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What impressed me the most at the Coup de Foudre party was the recording studio that adjoins the retail store, operated by CdF's co-owner, Graeme Humfrey, who is also a much-in-demand recording engineer. His audio mixing room is filled to the brim with equipment, some of it the very latest, and some of it classics, such as multiple Pultec equalizers that are valued for their sound quality.
On the evening of the first day of the show, John Atkinson, Art Dudley, and I attended a party at Coup de Foudre, one of Montreal's premier high-end audio retailers. There was much to admire there, not the least of which was listening to some of Peter McGrath’s hi-rez recordings on a system featuring VTL MB185 tube monoblocks driving Wilson Sashas and an Alpha DAC being fed USB data from Peter’s MacBook Pro via a Wavelength format converter.
Son Ideal demonstrated with the Harbeth P3ESR: a supremely musical loudspeaker in its own right, and one for which the Montreal dealer has shown a certain affinity over the years. At SSI the Harbeths were paired with brand-new Audiolab 8200 MB mono amplifiers (250W, $1099/each) and 8200 CDQ CD player/USB D/A converter ($1299), that venerable English brand having recently been revived by new owners. The 30-something fellow running the dem asked me to choose an LP from the good selection there, and I lighted upon a well-loved Neil Young album from the ‘70s. Then, while he cued that up, I found…
Show organizer Michel Plante (left) announced on the Show's trade day that SSI would feature a silent auction for a pair of loudspeakers that had been donated by Totem and transformed into works of art by Quebec artists Zïlon and Éric Godin. The proceeds of the auction will benefit the new Dédé Fortin Foundation, named after a popular singer who committed suicide.One of the foundation's goals is to eradicate the stigma of mental illness so that people suffering from severe depression will seek treatment rather than take their own lives.
On display in the Burmester room at SSI was the new Phono Preamplifier 100 ($16,995–$22,995), which, with its polished mirror finish, was almost unphotographable. The 100 features two inputs for MM or MC cartridges, and offers a wide range of gain and impedance settings. An optional onboard A/D converter allows owners to digitize their LPs and a unique auto-balance feature equalizes the two channels, to compensate for imbalanced cartridges.
Burmester Canada was sharing a room with downloadable audio magazine ToneAudio, which raised some eyebrows.
I knew which was Joseph Audio's room without consulting the Show Guide—the sound of Louis Armstrong singing "St. James Infirmary," which has long been one of Jeff Joseph's dem staples, was audible along the corridor. Jeff's system featured the [Perspective] loudspeakers ($11,800/pair), powered by a Simaudio Moon 600i integrated amplifier with a Moon 650D player being fed USB data from Jeff's MacBook Pro. Wiring was all Cardas.
A show veteran, Jeff had set up his speakers along the room's diagonal. Although this restricted the number of seated listeners, it went a long way to eliminating…
The impressive sound of the Focal Maestro Utopia III speakers in one of the SSI rooms being run by retailer Son-or-Filtronique was familiar from my July 2010 review but the small amplifier driving them via Crystal speaker cables was not. It was the Micromega AS-400 integrated amplifier ($4995), which Art Dudley will be reviewing in the July 2011 issue Stereophile. As well as the usual analog inputs, the AS-400 accepts WiFi audio data via a new version of the French company's Airstream module and uses a high-quality D/A section using Cirrus Logic DAC chips.
I had to make several attempts to visit the Son-or-Filtronique room featuring Sonus Faber's new Amati Futura speakers ($34,000/pair), but the line of would-be listeners patiently waiting outside the room was daunting. The Futuras were launched at last January's CES but not being demmed; at SSI, they were being driven by a Boulder 2060 amplifier, with a dCS Scarlatti and Boulder 1021 used as digital sources.
When I finally managed to squeeze into the room, however, the source was an SME 10 turntable playing a Ronnie Earle Live in Europe album, which featured some very tasty blues picking.…
Here's a glamor shot of the Nagra 300B stereo amplifier in the Verity-Nagra room, this sample being one of the first production units. The integrated features four 300B output tubes—two each per channel in push-pull—and will put out 20Wpc.
One of my favorite sounding rooms at SSI was the large suite featuring Verity Sarastro II speakers, the new Nagra 300B stereo amplifier that made its debut at the 2011 CES and a Nagra PLL preamp, with a Nagra CDP CD player and Nagra VI solid-state digital recorder being used for the front-end, all hooked up with Nordost Valhalla cables. The sound of a Jordi Savall ensemble performance of Vivaldi Oboe Concerto, played back on the Nagra VI with 24/48 resolution, was lifelike and easy on the ear, but without sounding either mellow or laidback. perhaps the sound was a little congested on the…