RMAF 2011

"That's a familiar sight—and a familiar sound." When I walked into On A Higher Note's large room on the Denver Tech Center Marriott's mezzanine floor, the speakers being demmed were the Vivid B1s that I review in the October issue. I loved the sound of the $14,990/pair B1s in my room and they were doing equally sterling duty at RMAF, driven by a Luxman M600A amplifier ($8500) and a modified Revox open-reel recorder. A 15ips tape of a cello, piano, and double bass playing what sounded like a tango by Astor Piazolla, recorded in LA's Disney Hall by Yarlung Records, had an ease to its sound that allowed the music to flow. The room had a touch too much bloom in the upper bass—perhaps the Synergistic "magic bowl" you can see on the post on the wall behind the speakers was fatigued after a long day adjusting the room acoustics.

Von Schweikert speakers were featured in a number of rooms at RMAF, and their VR-33s ($4500/pair) were demonstrating impressive dynamics with a drum recording in the second-floor room the company was sharing with Jolida. Power was being provided by the new Jolida JD 1000RC tubed integrated amplifier, which gets 100Wpc into 8 ohms from its four matched pairs of EL34 tubes. The VR-33 weighs 103 lbs and combines an MTM array on the front panel with a rear-firing, port-loaded woofer. "Own a $15,000 speaker for only $3750" says Von Schweikert's literature. My notes said $4500, but whatever the exact price, you get a lot of speaker for the money. As you can see from the photo, the price of the VR-33 has been kept competitive by using a cloth covering for the enclosure rather than veneer.

I am always intrigued by Wavelength's combination of cutting-edge digital technology and tubes. Their room at RMAF featured new developments in both areas. Shown in the photo are the latest HS 24(32)/192 version of the Cosecant asynchronous USB DAC (left, $4000), which features the new Denominator D/A module with 9016 ESS converters, and the new Royal preamp (right, $7500). Wavelength's Gordon Rankin walked me through the design of the minimalist preamp. The input signal is taken to a transformer hat inverts the polarity and feeds high-precision Penny & Giles two-channel attenuator. The wipers of the attenuator are connected directly to the grids of two 71A triodes and that's it! (The third tube is a rectifier.) Because the single tube stage inverts polarity, the preamp output is again in correct absolute polarity.

Wilson Audio Specialties Sasha loudspeakers, D’Agostino Master Audio Systems Momentum monoblock power amplifiers, Transparent Audio cables, and Peter McGrath handling the tunes via an iPad and Meridian Sooloos MC200 media center. I heard a very similar system in a shoebox of a room at the California Audio Show earlier this year. What a difference a room makes!