Photo Highlights Of RMAF 2011
- Thread starter Steve williams
- Start date
Those speakers are 1949 Western Electric which have become extremely popular in Asia with recent ones selling for $180,000
Thoughts from the RMAF Show:
This was my first audio show I have ever attended and it was a little overwhelming at first. Steve and I were able to spend some time with Gary and his sister Carol in his Genesis room after we arrived on Thursday afternoon. I brought a couple of LPs which Gary played and it’s always nice to hear jazz I’m familiar with. Gary was quite taken with the Sonny Clark LP “Sonny’s Crib” and so am I. We returned to Gary’s room on Friday morning and I was amazed at how much the sound had changed from the night before. The sound had really opened up from when we first arrived on Thursday and it sounded much better.
Steve and I were also lucky to get to spend some time in Jonathan Tinn’s room on Thursday night as he was setting up. Mike Spitz from ATR was there and he brought one of his ATR-102 decks with the Aria electronics. This deck looks smaller in person than it does in pictures even though it is still a good sized deck mind you. The Studer A-80 looks massive by comparison and bigger in real life than in pictures. Anyway, Jonathan was playing his Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOne speakers that sell for $2500 per pair via a DarTZeel integrated amp and Wave Kinetics NVS table with Durand tonearms. Mike Spitz spooled up a 30 ips tape of Louis Armstrong’s LP “St. Johns Infirmary.” This was the first time I have ever heard a 30 ips tape, and I was completely floored at the sound. People talk about holographic imaging and realism. I could have reached out and touched Louis Armstrong because he was right there in the room with us. If you were lucky enough to hear this tape and not be moved and shaken by the sound, you need to find a new hobby. I can’t really comment on the NVS table because the bearing sustained some damage during shipment to the show and was not working optimally as a result. The Evolution MicroOne speakers are the real deal and remind me of the Q1 speakers in the fact that you can’t believe something so small sounds so big.
As for the rest of the show rooms, I’m only going to talk about a few of them. There were lots of rooms that I wrote “Yawn” in my notes meaning I was bored and couldn’t wait to beat feet and get out of there. I won’t bother to bore you with those rooms either. And to be fair, setting up a stereo system in a hotel room is pretty extreme. If you can pull great sound out of a small hotel room, you obviously have a story to tell. It should be no surprise that those who paid for really big rooms had an easier time getting better sound out of their gear.
I was surprised at the number of exhibitors who had not only the cutting edge of digital technology/music to play back, but also were demonstrating with analog via turntables and tape. I have to throw my $.02 worth here and side with Myles on what he has said on previous occasions about these shows. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that the best sound in every room I sat in that had both digital and analog playback gear to choose from was when they played analog. We had plenty of other people at the RMAF from our forum and I would be interested to hear if any of them preferred the sound of digital to analog in any room where they heard both. It wasn’t close in my opinion. Ken is a guy who only plays digital music at home and I hope he chimes in with his thoughts. He might feel the opposite of course. Every time the switch was made from digital to analog in a given room, the sound was much better. I know this will cause some gnashing of teeth with some, but it was pretty obvious to me what the truth was.
EAR Room- EAR preamp, power amp, Townsend turntable and Marten speakers. This was the first time I have heard a Townsend turntable and I was impressed with the sound of the table, and the quality of the design and build. This was a very good sounding room.
SALK/Van Alstine-The SALK speakers sounded really good being driven by all Van Alstine electronics with speaker cables from Blue Jean cables. These speakers were full range and threw a big soundstage.
The Music Culture (MC) Room was interesting. The company is owned by the guy who used to own MBL and his electronics look very much like MBL electronics which shouldn’t be a shocker. The MC 811 amps are cool looking.
TACT Audio Room-The Beat turntable was spinning LPs and making beautiful music via Allnic tube electronics and Wilson Sasha/WP speakers. Space and texture would describe the sound of this room for me. I thought the room sounded great and I was highly impressed with the sound of The Beat table which had two arms installed: a Reed tonearm and a new arm by Schroeder.
VAC Room-Kevin Hayes was holding court with his Signature MK2 preamp ($19K) and his PHI 200 stereo amp ($10K) which put out 100 watts per channel. Speakers were by Tannoy ($7K). My notes simply say that I was not impressed with the sound even though he had a Clearaudio table playing.
Roger Sanders-This room was clearly one of the best for me and Steve both. The package deal that Roger offers for his speakers, amp, and the electronic crossover for the bass that he factory presets for you has to represent one of the biggest bargains in high-end audio. $13K buys you the entire package and judging by what I heard at the show, it competes with systems that easily cost 10x Roger’s price. The sound was pure as you would expect from an electrostat, but what you don’t expect so much from electrostats is the SPLs these can play at and with great dynamic range. The sound was simply stunning and I didn’t want to leave the room and said so.
Vivid Room-This was another clear winner. The speakers look like eggs with legs, but they sound really good and throw a huge soundstage. LPs were being spun by a Brinkman TT and tapes were being spun by the Sonus redo of the ReVox PR-99 tape deck. Phillip O’Hanlon put on tape and played a cut from Curt Elling that was simply stunning. I clapped at the end of the song. I couldn’t help myself.
Clearaudio/Aesthetix Room-All of the electronics were from Aesthetix, the table was the Clearaudio Innovation, and the speakers were the new Vandersteen 7s. The sound in this room was simply incredible. I don’t know if I have ever heard a turntable as good as this new Clearaudio. Not only does this thing look stunning, it sounds stunning. This table has a super black background that the sound just explodes from. They were playing the Lightening Hopkins “Going Away” LP and the sound was breathtaking and I don’t use that adjective often. The guitar plucks were hair raising. I went downstairs to where they were selling music and I was lucky to score a sealed 45 RPM copy of the LP as they are now out of print. $55 and a steal at that. If I was selling any turntable at the price range of this new Clearaudio table and especially if I was selling a table that cost more, I would be very afraid. It’s hard to imagine there is a better table anywhere at any price including the top of the line table from Clearaudio (which I haven’t heard). It’s simply that good and should be a must audition if you are shopping in that price range.
ARC Room-Here we had the new ARC REF-250 amps, the REF-5 preamp, and the REF-2 phono section playing through the Vandersteen 7 speakers. There were also some ARC digital gear. They were spinning vinyl and the sound was really, really good. As good as this room sounded, I have to say that IMO it didn’t sound as good as the Clearaudio/Aesthetix room even though the speakers were the same. I will give the credit to the Clearaudio table for making “the” difference.
Last but not least, the Magico Room-This was the first time I have ever heard a pair of Magico speakers. Our own forum has some conflicting views of what Magico sounds like and what they stand for. I often read about people who criticize the bass or who defend the bass of Magico speakers. We heard the Q1 speakers being fed a signal from a Nagra R2R deck via Balabalo electronics. I was highly impressed with the sound of the Q1s. They threw a big and deep soundstage and had a purity of sound that could easily be addicting. I wasn’t familiar with the cut I heard from the tape, but it sure sounded really good. Given all of the controversy about the bass quality of Magico speakers, I will tell you that I was amazed at how much bass these speakers had and I thought the quality of that bass needn’t be picked on. It sounded right to these ears. It’s still hard to swallow spending $24,950 for a pair of speakers that are so small and I don’t care if they are spun out of gold. But, if you are more limited on space than you are limited on the funds in your bank account, these are the real deal in terms of overall sound quality and the realistic soundstage they throw.
This was my first audio show I have ever attended and it was a little overwhelming at first. Steve and I were able to spend some time with Gary and his sister Carol in his Genesis room after we arrived on Thursday afternoon. I brought a couple of LPs which Gary played and it’s always nice to hear jazz I’m familiar with. Gary was quite taken with the Sonny Clark LP “Sonny’s Crib” and so am I. We returned to Gary’s room on Friday morning and I was amazed at how much the sound had changed from the night before. The sound had really opened up from when we first arrived on Thursday and it sounded much better.
Steve and I were also lucky to get to spend some time in Jonathan Tinn’s room on Thursday night as he was setting up. Mike Spitz from ATR was there and he brought one of his ATR-102 decks with the Aria electronics. This deck looks smaller in person than it does in pictures even though it is still a good sized deck mind you. The Studer A-80 looks massive by comparison and bigger in real life than in pictures. Anyway, Jonathan was playing his Evolution Acoustics MMMicroOne speakers that sell for $2500 per pair via a DarTZeel integrated amp and Wave Kinetics NVS table with Durand tonearms. Mike Spitz spooled up a 30 ips tape of Louis Armstrong’s LP “St. Johns Infirmary.” This was the first time I have ever heard a 30 ips tape, and I was completely floored at the sound. People talk about holographic imaging and realism. I could have reached out and touched Louis Armstrong because he was right there in the room with us. If you were lucky enough to hear this tape and not be moved and shaken by the sound, you need to find a new hobby. I can’t really comment on the NVS table because the bearing sustained some damage during shipment to the show and was not working optimally as a result. The Evolution MicroOne speakers are the real deal and remind me of the Q1 speakers in the fact that you can’t believe something so small sounds so big.
As for the rest of the show rooms, I’m only going to talk about a few of them. There were lots of rooms that I wrote “Yawn” in my notes meaning I was bored and couldn’t wait to beat feet and get out of there. I won’t bother to bore you with those rooms either. And to be fair, setting up a stereo system in a hotel room is pretty extreme. If you can pull great sound out of a small hotel room, you obviously have a story to tell. It should be no surprise that those who paid for really big rooms had an easier time getting better sound out of their gear.
I was surprised at the number of exhibitors who had not only the cutting edge of digital technology/music to play back, but also were demonstrating with analog via turntables and tape. I have to throw my $.02 worth here and side with Myles on what he has said on previous occasions about these shows. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that the best sound in every room I sat in that had both digital and analog playback gear to choose from was when they played analog. We had plenty of other people at the RMAF from our forum and I would be interested to hear if any of them preferred the sound of digital to analog in any room where they heard both. It wasn’t close in my opinion. Ken is a guy who only plays digital music at home and I hope he chimes in with his thoughts. He might feel the opposite of course. Every time the switch was made from digital to analog in a given room, the sound was much better. I know this will cause some gnashing of teeth with some, but it was pretty obvious to me what the truth was.
EAR Room- EAR preamp, power amp, Townsend turntable and Marten speakers. This was the first time I have heard a Townsend turntable and I was impressed with the sound of the table, and the quality of the design and build. This was a very good sounding room.
SALK/Van Alstine-The SALK speakers sounded really good being driven by all Van Alstine electronics with speaker cables from Blue Jean cables. These speakers were full range and threw a big soundstage.
The Music Culture (MC) Room was interesting. The company is owned by the guy who used to own MBL and his electronics look very much like MBL electronics which shouldn’t be a shocker. The MC 811 amps are cool looking.
TACT Audio Room-The Beat turntable was spinning LPs and making beautiful music via Allnic tube electronics and Wilson Sasha/WP speakers. Space and texture would describe the sound of this room for me. I thought the room sounded great and I was highly impressed with the sound of The Beat table which had two arms installed: a Reed tonearm and a new arm by Schroeder.
VAC Room-Kevin Hayes was holding court with his Signature MK2 preamp ($19K) and his PHI 200 stereo amp ($10K) which put out 100 watts per channel. Speakers were by Tannoy ($7K). My notes simply say that I was not impressed with the sound even though he had a Clearaudio table playing.
Roger Sanders-This room was clearly one of the best for me and Steve both. The package deal that Roger offers for his speakers, amp, and the electronic crossover for the bass that he factory presets for you has to represent one of the biggest bargains in high-end audio. $13K buys you the entire package and judging by what I heard at the show, it competes with systems that easily cost 10x Roger’s price. The sound was pure as you would expect from an electrostat, but what you don’t expect so much from electrostats is the SPLs these can play at and with great dynamic range. The sound was simply stunning and I didn’t want to leave the room and said so.
Vivid Room-This was another clear winner. The speakers look like eggs with legs, but they sound really good and throw a huge soundstage. LPs were being spun by a Brinkman TT and tapes were being spun by the Sonus redo of the ReVox PR-99 tape deck. Phillip O’Hanlon put on tape and played a cut from Curt Elling that was simply stunning. I clapped at the end of the song. I couldn’t help myself.
Clearaudio/Aesthetix Room-All of the electronics were from Aesthetix, the table was the Clearaudio Innovation, and the speakers were the new Vandersteen 7s. The sound in this room was simply incredible. I don’t know if I have ever heard a turntable as good as this new Clearaudio. Not only does this thing look stunning, it sounds stunning. This table has a super black background that the sound just explodes from. They were playing the Lightening Hopkins “Going Away” LP and the sound was breathtaking and I don’t use that adjective often. The guitar plucks were hair raising. I went downstairs to where they were selling music and I was lucky to score a sealed 45 RPM copy of the LP as they are now out of print. $55 and a steal at that. If I was selling any turntable at the price range of this new Clearaudio table and especially if I was selling a table that cost more, I would be very afraid. It’s hard to imagine there is a better table anywhere at any price including the top of the line table from Clearaudio (which I haven’t heard). It’s simply that good and should be a must audition if you are shopping in that price range.
ARC Room-Here we had the new ARC REF-250 amps, the REF-5 preamp, and the REF-2 phono section playing through the Vandersteen 7 speakers. There were also some ARC digital gear. They were spinning vinyl and the sound was really, really good. As good as this room sounded, I have to say that IMO it didn’t sound as good as the Clearaudio/Aesthetix room even though the speakers were the same. I will give the credit to the Clearaudio table for making “the” difference.
Last but not least, the Magico Room-This was the first time I have ever heard a pair of Magico speakers. Our own forum has some conflicting views of what Magico sounds like and what they stand for. I often read about people who criticize the bass or who defend the bass of Magico speakers. We heard the Q1 speakers being fed a signal from a Nagra R2R deck via Balabalo electronics. I was highly impressed with the sound of the Q1s. They threw a big and deep soundstage and had a purity of sound that could easily be addicting. I wasn’t familiar with the cut I heard from the tape, but it sure sounded really good. Given all of the controversy about the bass quality of Magico speakers, I will tell you that I was amazed at how much bass these speakers had and I thought the quality of that bass needn’t be picked on. It sounded right to these ears. It’s still hard to swallow spending $24,950 for a pair of speakers that are so small and I don’t care if they are spun out of gold. But, if you are more limited on space than you are limited on the funds in your bank account, these are the real deal in terms of overall sound quality and the realistic soundstage they throw.
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