The train I took from Toronto to Montreal arrived at 2:30pm, right on schedule, so I was able to meet Art Dudley in the hotel lobby at 3:00 to discuss the game plan for covering the 2013 Salon Son & Image. As we pored over the map of the exhibits, Wilson Audio's Peter McGrath (right, with VTL's Luke Manley) came over to us and reminded Art that he had agreed to visit the Wilson/VTL room at 3:30. As it turned out, Art and I decided to cover the show geographically, and the Wilson/VTL room was going to be part of my beat, so I went along with Art.

Here’s Philip O’Hanlon of the California-based distribution company On a Higher Note, looking like he just stepped out of a Donovan album. His system he demonstrated for Montreal retailer Coup de Foudre, which I’ll describe in another post, comprised Luxman source components and electronics and Vivid loudspeakers, wired with Cardas cables—and it sounded great, especially considering that Philip’s gear had just arrived the night before!

Most of us know Canada’s Solen Electronique as a manufacturer of well-regarded capacitors (they call them condensateurs up here) and inductors, but they offer a wide variety of parts to manufacturers and hobbyists alike. Here we see a selection of hardware, the likes of which you won’t find at your local Home Depot.

When an exhibitor installs, near to the door, something as exotically beautiful as the Scheu Analog Cantus tonearm ($1560), it takes me longer than ususal to make my way into the rest of the room. So it was in the exhibit of distributor Charisma Audio, whose lovely and accommodating staff more than justified their name. While there I also enjoyed a system comprising a Well-Tempered Amadeus GTA record player ($4325), EMT TSD 15 cartridge ($1999), Audio Exklusiv P 0.2 phono stage ($`1299), the same company’s P 7 preamplifier ($7999), Calyx Audio Femti amplifier ($2099), and Capriccio Continuo (ATD) Admonitor 311 speakers ($5999). The system, which gave the sense of wanting just little more breathing room—it was arranged along the long wall —did a nonetheless convincing job with Cannonball Adderley’s Riverside album Know What I Mean.

The same qualities I strive for in my system at home—a sense of touch and drive, rich sonic textures and colors, musical momentum and flow—seem often to be abundant in the systems put together by the New York-based distributor and retailer High Water Sound. Given that, and the fact that HWS proprietor Jeff Catalano has superb taste in music, I was sad when the time came to leave this room and move on.

One could suggest that, having reviewed—and admired—the DeVore O/96 loudspeaker, I am predisposed to enjoying the newest model in that product line, the less expensive but similarly sensitive O/93 ($8400/pair). But even that wouldn’t explain my gut-level positive response to Tsege Mariam Gebru’s solo piano work The Homeless Wanderer (LP, Mississippi Records MRP-025) on the DeVore-fronted system in one of five rooms sponsored by Montreal dealer Coup de Foudre.

Here’s a closer look at the Line Magnetic 218 integrated amplifier, which uses one single-ended 845 triode per side for approximately 22Wpc. At SSI the LM amp drove DeVore O/93 loudspeakers using Auditorium 23 loudspeaker cable ($980 for a 2.5m pair): the same great, green stuff I’ve used at home for the past 8 years.

Granted, I know little to nothing about the home theater market, but I thought this was kind of cool: a paint called Screen Goo, available through all Sherwin-Williams dealers, that can be used to transform any flat, paintable surface into a projection screen. This two-stage treatment—a reflective undercoat, topped with a semi-translucent diffusive top coat—is 100% acrylic, with a very low VOC content. Screen Goo is available with different degrees of pigmentation; the photo above compares unity-gain white, on the far right, with two other shades. This company’s biggest market? According to Kevin Nute of Goo Systems, it’s theme-park installations (eg, the Haunted Mansion at Disney World).