Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2004

Saturday

Warren Gregoire & Associates had their Ikonoklast3 loudspeaker ($1,500 in kit or $2,995 fully assembled) that use a Walsh-type piezo 360 degree bending wave tweeter that operates from 2kHz on upward. The midrange is a 5.25-inch with sound absorbing material in the center of the unit. There is no crossover unit from input to the drivers. They claim the 3/4 transmission line enclosure assists the unit to produce frequencies down to 30Hz, but unsure at how many dB down.

Seen here are the Daedalus Audio DA-1 loudspeaker and Butler 100A monoblock hybrid amplifier that uses a 300B for preamplification, solid-state for output, that together produce 150 watts. The DA-1 has a pair of 1-inch silk soft-dome tweeters, a 5-inch midrange, and a pair of 8-inch woofers. The solid hardwood enclosure is beautifully made with hand-rubbed oil finishes and dovetail joints.

Ocean Acoustic had these way cool DX-4 Lowther diver horn-loaded loudspeaker ($4,700). Internally are 15 pieces of CNC cut wood to insure ultra smooth curves. Also seen here are the Experience Music model Surrender and Devotion ($12,500 and $9,500 respectively). The Surrender (left) is an active-loaded parallel feed 2A3 with Cobalt output transformers while the Devotion uses a 300B for higher output power.

Headphone lovers will want to take a listen to the Chaz EL34-based amplifier ($479 in kit form) that also uses a 6SL7 and 5Z3P.

The Django transformer-based preamplifier ($849 in kit form) uses copper wire internally. A silver upgrade kit, not including the transformers, adds $150.

Bastini Speakers have a unique slot-loaded tweeter mated to a 12-inch wideband midrange/bass driver mounted in an open baffle style. Sensitivity is 100dB and the crossover is only a single signal capacitor for the tweeter. In kit form it is $1,570 or assembled is €3,900.

Linn was at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in full force with their top-of-the-range Komri Reference Monitor floorstanding loudspeakers ($40,000). This five-way loudspeaker produces frequencies from 10Hz to 40kHz and integrates a fully active servo-controlled 1,500-watt bass amplifier. Their Unidisk 1.1 universal disc player was feeding their Klimax Control preamplifier and Klimax power amplifier.

Audio Analog's Puccini Settana 70-watt integrated amplifier ($1,899) was driving their Paganini 24-bit/192kHz CD transport/player ($1,899).

VMPS RM30 loudspeakers ($4,430) uses many ribbon drivers and a pair of active 6.5-inch woofer that also act upon another pair of like units for bass. A pair of side-firing 10-inch woofers produces the lowermost frequencies.

deHavilland's new IOS Stereo 845 tube amplifier ($4,999) looked ever so unassuming as it produces upwards of 25 watts per channel. An integrated version is available for only $600 more.

Click here for Sunday's coverage.