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The Lemay Audio Dayton Wright Hommage 7.3 speakers on display here delivered vivid, dreamlike sound: starkly defined, dramatic, convincingly lifelike.

Other qualities I noted were itsimpactful microdynamics, purity of tone, concrete layering, and colorfully scintillating imaging. Bass had more power and physicality than might be expected from electrostatic speakers without subwoofers.

For…

Robert Schryer and Ken Micallef welcome one and all to our upcoming in-depth Montreal Audiofest 2026 coverage. Besides the teaser Reels we've already been posting, Rob and Ken will be conducting show interviews and showing us lots of great new gear from the show in the days ahead, so stay tuned!

Did the man survive? I don't remember. I do remember my mother looking at me and asking, a glint of amusement in her eye, "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" "With your arms." I looked at her, not understanding. "You held your arms over your head," she said. "Warding off the boat…

Or so I thought. Behind the curtain, resting on the windowsill,…

While editing this review, I got sucked in to an investigation of the two albums Rob mentions in this section: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet and Ron Carter's Spanish Blue. That investigation led to a story I think is worth sharing.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! has an interesting history. The liner notes on the original LP claimed it was recorded live at the Club De Lisa, "one of the swingingest spots in Chicago's South Side." The Club De Lisa was a real place—in fact those liner notes were written by one of the club's…

Description: Two-channel streaming network bridge. Input: 100Mb/s Ethernet on RJ45. Outputs: one 75 ohm S/PDIF (RCA) with isolation transformer, 500mV peak– peak; one 110 ohm AES3 with isolation transformer, 2.8V peak–peak. Standards: UPnP/DLNA, AirPlay, Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect, Roon Ready, Airable internet radio. Plays with Audirvana. Control app: Wattson Music for iOS, Wattson Remote for Android. Supported formats: WAV, FLAC, AIFF, ALAC, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA. Supports PCM to 24/192kHz, single-rate DSD natively. Power consumption: 2.5W while playing, 1…

Digital sources: Moon 260D CD transport, iFi iDSD Diablo and Benchmark DAC3 B D/A processors.
Integrated amplifier: Grandinote Shinai.
Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Contour 30i.
Cables: Interconnect: Kimber Kable 1016 (RCA). Speaker: Kimber Kable Monocle-XL (w/banana plugs). Digital: Kimber Kable D60 (RCA S/PDIF). Power: Shunyata Research Black Mamba CX, LessLoss DFPC, DR Acoustics Red Fire Ultra.
Accessories: DR Acoustics Polynice Power Management & Virtual Ground System; SBooster BOTW P&P ECO MKII external 5V power supply; a component…

How did an almost all-Quad system, featuring the brand’s 33 preamplifier with phono stage ($2299) and a pair of 303 power amps ($2299/each) in monoblock configuration driving flagship ESL 2912X speakers ($26,495/pair), sound at Montreal Audiofest 2026? Set up in retailer Codell Audio’s room and fed by a Brinkmann Bardo direct drive turntable ($18,000) equipped with a Supatrak Blackbird 9" unipivot tonearm ($6790) and an Audio Technica AT-ART20 cartridge ($3799), supplemented by two REL S/550 subs ($4550/each), a Saturn Audio 103E MkII power conditioner ($3800), and cabling by Audience—the…

This room offered a great matchup of gear. In earlier Montreal Audiofest iterations, ArtistCloner has consistently demoed an all-ArtistCloner setup, including accessories. But at the 2026 show, the company proved it can get sound just as good by including with other brands—specifically Saturn Audio and Baetis Audio. The resulting system combined impactful bass and a vast, airy, deep soundstage…