Toronto Audiofest 2024

I’ve met Daniel Qvortrup, son of Audio Note founder Peter, a few times, and what I know of his music-listening side is that he’s a diehard music fan with very eclectic tastes in music. I’m not using the word “very” lightly here. He’s the type to listen to Tibetan monk throat-singing. So, I was not entirely surprised when the first thing he played for me in the Audio Note exhibit room was a 78 RPM recording made in 1931 of a woman yodeling.

Needless to say, this sort of thing makes Daniel stand out from the other exhibitors, who will usually play a recording, often of a small, acoustic group, that will make their systems sound their best. This told to me what Daniel’s priorities were—and he wasn’t wrong. Audio gear, after all, is meant to serve the music you like, not a hi-res file of music you’d never listen to.

Obviously, the yodeling track lacked frequency range; the singing was contained within a very narrow frequency band, but it didn’t sound bad. In fact, the music, through the Audio Note system, exhibited a certain vibrancy—an inner light and sense of spirit—that made the music, and the singer, sound animated and vital.

When Daniel prefaced the next song he was going to play with, “This song will be a bit eccentric,” to which I muttered, “That first song was pretty eccentric,” he turned to me and said, “Oh no, the yodeling track was just to ease you into the really eccentric stuff!” Daniel has a witty sense of humor.

Turns out the second song, again on an LP, wasn’t that eccentric, just something we don’t hear on the radio: “The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove” by Dead Can Dance. I’d never heard this song before, nor the following one on the album, which Daniel also played for me, but I really liked the music. The sound wasn’t hi-res—this was no 180g audiophile LP—but through the Audio Note system, it breathed and emanated life. Singers and instruments had presence and body structure. The sound was tactile, big, and projected harmonic tendrils that reached toward me. It was all very human, organic, dramatic, and artistic. It sounded captivating.

As usual, the system in the Audio Note room was all Audio Note, even down to the cabling. The gear consisted of a pair of 94dB-sensitive AN-E-SPe HE speakers in the Makassa Ebony finish, a pure class-A, 300B SET Meishu Phono Tonmeister integrated amplifier/phono stage ($24,000), a TT-3/Arm 3/Q2 cartridge vinyl setup ($30,000 for the package), and a CD4.1x CD player ($22,000) that wasn’t played during my visit.

When I left the Audio Note room to re-enter the Audiofest, with all its gear and audiophiles and dealers, I was reminded that all that audio stuff, even the Fest itself, starts and ends with the music.