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.

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).

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.

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.

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.