RMAF 2008 Show Report (Rocky Mountain Audio Fest)
Sunday Page 1

Jaton had their new Operetta AP2300A ($5000) stereo amplifier produces 150 watts in Class A and doubles to 300 @ 4 Ohms. World premiere of their speakers, the HD-661DX ($1600) and REAL A&V-803 floorstanders ($6000).

 

It is good to see more rooms using music stored on a computer as their source. Of course vinyl notwithstanding, which can sound incredible, if you must use digital i feel that music servers and the like will soon take over the marketplace. This room had the VRS music server system.

 

This room used the Behold system for front end and Ascento C8 loudspeakers.

 

AV123 had their cute little system with the gorgeous wood wrapped WAF-1 monitors and cute little Gizmo single input integrated amplifier.

 

Dodd Audio had their huge and sexy monoblock amps ($40,000/pr). Love those old school analog meters.

 

Best sound of the show so far is the Kaiser speakers with Mastersound 845 Monoblock tube amps and CEC transport with LessLoss DAC 2004. The room was about 60x40 with 20 foot ceiling, so there was plenty of breathing room for sound expansion. As for the sound, nice smooth harmonics and frequency response from top to bottom and impressive soundscaping/imaging. Analog and loudspeaker cables were by Echole, with LessLoss Dynamic Filtering power cables and their Firewall Power Foundation.

 

Cool stuff room goes to Symposium and Emotive Audio as they had reel-to-reel, Manley Labs for the tape head preamplification, Emotive amplification and the Symposium Panorama 2.0. The speaker is a ribbon/planer/dynamic combo. Wow!

 

Single Power Audio's cool, and perhaps audiophile erotica, double bubble Odyssey ($7500) uses six submiature tubes to supply four separate amplifier sections. This is a preamplifier and headphone amplifier looked very... enticing.

 

Reimyo had their new CDT-777 transport andCAT-777 tubed preamplifier.

 

Vintage audio lovers would surely love the RMAF room with the Garrard turntable, various McIntosh tube goodies and much more!

 

Audiophile One single input integrated amplifier ($249) is available in a variety of colors.

 

Of course Wavelength Audio, with their sister company USB DACs, had a nice computer-based front end with tubed DAC and 300B-based single-ended monoblock amplifiers. Loudspeakers were the Vaughn Zinfandel Signature loudspeakers.