LATEST ADDITIONS

Montreal Audiofest 2024
Atelier Audio: Diptyque, Kora, Aqua Acoustic, Ocellia, Puritan Audio Laboratories, Plixir
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  0 comments

Atelier Audio's room was buzzing the couple of times I'd passed by to peer inside, and I don't mean some sort of transformer noise. I mean with people. It was consistently abuzz with visitors. Luckily, I was eventually able to snatch a seat during an Atelier Audio demo; then I understood why this room was so popular.

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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Lemay Audio, Dayton Wright Hommage, Tenor Audio, Grimm Audio, Silversmith, Inakustik, Network Acoustics, Modulum Arkitek, Baetis Audio, iFi Audio
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  0 comments

Another highlight of the Montreal Audiofest was the system in the Lemay Audio room, which included a pair of the company's electrostatic Dayton-Wright Hommage 9.3 loudspeakers ($68,000).

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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Audiophile Experts: Accuphase, DALI, Grandioso, Esoteric, Luna Cables
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  0 comments

It's always a pleasure to visit an exhibit room put together by Audiophile Experts because the retailer's setups and recordings tend to sound top notch, and you won’t hear these recordings elsewhere at a show.

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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Passion Audio: Shindo, Wolf von Langa, J.Sikora, Luna Cables, Wattson, HANA, Fezz Audio
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  1 comments

Retailer Passion Audio just opened a few months ago on Montreal's South Shore, which is where I live. I couldn't be more pleased about that after listening to the artisinal, gorgeous-sounding, soul-of-the-music-capturing equipment it demoed at the Audiofest.

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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Gershman Acoustics, Eon Art, Oracle Audio, Cardas Audio
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  2 comments
Gershman Acoustics are habitual show exhibitors and it shows. They know how to tease out good sound from an acoustically-challenging hotel room. They've also found a synergistic match for their products with those from their longstanding exhibit partners Eon Art, Oracle Audio, and Cardas Audio, with whom they reunited for this show to present two systems, a smaller one and a bigger one.
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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Planète Haute-Fidélité: MartinLogan, Hegel, Wattson, Stable 33.33, Reed, EMT, Luna Cables, Cardas Audio, Saturn Audio
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  0 comments
My memory isn't good to start with, but I could've sworn I heard substantially more bass coming out of the MartinLogan Expression ESL 13A hybrid electrostatic loudspeakers ($23,500/pair) in Planète Haute-Fidélité's room than during any other visit to the retailer's showroom in past years.
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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Audio Group Denmark, Wynn Audio, Børresen, Axxess, Ansuz
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 31, 2024  |  0 comments
Saying Audio Group Denmark/Wynn Audio impressed at this year's Montreal Audiofest is an understatement. They brought the goods and then some. That "some" is what I perceived as the quality of the merchandise and its performance in relation to its price.
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Montreal Audiofest 2024
ArtistCloner
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 30, 2024  |  4 comments
ArtistCloner is one of those audio manufacturers, like Audio Note, making complete systems from cabling to speakers to power conditioners. Its designs stem from one person's singular vision.
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Stand Loudspeaker Reviews
Wharfedale Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale loudspeaker
John Atkinson  |  Mar 30, 2024  |  First Published: Mar 29, 2024  |  2 comments
When I first got interested in audio in the UK, in the 1960s, four English brands dominated the domestic loudspeaker scene: Goodmans (founded in 1923), Celestion (whose first loudspeaker was launched in early 1925), Tannoy (which started making loudspeakers in 1928), and Wharfedale. Wharfedale was the youngest of these brands, founded in 1932 in Yorkshire—the land of the Dales—by Gilbert Briggs.

Wharfedale is still a British brand, with its R&D department in the UK, but it's now owned by the IAG Group, which was founded in Hong Kong in 1991 and is based in Shenzen, China. In addition to Wharfedale, IAG owns the Audiolab, Castle Acoustics, Leak, Luxman, Mission, and Quad brands. In recent years, Wharfedale has been introducing redesigned versions of some of its classic speakers. Herb Reichert favorably reviewed the three-way Linton Heritage loudspeaker in September 2019; then, at the 2022 Munich High End Show, Wharfedale introduced the subject of this review, the Heritage Series 90th Anniversary Dovedale.

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Montreal Audiofest 2024
Altitudo Audio, Audio Physics, Electrocompaniet, Audio Note, Harmonic Resolution Systems
Robert Schryer  |  Mar 30, 2024  |  1 comments
You want chunky sounds, vivid tone, socking bass, and a globe-like soundstage with notes that appear so solid and dimensional you might be tempted to try to pick them like an apple from an apple tree? If so, then step right up into the Altitudo room, which may look a little small for the amount of gear present and the size of the speakers I listened to, but make no mistake, the sound I heard from FLAC files streamed from a hard drive was clean, muscular, and colorfully diverse.
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