Robert Schryer

I'll say this, unequivocally: The Toronto Westin Airport Hotel is a fantastic venue for an audio event, better than the Montreal show's near-fabled Bonaventure Hotel, where it counts most: in the exhibitors' rooms. For whatever reason, and this was the consensus among those I spoke with, the rooms at the Westin seem to have acoustic properties that made most systems being demoed sound better than expected by anyone who's ever been at an audio show. It's worth the trip to Toronto just to hear what that's like.

Imagine an audiophile system assembled by the UN and you might end up with something that looks a lot like what I discovered in the Wynn Audio room. Among the countries being represented there were: France, with the Metronome AQWO CD/SACD player ($CAD22,000), with tubed output stage and USB input; Switzerland, with the 215Wpc Goldmund Telos 590 NextGen integrated amp ($CAD33,800); Germany, with the Vimberg Mino speakers ($CAD41,900/pair), built in the same factory as its sister company Tidal Audio (not to be confused with the streaming service); Sweden, with the Entreq Olympus Infinity ground boxes ($CAD5800 each); the Netherlands, with Crystal Cable cabling and rack; and the US, with Critical Mass Systems footers.

Gobsmacked is a word I never use, but I will in this report. That's because I'm at a loss to find a better term to convey how I felt when I heard the system MBL had set up in their room—which, by MBL standards, was small (other qualities that came to mind about the system's look were tidy, clean, and really, really white). The all-MBL system consisted of a total of three components: The three-way omnidirectional Radialstrahler 120 speakers with integral stands ($CAD30,150/pair), the 300Wpc C51 integrated amp ($CAD14,600), and the C31 DAC-CD player ($12,000), with Wireworld cabling throughout.

Featured in the MartinLogan room were the company's standmount Motion 35XTi speakers ($CAD1600/pair). The XT denotes the model's folded-diaphragm air-motion tweeter while the i stands for improved, the latter mainly as it relates to upgrades made to the speaker's woofer and crossover.