Preview: Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Part 1

Mile-High Audio

Coming Soon: Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2009—October, 2-4, 2009

Each Fall, music lovers and audiophiles of all stripes convene in Denver, CO for what has become an annual must-see/must-hear event: The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.

It can be difficult to capture the exact flavor of RMAF for those who’ve not yet made the pilgrimage to Denver, except to say that the Fest has less the feel of “trade show” (for example, the annual CES Expo held in Las Vegas, NV) and more the feel of a community of friends and manufacturers who meet to share and celebrate their common love of music and fine equipment to play it on.

RMAF has earned a reputation as an event where you can catch up with old friends and meet new ones, where you can sample very high-performance audio gear spanning all price points, and where you can see and hear new products and technologies that are just appearing on the horizon.

Perhaps the best way we can provide a preview of RMAF 2009 is to show you The Absolute Sound’s report from the 2008 Fest, which was originally published in The Absolute Sound issue 190 and was presented in four parts.

AVguide.com will post the first two parts of the report today, and the second two parts tomorrow. Enjoy, and please do join in us in Denver for RMAF 2009. --Chris Martens
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Mile-High Music

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2008, Part 1

Jonathan Valin on High-End Loudspeakers

I’m going to divide this report into four sections (though some products fall into more than one): 1) surprises (manufacturers or products which hadn’t showed well in the past that did an about-face or products that, well, just surprised me); 2) introductions (new products that were launched or made their U.S. debuts at RMAF); 3) mixed bags (products that were quite good but not as good as the very best, or that were a mix of very good and not-so-good, or that didn’t show as well as they had in the past, or that simply didn’t show particularly well); and 4) triumphs (flat-out winners).

Remember when you read this that I’m just one guy with a pair of ears and a briefcase full of blues, folk, and classical. Hotel rooms are notoriously unfair to exhibitors, and where it was obvious I will comment on how poor room acoustics affected the sound.

Surprises

In Room 522, YG Acoustics showed its $38k Kipod Studio, a floorstander with a two-way head unit perched atop a separate powered woofer. To be honest I’d never liked the sound of YG’s touted top-line Anat Reference. Oh, it has been very detailed all right, but it’s also seemed very analytical—the kind of speaker designed by an engineer rather than a music lover. On top of this, the Anat’s head units have meshed poorly with its woofer units. So imagine my surprise when the Kipod turned out to be wonderful! Very open, very dynamic (with terrific dynamic scale and range), very lively, with extraordinarily deep, fast, detailed, and well-integrated bass. Of all the speakers I heard at RMAF, this one (and the speaker that follows it on this list) was the biggest surprise—and certainly one of the better sounds at RMAF.

In Evergreen A, I came upon Classic Audio Reproductions’ $38k T-1.2 three-way horn loudspeakers. I’ve heard various versions of Classic horn-loaded loudspeakers (inevitably powered by Ralph Karsten’s Atma-Sphere electronics) for the better part of a decade, and while their sound has steadily improved I wasn’t prepared for the leap the T-1.2 has made. Using field-coil drivers designed by the redoubtable Dr. Bruce Edgar, these speakers were so greatly improved in focus, neutrality, resolution, and extension (and so much lower in amorphousness, “cupped-hands” midrange and Raven ribbon tweeter in the head unit and a SEAS magnesium woofer in the bass cabinet). Like YG’s three-way, the Unifield sounded simply terrific—open, neutral, lively, and very dynamic. If I were Von S I would always show with Audio Space amplification and preamplification. This is the second fest in a row where the combination of Hong Kong equipment-designer extraordinaire Peter Lau’s superb electronics (the $3390 Reference 3 integrated amp, this time) and Von S’s speakers wowed me (which hasn’t been the case with Von Ses in the past). Certainly one of the better sounds at RMAF—and quite a good value.