The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is set to begin this Friday, October 7, from noon to 7 pm, in the mostly remodeled Denver Marriott Tech Center. The three-day audio show, which ends on October 9 at 4pm, promises 128 exhibit rooms, 32 vendor displays, plus three more in the parking lot (including the fabled Sony Magic Bus), 332 exhibit companies, and, at 62 exhibits, the largest CanJam ever.
A revitalized Rocky Mountain Audio Fest begins this Friday, October 6, in the completely renovated Denver Marriott Tech Center Hotel. The three-day show, which opens to the public at noon on Friday, promises 143 active exhibit rooms that will host 358 exhibitors from 27 countries and 36 states. In addition, the show's widely lauded Canjam will host an additional 64 exhibitors within its walls, and seven more large exhibits in the lobby.
Next weekend's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) is bigger than ever. Scheduled to be held October 1517 in the Denver Marriott Tech Center, the seventh annual show has expanded from last year's 145 display rooms to a record 174. Add in silent displays in hallways, and there were products in every price range from a good 400 companies (up from 350 in 2009). Now occupying six floors in the Marriott Tower (including the mezzanine) and two in the Atrium, the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has well earned its reputation as the largest consumer-audio and home-entertainment show in the US since the demise of the Stereophile Shows.
Roger Gibboni of Rogers High Fidelity unveiled the Rogers 34S-1 integrated amplifier ($19,900, top on rack in photo). A dual-mono class-A amplifier with eight EL-34 power tubes, this baby, set to ship in March, has a unique, dedicated iOS platform (visible on Gibboni's iPad) which allows for complete functionality including bad tube indicators. Apple and Android smartphone operation via Bluetooth is included, and auto-bias circuitry and a lifetime warranty are other pluses. On a scale of 1 to 10, this product's cool factor is very, very high.
Rogers High Fidelity's New York-manufactured, aerospace engineering-based system, which included the just-launched PA-1A six-tube phono preamplifier ($7100) (pictured on the right) and EHF-200MK2 KT150-based, 112Wpc integrated amplifier ($15,000), delivered extremely quiet, beautifully warm and lovely sound with Shunyata power conditioning, Kimber Kable, and Davone Grande loudspeakers. The two Rogers pieces also looked fabulous.
Across the hallway, Paragon Sight and Sound set up a more "modest," albeit hardly chump-change, system that included Wilson Alexia 2 speakers ($59,900 with this special red finish), brand-new tubed Rogers KWM 88 Corona integrated amplifier ($14,000) plus PA2 phono stage ($7300), dCS Bartok DAC ($13,500), Clearaudio Ovation turntable with 9" arm and custom finish ($11,000) and Clearaudio Jubilee cartridge, Transparent Reference and Reference XL cabling, a Transparent Reference Power Isolator ($5995), and Harmonic Resolution System RXR 4V with R3x base audio rack ($9330).
Artist Jay Paul Apodaca and his lovely wife, Houda Alaoua Apodaca, were rocking out with Roksan UK’s Oxygene touch-sensitive, Bluetooth-equipped integrated amp ($7000) at the world premiere of its limited edition Jay Paul Apodaca incarnation. As the story goes, Roksan’s owner, Tufan Hashemi, visited Jay Paul’s store in Detroit and began collecting his art. Eventually he decided to commission Jay Paul to make 12 original paintings that he could reproduce on the front of the Oxygene. Mated with Roksan’s Darius S1 loudspeaker, the artwork and system livened up the Marriott’s Tower like few other systems I heard.
Roon, one of the major brands of audiophile-quality high-resolution music playback software, has just released its v.1.6 upgrade. Roon 1.6 finally includes a portal for hi-rez streaming Qobuz, whose US launch is rumored for sometime next month. In addition to pairing Roon's rich metadata with the entire Qobuz and Tidal catalogs, the upgrade also offers major new features.
I first encountered consistently handsome Rosso Fiorentino speakers at a show years ago, and immediately encouraged a now-retired distributor to pick up the Italian brand. I'm so happy to discover that AudioThesis is now bringing them into the US.
Like an immense night bird aloft in the gold'n sky.
I should like to sail off towards islands of flow'rs
While list'ning to the perverse sea singing
In its old and bewitching rhythm.
It took some time to figure out why, in the middle of auditioning Rotel's Michi S5 stereo power amplifier ($7499.99) with the room-shaking opening of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Ravel's far subtler and perfumed setting of Tristan Klingsor's lyrics from Shéhérazade came to mind.