RMAF 2010

Price-No-Object Sound from Tidal, dCS, and Argento

Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 21, 2010

I followed my visit to the Kaiser/GTE/Fono Acustica room with a stop in a room occupied by Tidal Audio, dCS, and Argento Audio.

The system featured Tidal’s Piano DiaCera loudspeakers in an Ebony Makassar finish ($41,890/pair), which had an elegant, serene appearance, like calm, black waters, Tidal’s Preos preamp with phono stage ($27,990) and140Wpc Impact dual-mono Reference amplifier ($25,990), the dCS Puccini SACD player ($17,999) with U-Clock ($4999), and cables from Argento Audio: Flow power cords ($3100/2m), Flow Master Reference power cords ($6200/2m), Flow interconnect ($4100/1m RCA), Flow Master Reference interconnect ($8900/1m RCA), Flow speaker cables ($9000/2m), and Flow Master Reference speaker cables ($21,500/2m).

Holy moly. This must have been the most expensive system I heard at the show, though I didn’t know it at the time.

My notes tell me that I was impressed by the system’s clean highs and deep, well-controlled bass. The overall sound was marked by excellent three-dimensionality and spatial effects with outstanding transparency and image focus, but didn’t have the transient speed of some other rooms.

COMMENTS
C.Carson's picture
Submitted by C.Carson (not verified) on October 21, 2010 - 5:33pm

While traveling through the halls, I stumbled upon the TIDAL Audio room. I agree that this was one of the most amazing and musical rooms in the show. I disagree it was the most expensive system because one of the first rooms on this floor had speakers that were more expenvive than the three TIDAL pieces combined. While so many rooms struggled to get ok sound, my tracks were reproduced far better than those others claiming to be "best in the world". The lack of transient speed was not apparent to me as images were portrayed with as much speed as I could ever want yet the sound was always musical without any of the spot lit or tipped up highs many call speed. I agree that spacial cues were first rate and returned to this room several times. One correction, the finish was Midnight Black Gloss at $37,000. I was told by the exhibitor that the Ebony Macassar finish couldn't make the trip from Germany in time. I'm getting off the merry go round and buying a pair as soon as I sell mine. TIDAL's room was awesome!

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