Toronto Audiofest 2024

This was one of my favorite demos at the show. It sounded so well balanced, it seemed to deliver everything in the right proportions. Bold but not in-your-face; tonally ripe but not too warm; detailed but not stringent; effortless but weighty, and so on.

In the setup I heard—there was also a Tidal-streaming setup I didn't hear—the source was a Stable 33.3 33.2 Mk2 turntable ($13,900) equipped with a Black Beauty carbon-fibre based tonearm ($11,500) and low-output Dynavector DV-20X2 MC cartridge ($1380), feeding a Luna Cables Red MC step-up transformer ($4850), a suite of SPL Audio products, including a Phonos phono stage ($2699), a Director MKII preamplifier/DAC ($4999), along with a Performer s1200 stereo amplifier ($8799) and two 420W m1000 monoblocks ($6699/each) connected in bridged mode to a pair of KEF Blade Two Meta speakers ($35,000/pair), while Luna Cables strung everything together.

The system produced a holographic, densely populated landscape of images that were physical, tangible, and stood colorfully out in space in their own air cubicles. It also all sounded so unmechanical, and, again, well-balanced, like a five-star balancing act on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, except not with chairs or plates, but notes and frequencies.