit outlandish, like put the sofa that was between and behind the
loudspeakers out in the hallway. Or slapped some Dynamat Extreme on the
windows.
Linn had
a pair of adjacent rooms at the show, and presented the best sounding
expensive rig I've ever heard from them. It exhibited a clarity and
transparency without the irritation I've experienced from more expensive
Linn systems in the past. The
second room was configured as a secondary listening room, and was comprised of
more moderately priced gear. One source was a new turntable package called the
Majik LP12 ($3500) which included a basic LP12 turntable with an imported Pro-Ject
9cc carbon fiber tonearm and Linn Adikt moving magnet cartridge. Upgrades to
the turntable can take it to maximum $30,000 level if you later desire. The
amplification was handled by the Majik-I integrated amplifier ($2300) that
contains trickle-down circuitry from their Klimax preamplifier and Chakra
power amplifier. Both mm and mc phono stages are included in the amplifier,
and you can add a Linn outboard mc phono stage. The other "source" was
their new Sneaky Music DS (for digital system, $1995) which was connected to a
server in the main room. The Sneaky streams digital radio or music from a
server and includes its own pre and power amplification so it can be connected
directly to the loudspeakers. The system uses a protocol called FLAC (free
lossless audio codec) which, unlike Apple's system, is available to
everyone. The server was outsourced from Netgear with a control panel from
Samsung. The Sneaky is connected to the server with Ethernet cable. Driving
the new Majik 140 loudspeakers ($3295), either analog or digital source
sounded very good. The loudspeakers can be bi-amplified and upgraded with
external electronic crossovers if you become obsessive as you age. Michael Remington, the Linn host was very helpful in sorting
this all out for me. He was also willing to hear my story of the success
I've had with Boston Audio Design's products and those of Sound Dead Steel
in improving the performance of my modest LP-12. Who knows, the best may be
yet to come?
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High-Performance Audio Reviews
