Montreal Audio Fest 2023

Does anyone who's been in our audio-hobbyist orbit for some time not know speaker designer Andrew Jones? Wouldn't it be funny to imagine that in alternate 'verses in the multiverse, Jones might be something other than a famous speaker designer? Perhaps a famous pianist in one 'verse, an accountant in another (footnote 1)?

Luckily for us, this Jones has devoted himself to designing speakers. He has done so for years, very successfully, for many audio manufacturers. Such is his reputation as a speaker designer that every new design he creates is an event.

It's happening again here at the Montreal show, where Jones's new design for MoFi Electronics, the SourcePoint 10 (see John Atkinson's review), was creating buzz. One reason may be because this new speaker's design is a little different from what we're used to seeing from Jones. The SourcePoint 10 ($5300/pair, $5700/pair with stands) uses a 10" concentric tweeter/midwoofer custom-developed by Jones. The midwoofer surface is made of a paper pulp material; firing through a hole in the middle is a 1.25" soft-dome tweeter. The speaker is specified as having a 91dB/2.83V/m sensitivity and a frequency range of 42Hz–30kHz.

The SourcePoint 10 sounded very good in the MoFi room in the context of a system that included a Dr. Feickert Woodpecker turntable, a Thomas Schick tonearm, and a MoFi Iridium phono cable ($12,490 for the set); a Koetsu Black Goldline cartridge ($4495); a Whest Two.2 phono stage ($3295); a HiFi Rose RS150B streamer/DAC ($6995); a BAT VK80i integrated tube amplifier ($13,995); an Isotek Aquarius V5 power conditioner and cable package ($4000); and cabling by AudioQuest. Also in the SolidSteel HF 5 component rack ($6200) was a HiFi Rose RA180 integrated amplifier ($9995), which wasn't playing on the Sunday I dropped by.

Playing Tidal-streamed files in a conference-sized room, the system produced sound that was smooth, clear, rich, and effortless. But what struck me most was how coherent the sound seemed within the large soundstage across the whole range of frequencies, low to high. Voices and instruments sounded steady, full, and explicit with a tactile presence.

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Footnote 1: Rob probably doesn't know yet that Jones is the subject of a forthcoming documentary film that, I understand, will focus on other aspects of his life, beyond hi-fi. So maybe he is an accountant or a famous pianist. We'll have to wait for the movie to find out.