They gave me the ticket, saying that I…
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All right, so maybe I should have followed the recommendation that passengers should get to the train station at least 30 minutes before departure. But, really, does anyone but terminally obsessive-compulsive individuals do that? The train going from Toronto to Montreal was scheduled to leave Toronto at 9:30am. I was planning to be at Union Station in Toronto by 9:15. But with this and that, and delays here and there, when I got to the Via Rail ticket office to exchange my computer printout for the actual ticket it was 9:29 by their clock.
This is my first time attending a Montreal hi-fi show, and so it makes sense that I would make some new acquaintances. It is a pleasure to meet Graeme Humphrey and Danny Labrecque of Coup de Foudre, a pretty sweet looking hi-fi shop in Montreal. Here Graeme and Danny assume a sort of pirate-gangster pose. They appear pretty tough, but they're actually quite gentle.
Coup de Foudre carries a large range of new and used hi-fi components and vinyl(!), and even has a recording studio.
We listened to a system made of Avalon Acoustics Aspect loudspeakers ($8500/pair), VTL…
Lucien Pichette stands with the Avalon Acoustics Aspect ($8500/pair), introduced at January's CES. Here in Montreal, the Aspects were creating soul-stirring sound in the Coup de Foudre room.
At the 2008 FSI, the hornloaded Avantgarde speakers from Germany were being demmed in one of the large rooms in the Centre Sheraton's downstairs convention area. At the 2009 SSI, Avantgarde were exhibiting in a conventional hotel room, but the three-way Duo Grossos ($37,500/pair), driven by Avantgarde Model One monoblocks and an Avantgarde Model One preamplifier, with an Audio Aero Prestige SACD player as source and all Nirvana SX cabling, sounded more coherent than I remember from last year's Show. Playing "The Mooche" from the Stereophile Editor's Choice CD, I was struck by how un-…
The trend toward smaller, less imposing systems is continued at SSI by Verity Audio, showing their gorgeous Parsifal Ovation Monitor ($9000/pair). While Simaudio and Dynaudio were showing what can be achieved at the lower end of the price scale, Verity, Nagra, and dCS put together a room-friendly system made to slay giants.
Here we see the Parsifal Monitors sitting proud atop their new matching, height-adjustable stands (price TBD). A striking combo. The Monitors were supplemented by Verity's Rocco subwoofer ($10,000), which uses two high-power, low-distortion 12" drivers…
You get used to hearing expensive over-the-top systems at an audio Show, but the real delight is discovering more affordable set-ups that sound better than you expect. Such was the case when I entered the Bluebird Music room, where the Spendor A6 two-way tower speakers were being demmed with Exposure's 3010S integrated amplifier and an Exposure CD player, wired with van den Hul cable. The total system prices was $7500, and, again playing "The Mooche" from Editor's Choice, I was struck by how seamless the presentation was, with natural tonal qualities, well-defined stereo imaging, and…
I had enthused over the sound being produced by French company Focal's top-line Grande Utopia EMs ($180,000/pair) in our report from the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, so the first room I went to at the 2009 SSI was the room featuring the exact same pair of Grande Utopias. In Denver they had been driven by Boulder source and amplification components; in Montreal, amplification was all YBA—Passion 1000 monoblocks and Passion preamp—cabling was AudioQuest, and the source was the excellent sounding Esoteric P-01VU transport ($32,000) and D-01VU dual-mono D/A converter ($32,000), clocked…
In the Brosseau Audio/Video suite, Linn's Adolfo Cano provided a fascinating demonstration playing back Barb Jungr's "Beautiful Life" from a Linn Recordings sample disc.
The all-Linn system was comprised of the Majik 140 floorstanding loudspeakers ($2995/pair), Akurate DS digital streaming source ($6850), Akurate CD disc player ($3500), Majik Kontrol preamp, and Majik 2100 power amplifiers.
First, we listened to Jungr's sweet song as played through the Akurate CD player. We then compared the CD playback to an exact file of the data, but as conveyed by the Akurate DS.…
I am led by the sound of intricate rhythms and interesting textures, and I find myself in the Audio D'Occasion suite, where Radiohead's Amnesiac is ripping into a pair of Thiel CS3.7 floorstanders, sending the speaker's impressive corrugated drivers into a mad dance. I take a seat.
Nordost's Bruno de Lorimier catches me and warns: "I just want you to know we've only had the system going for about ten minutes, in case you're listening critically."
A crushing blow, this is to me, because the album sounds infinitely better than it ever has in my own home.
Bruno then…
The two Sashas of Obad Imports (l-r): Sascha Kuettel hefts the JohnBlue JB3 loudspeaker ($370/pair), while Sasha Obad struggles with the KingRex T20 amplifier ($259) and PSU power supply ($189). These units are just a little bit heavier than Michael Fremer's reference amplifiers.
I'm just kidding, ha ha. Obviously, these cute little components are extremely light (both on the wallet and on the forearms) and room-friendly.
The 20W KingRex uses a Tripath T2020-20 chip in its endeavor for tube amp sound. The company's literature demands, playfully: "Eat your valve out!"…