RMAF 2012

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RMAF 2012
Audio Feast’s Kenji Furukawa
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 18, 2012  |  28 comments
Art Dudley’s already mentioned the many delights in the Audio Feast room, so I’ll just add that I was particularly delighted to chat with Audio Feast’s Kenji Furukawa, pictured here with his Feastrex NF9ex F90 field-coil loudspeaker ($19,118/pair).
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RMAF 2012
Audio Note UK
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 20, 2012  |  2 comments
Audio Note now handles its US sales directly from the UK. The sound in their room may have been warmer than neutral, but it had an immediacy that I enjoy. Here, the vividness of a classic recording of music from Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila struggled to triumph over the bass commentary from the adjacent room’s Göbell behemoth. When the booming subsided, Jennifer Warnes emerged triumphant.
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RMAF 2012
Audio Summa
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 20, 2012  |  3 comments
It was great to again encounter Silverline’s flagship Grand Bolero loudspeaker ($35,000/pair), displayed by Scot Markwell of Southern California’s Audio Summa. Together with Kuzma’s Stagi S NSE 12" w/TVA tower and Crystal Cable Silver ($2950) and Stabi SD in brass w/external power supply ($3700); BEL’s 1001 Mk.IV amplifier (NFS); and Furutech’s Lineflux RCA interconnects ($2704/1.2m pair), Speakerflux speaker cables ($3645/2m pair), and Powerflux power cords ($3007/1.8m each), the system produced admirable full-range sound.
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RMAF 2012
Audio Without Limits?
John Atkinson  |  Oct 21, 2012  |  2 comments
A reader complained recently that exhibitors at audio Shows tend to demonstrate cost-no-object systems. He was right—they do. As Stephen Mejias has explained, exhibiting at a show is an expensive proposition and most companies go for broke with the systems they show, wanting to get the maximum “Wow factor,” hence return, on that investment.

Colorado retailer Audio Limits was no exception, its large room off the Marriott’s atrium featuring Venture Ultimate Reference loudspeakers ($135,000/pair) driven by FM Acoustics 115 monoblocks ($108,200/pair), an FM Acoustics 245 preamp ($25,800), with the source either a PC laptop running XX High End software, a Weiss Jason transport ($22,7070), or a Weiss Man301 network player ($9083 without DAC), Weiss Medea+ FireWire D/A converter ($21,799) . . .

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RMAF 2012
Avatar Acoustics' Multiple World Premieres
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 17, 2012  |  1 comments
I never thought that yet another listen to Rebecca Pidgeon's "There is a Rose in Spanish Harlem" would hold my attention, but, on the set-up from Avatar Acoustics' Darren Censullo, the recording sounded irresistible. I was especially seduced by the system's compelling warmth in the midrange and correctly proportioned bass. But really, everything in this room sounded really good.
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RMAF 2012
Ayon Shows Off Yello
John Atkinson  |  Oct 21, 2012  |  2 comments
Austrian company Ayon was sharing the large room with Legacy, which led to some delicate choreography scheduling dems. A pair of Lumenwhite Artisan speakers ($25,000/pair) was being driven by Ayon’s Triton 3 tubed, class-A integrated amplifier ($12,500), with an Ayon S3 media server ($8500) providing the bits. Some dub-step/electronica/who-knows-what-genre tracks from Swiss band Yello rocked the house on this system!
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RMAF 2012
Ayre Treatment
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 16, 2012  |  2 comments
Here’s a picture of Ayre’s Michael Wiedmaier pretending to enjoy a martini. I also have a picture of someone pretending to take a hit from an oversized bong; a picture of someone else looking mesmerized by a lava lamp; a picture of someone dancing on a shag rug; a picture of someone else putting out an imaginary cigarette in a real-life ashtray; and a few other funny pictures, too.

I have no pictures of Ayre’s new AX-5 integrated amplifier, no comments on the sound quality of the system, no recollection of even listening to music while in the amazing Ayre room. I do recall very pleasant conversations with readers, exhibitors, and attendees. At any hi-fi show, there are rooms that are all about the gear; rooms that are merely about the technology; rooms that are stuffy or solemn; rooms that are even empty and quiet.

And then there are rooms like this one.

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RMAF 2012
Ayre's AX-5 integrated amplifier: cool, cool, cool
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 16, 2012  |  9 comments
Ah-ha! I found a picture of the gear in the fantastic Ayre room.
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RMAF 2012
Ballad of the Red Glasses
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 19, 2012  |  6 comments
My audiophile doppelganger, Music Hall’s Leland Leard, brought props to RMAF—a pair of bright, red glasses and a stuffed kitty cat doll—and asked attendees to smile for the camera.

I can’t help wonder whether one’s truest self is revealed when donning the bright, red glasses. Or, I suppose, while petting the kitty.

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RMAF 2012
Behind Every Great System Lies . . .
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 21, 2012  |  1 comments
Peering behind the curtain in a Show room reveals, not the Wizard of Oz, but instead. . .
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RMAF 2012
Being and Dreaming with MBL
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 16, 2012  |  3 comments
I’m not at all embarrassed or ashamed to admit that there have been times when I was so distracted by a system’s appearance that I couldn’t properly appreciate its performance. Similarly, there have been times when I was so overwhelmed by a system’s price, that I couldn’t even hear its music.

But, here, in the MBL suite, just as in the Wilson/VTL suite, the sound of music was so compelling that I was easily able to ignore those aspects that are beyond my appreciation and reach.

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RMAF 2012
Big Sound in Pikes Peak
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 17, 2012  |  8 comments
In the big Pikes Peak room, I heard a big, full-bodied sound that gave a gentle sparkle to electric guitars and rich texture to voices.

The system:

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RMAF 2012
Blackbird Audio/Gallery & Colleen Cardas Imports: "Yulunga!"
Stephen Mejias  |  Oct 16, 2012  |  3 comments
Do you know that creepy, moody Dead Can Dance track—the one with the shaker that comes flying from the left-channel speaker with crazy presence and realism? It’s called “Yulunga,” right?
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RMAF 2012
BMS
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 20, 2012  |  3 comments
Assistance Audio, North American distributor for BMS, was showing off the company’s drivers. As I was soon to learn, Lacoustic, JBL, and Volti are but three of the audio manufacturers that use BMS’s drivers in their products.

The company’s Jack Arnott explained that BMS’s drivers can be found everywhere from soundstages in LA to naval paging systems and home audio installations. “I’m using my own cabinets so you can see what’s inside,” he said. “I am using Home Depot speaker cable because I am selling speaker components, not speaker cable." Well, I must say that both Tony Bennett and K.D. Lang’s duet on “La Vie en Rose” and the opening chorale from Glenn Gould’s second recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations sounded quite beautiful.

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RMAF 2012
BorderPatrol Audio Electronics
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 20, 2012  |  1 comments
Don’t be scared. No one was busy rounding up illegal aliens during RMAF, thank God, but the combination of the EXD model of the BorderPatrol S20 power amplifier, which came complete with two power supply units ($16,500); BorderPatrol Control Unit EXT1 preamp ($12,250); BorderPatrol DAC EXT1 ($9750); Living Voice Avatar OBX-RW loudspeakers (from $11,750/pair); Tent Labs transport; and Electrofluidics cabling was overdriving the room. There was a captivating illumination to my CD of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, but highs were wiry, and the bass boomed like nobody’s high-end audio business in troubled times. (A common factor in this part of the hotel.)
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