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Sunny? Spring-y? Even more bizarre: No snow is predicted for the entire weekend of the 34th Montreal Audiofest, which runs from March 24 to March 26.

It always snows during the 'fest. It’s tradition!, like watching the ducks on the rooftop pond leap out of the water to snatch a beak-full of grain before leaping back into their watery trenches. Like people in elevators talking about how nippy it is outside.

There's none of that this time: It was so warm out on Friday that the ducks were floating as nonchalant as duckies bobbing in a (warm) bath. I didn’t hear anything…

Friday—opening day—was crazy. I've never visited so many rooms in one day at an audio show—14, to be exact. That's a lot of rooms to cover. As a show reporter, you must take the time to listen to the gear, evaluate its sound, jot down legible impressions, make sense of exhibitors' explanations, get product names and prices, take photos of the gear, and ask for business cards so you can contact someone later if you're missing information. Then, despite my best efforts, I often must make a repeat visit because I forgot to take a particular photo or pick up a price list or ask for the…

Making its North American premiere—perhaps its world premiere, according to Le Studio du Son's Olivier Fragman—was the Aperion Verus III Concert V8T Tower speaker ($5000/pair, the big ones in the photo above). The sensitivity of the V8T, with its dual-8"-woofers, is specified at 91dB (specific units not, um, specified) into 4 ohms, yet the minimum recommended maximum power is a formidable 250Wpc. Powering the speakers was a New Zealand–made, Bluetooth-equipped, 400Wpc integrated amplifier by Java Hi-Fi ($15,000), which is among the first class-D amps to market that employ GaN-FET (Gallium…

When I spotted—on a poster affixed to Heaven 11's exhibit room door—Charlton Heston as Moses (?) holding tubes in his arms instead of those famous stone plates, I knew going in I was in for something a little different. Visions of single-ended triodes were dancing in my head.

I wasn't wrong, but I wasn't quite right, either. When I entered the dimly lit room, with a slightly hippy vibe, I spotted a pair of standmounts with two similar-looking drivers and what looked like a bare-bones amplifier with four items protruding from its chassis, including what looked like two dual triodes…

Another room that stood out from the pack for its sonic excellence belonged to Canadian speaker manufacturer Acora Acoustics, which was showcasing its floorstanding SRC-2 model ($62,000/pair) on Quartz stands ($11,000). Upstream components included a two-chassis VAC Master preamp with phono stage ($65,000) and a Master 300 iQ Musicbloc stereo amplifier ($62,000). Source duties alternated between an Oracle Delphi MkVll turntable ($16,875) with Reed 2G tonearm ($5750) and Lyra Atlas Lambda cartridge ($11,995) and an Innuos Statement music server ($28,200) coupled with an MSB Discrete DAC ($…

As is typical of their show setups, Focal Naim occupied a large, banquet-style room divvied up into different exhibits and active setups. How can you realistically gauge the sound of a demo while other demoes are playing in the background? The trick Focal Naim used, which worked like a charm, was to move our group among alternating demoes so that only one played at a time.

The first demo I heard was centered on the 100lb, dual-mono Musical Fidelity M8xi integrated amplifier with DAC ($9100). It was being fed Tidal FLAC streams from a Naim NDX 2 streamer-DAC ($11,440).…

I found the sound of the rooms at this show almost universally good, but some stood out, including the Bowers & Wilkins / Classé room, which sounded fantastic with the Tidal-streamed 16/44.1 FLAC files played for us.

The system included a Classé Delta preamp with DAC and phono stage ($14,000), a pair of 300Wpc (into 8 ohms) Classé Delta monos ($15,000 each), a pair of voluptuously contoured Bowers & Wilkins flagship 801 D4 speakers ($45,000), each flanked by a subwoofer with a 12" driver and 2000W of amplifier power ($6500 each). Cables and power conditioning were by DR…

Bryston launched two new products at this year's show that will hit the market in a week or two, according to Bryston CEO James Tanner, who was sitting in the chair next to me in the Bryston room. If what I heard in that room are any indication, Bryston is on to something big.

That gear included the lofty, svelte, 74"-tall Model T10 loudspeaker—"Model" is the name of the model—the top of the new T10 line, collaboratively designed by Tanner with Ian Colquohoun of Axiom Audio. The T10 series will replace the current T series; the 10 added to the T refers to the speaker line's tenth…

My friend ran up to me in the Mezzanine hallway. "You have to check out the Klipsch Jubilees", he said, breathlessly. "They're so big!" He leans his head back like he's looking up a skyscraper.

Of course I was going to check them out. As soon as I saw them in Capital Sound's spacious room, I thought. "They're so big!"

The Jubilee ($56,000) is top dog in Klipsch's Heritage line, but I didn't expect it to be this big. The Jubilees are both tall and wide—almost square, in fact. They looked imposing, but in their Walnut finish, spiffily imposing.

Something else I…

Quebec-based Lemay Audio was one of my best sounds of the show. At its dizzying price, it should be. If its price makes your eyes glaze over at first glance, all is not lost. I'll get to that.

First, here are the links in the playback chain: a pair of Dayton-Wright Hommage 7 speakers (introductory price $38,000/pair, $43,000/pair after that); a Tenor Audio Line 1 preamp ($200,000); a 250Wpc Tenor Audio 20th Anniversary Edition 175S amplifier ($150,000); the Baetis Audio reference 4 music server / Roon endpoint ($15,000); an iFi Audio Diablo DAC ($1350); a bevy of audio cables by…