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Old & New Friends at RMAF

Photos: Laura LoVecchio

Standing in front of the poster for the November issue of Stereophile, new at the show, is Michael Mandell, who used to provide IT services for the magazine when it was first based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Michael is wearing a vintage T-shirt with the "Lonely at the Top" illustration we created for our April 1988 "Recommended Components" issue.

And below is the Stereophile stand at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, located in the lobby between the Evergreen A ballroom (showing Legacy Audio & Coda Technologies) and the Marketplace. Come by and…

The Morrow Audio High-end Speaker Cables with SSI Technology Sweepstakes

According to the company:

Standard version shown in the photo. Bi-wired & Bi-amped versions also available on the Morrow website. The SP3 (shown) consists of 24 runs of solid core, small gauge and individually insulated, silver coated copper wire (renowned SSI Technology) which is then silver soldered to the termination of choice. Silver coated copper wire was chosen for the excellent balance of sound that it provides. The cable has an attractive…

Sasha Matson's First Day in Denver

One mile high—and when you touch down? The huge and energetic 2015 Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest, or RMAF, based at the Denver Marriott Tech Center. Spread out over several areas of floors in the towers, as well as an extended lobby area with its own mezzanine sections—ithe show takes a bit of initial navigating. This is the first RMAF I have had the pleasure to attend, and seems to have great and varied participation—from both the exhibitor side as well as attendees.

Heading to the tower's eighth floor, I was able to spend some quality time in a room hosted by Denver retailer…

Jason's First Day at RMAF

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest decided to give press a head start this time around by inviting us in two hours before the show's official noon opening on Friday. While not all manufacturers got on board—several of the rooms I tried to visit on the 2nd floor of the Marriott Denver Tech Center's Tower were locked—digital audio pioneer dCS leaped into the breach by staging a 10am press conference for the official release of the dCS Rossini CD player. The company's Martin Reynolds (above) flew over from the UK to do the presentation.

dCS's Rossini system, a "greatly updated successor to the…

Day One for Herb Reichert

Jason Victor Serinus, Sasha Matson, and myself spent crazy time before the show started talking, scheming and dividing up RMAF rooms. But, in the end, after hours of planning, I finally declared, "You two cover the audio rock stars, I'll go find the rooms of the lesser known, still unknown, or up-and-coming, exhibitors that may have not made show-report headlines in the past.

One such newcomer was Dennis Fraker, of Serious Stereo ("We Build What It Takes") who, besides trafficking in alliteration, made Rosanne Cash's "She's Got Your Picture" sound sad, sexy and real. He was driving his…

More First Day Adventures from Sasha

Continuing my tour on the first day of this year's RMAF, let me just say in the first sentence that the beautifully matched system I found up and running in room 9026 fit me like a glove. I have had direct experience over the years, as have many others, with several of the fine audio brands represented in the room hosted by The Audio Alternative, a retailer out of nearby Fort Collins. On show was excellent gear from Audio Research Corporation, Vandersteen Audio, AMG, AudioQuest, and Harmonic Resolutions Systems. Noted speaker designer Richard Vandersteen himself had just arrived when I did.…

The Rocky Mountain International HiFi Press Awards

The big story here at this year's RMAF has not been a particular superior room, or a manufacturer's particular success in bringing great music audio hardware or software into the world, but rather the inaugural Rocky Mountain International HiFi Press Awards 2015, which were presented during the evening of October 2nd, 2015 at the Marriott Hotel here in Denver.

RMAF organizer Marjorie Baumert and Roy Gregory of Audio Beat presented awards designated in 20 categories, selected and voted upon by "anonymous ballot of the world's leading HiFi press publications." The presentation of the awards…

Herb Gets Into His Stride at RMAF

RockyFest Award Alert!

Best Sound: Vincent Bélanger
Best-Sounding Component: Monsieur Bélanger's 200-year old cello
Best Choice of Music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsdaTVKmjdY
Most Impressive Audio Demonstration: Audio Note UK

I made a wonderful passionate new friend today. He is an artist. I love him. He speaks French, lives in Montreal and plays the most beautiful musical instrument I have ever almost touched. He spoke (in English), he sat between the speakers and played strong notes that lasted infinitely long; everyone in the room felt the air move. His voice…

Jason's First Day Continues

Andy Carr, Marketing Director of the UK's Cambridge Audio, introduced two of the company's systems: a CX series system that included Cambridge Audio Aeromax 2 bookshelf speakers ($649/pair), and an 851 series that used Aeromax 6 floorstanders ($1299/pair). Both speaker models incorporate Cambridge Audio's BMR (Balanced Mode Radiator) drivers and dedicated subwoofers.

Playing a FLAC file of Eric Bibb's "Rocking Chair" through, I believe, the CXN upsampling network music player ($999), the lower priced system ($2700 total + XLO cabling) produced really nice, smooth sound that felt just…

The Reichert RMAF Report, Part 4

Jeffrey Catalano is from Buffalo and I am from Chicago. His father was a plumber and mine was a steamfitter. We are both world-class wrench twirlers. We both studied painting. We have both sawed a lot of boards and pounded too many nails. We're rust-belt dudes with a taste for art, blues and roots music with some high-a-fluten European Classical tucked in on the side. Oh yeah, and World Music. And strange electronica. And Memphis Soul. And John Cage, Schoenberg and (my beloved) Alban Maria Johannes Berg.

Me and Jeffrey been playing black discs together for almost four decades. When I met…