RMAF 2011

I live and work only minutes from Jeffrey Catalano’s High Water Sound, but to my shame have never visited the showroom. For no good reason, it’s only at shows like the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest that I get to speak with Jeffrey and enjoy his demo systems. But I’m extremely grateful for that because Jeffrey has outstanding taste in music&#151he has that great ability of connecting the dots between seemingly disparate musical genres and artists&#151and his perspective on hi-fi is fresh, interesting, and distinct.

On this occasion, we listened to the big and beautiful Cessaro Horn Acoustics Affascinate I SE loudspeakers ($62,000/pair), a TW-Acustic Limited/10.5 turntable ($25,000), Tron Telstar Ultimate 211 amplifier ($40,000), Tron Seven GT Line preamp ($15,000), and Thoress Phono Entzerrer ($9,000). Also playing was a Thales TTT turntable ($20,000) with AV ($13,500) and Simplicity ($10,000) tonearms. Support came from the Silent Running Audio Scuttle ($7,000) and Ohio XL ($1,680). Cartridges were the Miyajima Labs Kansui ($3,600) on the TW 10.5; Shilabe ($2,995) on the AV; and Premium Mono ($1,260) on the Simplicity. Finally, everything was connected with Prana Wire.

This is an expensive system, but one easily capable of transporting the listener to special times and places. The sound was sweet, detailed, and well-balanced, with no one particular aspect of the music overpowering any other. Mono recordings were presented with great scale and physicality. As usual, Jeffrey Catalano brought a ton of great LPs. New for this year were the pumpkins&#151a nice touch.