Robert Schryer

The Toronto Audiofest 2022 may not have been the busiest audio show I've attended, but it was still a success. It had plenty of new product launches, great-sounding rooms, and a good amount of traffic, especially on Saturday, when seats became a hot commodity in many exhibit rooms.

Like at the last Toronto Audiofest, I listened to two of EQ Audio's main systems that were setup at both ends mirror-image-like along the length of the back wall of their huge, subdivided exhibit space. One system included another North American premiere!—the Monitor Audio 3-way PL200 3G speakers ($17,500/pair)—the second system consisted of a pair of Focal Sopra No.3 speakers ($33,798/pair) and electronics by Musical Fidelity.

And now for something completely different, Part 3.

Ever heard of a monophonic integrated amplifier? An amp that includes a single amplification channel along with its single channel preamplification stage? I hadn't until I visited manufacturer Eon Art's room, which was demoing a pair of such a rare, in fact, one-of-a-kind, beast, called the Boson ($72,537/each).

And now for something completely different, Part 2

On the gentle urging of one of the nicest guys in the biz, Ed O'Herlihy, owner of Ontario retailer EQ audio video, I visited, among the many exhibits Ed was hosting in his nearly stadium-sized space, was the Focal 1000 series Utopia 7.0.4 Dolby Atmos demonstration, the exact same setup that Focal presented in Dallas at this year's CEDIA Expo.

You want more "big" sound? The kind whose tentacles can reach into every nook and cranny of a large room with warm reverberant energy, rich tones, colorful harmonics, and bass tremors that'll seep through your seat? Then step right up, into the DALI room, which was showing its new flagship KORE loudspeakers ($150,000), monuments to state-of-the-art speaker design conceived in the land of the Vikings—Denmark—along with a pair of 200Wpc, class-D NAD M23 monoblocks ($5000 each), a streaming M33 integrated amp ($7800), an AudioQuest Niagara 5000 line conditioner (7000), and a bevy of AudioQuest Thunderbird Zero cabling.

In the killer-sound megabuck category, I present to you Wynn Audio's system, which, in your typical hotel exhibit room, wouldn't fit or, if it did, would be so squished together as to make the room look like a storage space, not a listening area. Here, in the spacious hall-like Carlyle room, Wynn Audio's system fit like a glove, a musical glove, I might add. Compared to its system at the last Toronto show in 2019, Wynn Audio went slightly lower key this time, not in the size or price of the equipment, but in the color of the demoed speakers. Those in 2019 were finished in an alluringly striking lime green. Forget lower key—this year was lower key lime.

You want organic, vinyl-like sound without the vinyl, without spending an arm and a leg for it? Then I have the system for you, found in the Innuos/ASONA room. It starts with an Innuos complement of a PULSEmini network player ($1600) and a PhoenixNET network switch ($4900)—those switches, they've upped the digital game—plugged into the preamp section of a Cen.Grand 9i-90SA fully balanced headphone amp ($2900). Amplification was assumed by the gorgeous (and gorgeous-sounding) KT-88-tubed, 80Wpc Synthesis Roma 510 AC amp ($6500) from Italy, which powered a pair of bass-reflex AperturA Sensa speakers (starting at $4300/pair). Analysis Plus cabled everything together.