RMAF 2012 Show Report (Rocky Mountain Audio Fest)
Show Coverage By Steven R. Rochlin

  The hardworking crew that makes the RMAF sail smoothly along. You incredible ladies are the best!

 

Jeff Joseph room has his speakers and other products in his room.

 

In the Rethm model Maarga $8750 is their singe driver fill rage with augmented bass. As the company has worked with full-range drivers for a decade, they have been able to better fine-tune the mid- and upper-bass region. The main driver is a custom made 6” unit with the cabinet structure being of the isobaric variety.

 

Naim Audio room with many of their well-reviewed and highly acclaimed gear. Awesome wood finish on those speakers!!!

 

Emotiva room was really nice and am looking forward to their XMC-1 preamplifier/processor unit ($1499). Remember all those things I said in my earlier McIntosh writings? Well, Emotiva's XMC-1 is a 7.2 channel preamplifier with HD surround decoding, post processing, and HDMI video management. It includes Emotiva's version of the revolutionary TACT Dynamic Room Correction system and the entire unit is based on a powerful and flexible DSP architecture controlled by an advanced ARM processor running custom Linux software. And yes the XMC-1 provides a flexible and expandable platform, unlike closed-ended stereo DACs, so current and technologically relevant items will work for years to come. Ya know what, see the below I copied from Emotiva's website:

Computer I/O
Texas Instruments AM-1808 Sitara Arm9 32-bit 375MHz processor.
Ethernet port for control (RJ-45)
Streaming audio capability.
Drivers for Control4, RTI, URC, Crestron, etc.
Setup and control via PC/ Mac.
TACT GUI interface.
Firmware update via USB-A.
Twin Texas Instrument 32-bit floating-point dual-core 300 MHz DA710 DSP's capable of 1800 MIPS.
Asynchronous sample rate converters for extremely high jitter immunity.
True 7.2 digital decoding with stereo bass management and post processing.
Fully independent crossover settings for fronts, center, surrounds, backs, & subs.
Independently variable frequencies and slope rates by channel groupings.
Stereo subwoofer support with independent level, distance and EQ.
Selectable dynamic range control.
Selectable Fletcher-Munson loudness compensation.
Selectable independent or global multi-band parametric EQ.
Global bass and treble controls.
Exclusive TACT TCS 3e Dynamic Room Correction system with PC/MAC GUI for complete system control and adjustment "on-the-fly" (overrides standard bass and loudspeaker management and EQ).
Burr-Brown PCM4202 ADC for precision analog to digital conversion.
Burr-Brown DSD 1793 main zone DACs.
Dual CS3310 lossless resistor ladder volume controls for main zone. 0.5dB resolution.
NJW 1298 lossless resistor ladder volume controls for secondary zones and mix out.0.5dB resolution.
Balanced Analog In via XLR.
Unbalanced Analog In 1-4 via RCA.
AM/FM tuner (shared with main zone).
USB Audio (2-channel only).
Ethernet Audio (2-channel only).
Zone 1 sync, including multi-channel sources.

Ok, I'll stop there yet there is much more and they will have a tablet app for controlling the unit too. All this for $1500 too! Hell, odds are some of you reading this spent more on an interconnect or speaker cable. As for sound quality, read some of the Emotiva reviews before you poo-poo this and claim just because it is multi-channel it can't be true high-end audio. Hopefully other manufacturers might now wake up and understand what the more affluent, technology-aware users demand. New generation of humans, new technology, new desires. Of course the marketplace will decide the fate of those companies not keeping up with consumer's requirements.

 

Ginko Audio room had a wide array of gear playing a wonderful drum track. Nice and dynamic!

 

My vote for the best speaker 'disappearing act' is the Evolution Audio room with their MMMicroOne stand-mounted speaker. It uses a 2” pleated diaphragm Air Velocity PDAV and two 4” ceramic matrix mid-bass CMAT drivers. Frequency response Is from 35 Hz to 30 kHz (in room), has a 6 Ohm impedance and a sensitivity of 87dB/W/m. The drivers and time and phase aligned, which probably goes a long way to explaining their amazing ‘disappearing act'. So does using very high quality source material.

 

Live music here @ RMAF 2012 and if you missed this show, you reeeeally missed it!

 

---> Click here for Sunday's RMAF 2012 coverage.