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). Even the rack in this room was expensive: the XXR Harmonic Resolution rack at $15,095. Cables were by FM Acoustics (I didn’t ask the price) and an Audience Adept Response conditioned the AC.
But with these very large, beautifully finished, three-way, 6-driver speakers in an appropriately large room, the system produced a tremendous full-range sweep of sound, without any hint of strain, but also managed to sound delicate on such filigree detail as the double-tracked guitar arpeggios on Dire Straits’ “Laughter After Rain.”
