Le Festival Son et Image de Montréal 2006 Show Report
The Home Entertainment and Electronics Show

Report By Phil Gold

  GTT’s Bill Parish is offering the world premier of the new Kharma Ceramique CE 3.1c ($12,000 US), which features an updated ceramic tweeter. As much as I enjoy seeing exciting new designs being introduced, the best sound often comes from the patient refinement of a product over a number of years, as with the Karma Ceramique or famously, the Linn Sondek LP12.

Tri-Cell’s first room highlights the Bluenote Stibbert Mk II CD Player that is making big waves right now, with its totally floating suspension and non-oversampling digital stage. The Bluenote is paired here with Korato tube and solid-state electronics from Belgrade. With the Bluenote and Korato amps, new to Canada, we see Jack Bakerjian, President of Audio Gallery of Toronto, importers of Korato. Sitting on the floor are two Renaissance Tube Monoblocks, which will run you $5500 Cdn the pair. Immediately below the Bluenote is the KVA-20 stereo tube amp, just $2995 Cdn, while the right hand side stack features part of the Korato Anniversary Reference Series, which will set you back $2995 Cdn for the phono stage, $4500 Cdn for the preamp and $6995 Cdn for the dual mono class A 150 watt power amp. Sound quality in this room bodes well for the success of Korato in North America.

 

Tri-Cell’s Vince Scalzitti serves the analog enthusiast well up in Canada. He is pictured here with the Clearaudio Master Solution turntable ($4800 Canadian) and the brand new 507 Mk 2 arm from Dynavector ($4900 Cdn).

 

Also new in this room is a 12” arm from Brinkmann ($4000), featuring a new headshell design suited for a wider range of cartridge shapes than older 10.5” Brinkmann arm The 12” arm is mounted here on the Brinkmann Lagrange turntable.

 

On display from Norma Hylee Tech is an updated Thorens 124 turntable. This will cost from $4000 to $8000 depending on the configuration and cartridge. Brinkmann will remanufacture an old Thorens 124 or Garrard 301 and they’ll upgrade it for you and mount it in a special vibration controlled plinth, then fit an Ortofon Tonearm and SPU or EMT cartridge.

Not new but worth a picture anyway are these lovely Brinkmann Mono Power amps at $13750 a pair.

Now on to the Ars Aures / Art Audio room, where synergistic combinations are the order of the day. The two companies plan to market Ars Aures F1 Bookshelf Speakers (from $2800 US) with Art Audio Carissa amps (from $5000 US) in matching Automobile finishes (Ferrari, Jaguar) for well below the price of buying the components individually. Watch the websites for details. The F1 Bookshelf is making its debut here in Montreal, and if the sound I heard is anything to go by, this is an exceptional value and provides amazing bass reproduction for such a small speaker. Here is Lee Landesberg of Landes Audio Imports leaning on the F1 Bookshelf. I’ve asked Lee for a review pair. Key to the design is a new tweeter, designed in-house, that extends down to 500Hz. Also available in the F1 series is the floorstanding F1 ($5100 US) and the F1 Centre ($1500 US).

 

Joe Fratus of Art Audio introduced me to the Quartet Monoblocks ($12000 US a pair) which put out 50 watts using Valve Art 845 B cryo-treated output tubes in a push pull arrangement. The excellent sound in this room is due in no small part to these superb amplifiers and demonstrates their ability to drive these and the bigger Ars Aures speakers.

 

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