RMAF 2012

I’ve seen many, many smiling faces at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. These two belong to Sound and Vision’s Mike Trei and CNET’s Audiophiliac, Steve Guttenberg.

Fried Audio (“Speakers of Truth”), out of Pontiac, Michigan, is on the scene with the Bud Fried Tower ($2995/pair), a handsome two-way, transmission line design. Manufactured in the US, the speaker is available in 10 finishes and uses a Hiquphon ferrofluid OW2 dome tweeter and two 7” Peerless Exclusive woofers. It has a rated sensitivity of 88dB, a nominal impedance of 4 ohms, and a claimed frequency response of 35Hz–20kHz, +/-3dB.

“These blood-red eyes don’t see so good / But what’s worse is, if they could / Would I change my ways?”

So sings Dan Auerbach on “These Days,” the closing track from the Black Keys’ excellent 2010 album, Brothers. As Auerbach sings, achingly, slide guitar weeps, bells chime, bass guitar thumps along woefully, cymbals splash, and floor toms rumble. It’s a beautiful few moments of R&B-inspired pop music, flooded with heartache.

The Sound Organisation’s Naim system inspired me to jot “very musical and complete” in my notes. On active duty were Naim’s NDS reference network player equipped with their top DAC ($10,995) with separate 555PS power supply ($9645), NAC202 upgradable preamp ($3295) with separate power supply ($2195), NAP250-2 80Wpc stereo amplifier ($5995), and S400 loudspeaker ($6495/pair in the finish shown).

Dynaudio’s Michael Manousselis was having a ball showing the Xeo 5 ($4500/pair with transmitter and remote) and Xeo 3 ($2300/pair with transmitter and remote). With music sourced from a Mac mini, then sent up to 50’ via Dynaudio’s transmitter unit to the digital amps of up to three sets of speakers, the total-solution Xeo obviates the need for amps, preamps, DACs, interconnects, and speaker cables. Given all that, the sound is pretty amazing for the price.

I emerged from the elevator, to be greeted by the sound of a late Beethoven piano sonata being played with power and precision by a slightly built young lady. The artist, 22 year-old Fan-Ya Lin, was the winner of the 2010 Music Teachers National Association Steinway Young Artists National Piano Competition, and other awards. She studied at Weber State University where she was spotted by Kimber Kable prez Ray Kimber. Ray, who has always sponsored live music performances at RMAF, arranged for Ms. Lin to give recitals during the days at the show, with a big concert Saturday night. Fan-Ya Lin has a new SACD out on Ray Kimber's Isomike label: Emerging, featuring performances of Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata, Bach's Toccata in c, and works by Chopin and Lowell Liebermann.

My thanks to Ms. Lin and Ray for reminding me how much further audio reproduction has to go before it could be mistaken for the real thing.