RMAF Report: Speakers Over $20k
The best part of a trade show from my point of view is seeing old friends. Although I talk to most of them almost daily, Robert, Neil, Jacob, Jim, Chris, Steven, Alan, and I generally only meet face to face twice a year—at RMAF and CES. Thanks to the Internet each of us works out of his home, in cities that literally span the continent from coast to coast. It’s well worth the trek to Denver and Vegas—and the trekking that each of us has to do at the shows, nine to six, from room to room, often listening to the same pieces of music thirty or forty times in a row—just to be able to sit down together at the end of long days, break bread, share observations and some very good laughs.
This year our show impressions pretty well matched up (not always the case, BTW)—at least when it came to the better sounds at RMAF, of which, I am sorry to say, that weren’t all that many. Though the show was very well attended by manufacturers, and moderately well supported by the public judging from hall and elevator traffic, sonics-wise it was not a particularly strong outing—or so I thought, although I’m not sure why this was the case as the lineup was, as noted, strong. The Marriott Tech Center did lose electricity for about a half an hour on Saturday (so did other hotels and homes in the general area), so poor or insufficient juice might help account for the generally lackluster sonics. (When the lights went out, some wag on the darkened eleventh floor hall asked aloud which room had flipped on the Krell Evos.) And of course the Marriott hotel rooms are none too great sonically, even by hotel-room standards. (The Venetian is definitely better.) It also occurred to me that the prevalence of server/DAC combos, of which there were many, might have played a part. I’m not knocking digital, of course—heaven forefend!—just opining that sticking a computer hard drive in front of any ol’ DAC may not result in the sonic Nirvana that almost everybody and his brother and his uncle say it does. OTOH, there were a lot of turntables at the show, too. So I’m not at all sure that the server/DAC thing holds water. And before you start throwing darts—and I’m sure you will before I’m done—let me confess that some of the better displays at the show were using digital, including my pick for Best Sound Overall.
So…on with the show. I’ll take the speakers in the order in which I heard them, beginning with the Big Boys in the large, particularly bad-sounding, first-floor “suites.”
First up the Primrose Suite where YG Acoustics was showing its large multiway $107k Anat Reference IIs. Housed in CNC-milled aircraft-aluminum/multilayered-alloy enclosures, using YG/ScanSpeak drivers with a ScanSpeak Illuminator motor in the tweeter and a ScanSpeak Revelator motor in the integral powered subwoofer, and proprietary crossovers said to be individually optimized for each pair of speakers, the Anats were being driven by the $128k FM Acoustics 811 Mk II amps and the $23.2k FM Acoustics 245 preamp (rare showings for FM Acoustics) and fed by the $34k Weiss Jason/Medea CD player and Black Note DSS30 Tube “digital streamer.” There was a lot of money and high technology on display in this room; alas, the sound was simply amusical. Oh, the very low bass was good on the demanding techno-pop cut I played (Track 7 of The International soundtrack—a disc that is a little dry but a killer), as was bass transient response. But overall the sound was cold, bright, and piercing, particularly on hard transients in the mids and upper mids. However, before you think I’m bashing YG, the selfsame speakers in Bill Parish’s GTT Audio/Video room (535) sounded better than I’ve ever heard them sound before, anywhere—astonishingly neutral, detailed, sweet, open, lifelike. No hot spots, no shoutiness, no metallic tinge. The difference was almost unbelievable. I don’t know what to attribute it to—the superb Soulution electronics Parish was using, the Kubala-Sosna cables (which tend to soften, sweeten, and ripen timbres in a beguilingly Technicolorized way), the room itself, Bill’s setup? Whatever it was, it is now clear that the Anat Reference II is capable of remarkably realistic sound, if everything is to its liking.
Next came the Larkspur Suite, where the $68.2k three-way Acapella High Violon Mk IV—which combines an ultra-exotic horn-loaded ion tweeter, a spherical midrange horn, and a bandbass woofer (hidden inside the High Violon enclosure)—were being driven by pricey Einstein tube electronics. Although the sound was better than the first YG room, it certainly wasn’t as good as I’ve heard these intriguing Acapella oddities sound in the past. I played one of my old favorite CDs—Captain Luke singing “Rainy Night In Georgia”—and while Luke’s basso voice and guitar were more immediate than in the first Anat room, they were also more forward and shouty—and not as realistic as I know this cut and Guitar Gabriel’s “Keys to the Highway” (on the same disc) are capable of sounding.
Next up was the Bluebell Suite where the $22k Analysis Omega planar/ribbon floorstander, looking every bit the Apogee Duetta clone, was making lovely music via inexpensive ($3.9k) Arion monoblock amps and a PS Audio Perfect Wave transport and DAC. The sound was smooth, dark, sweet, not aggressive but not lacking in dynamics, either. A nice showing for Analysis.
The horn-loaded Classic Audio Reproductions Project T1.3 with all field-coil drivers was being shown in the Lupine Suite, with Atma-Sphere electronics (as usual) and a Kuzma Reference turntable decked with Tri-Planar arm and Air Tight PC-1 Supreme cartridge. I’m pleased to say that, as was the case at CES, the T1.3s (which have been updated with T.A.D. drivers since January) had virtually no horn coloration. I threw a toughie at them—Attila Bozay’s Improvisations for Zither [Hungaraton], about as complete a test of attack, decay, timbre, and resolution as I know of—and they did well, though tone color was not as rich and decays not as extended as what I’m used to hearing. There seemed to be less top end, too, which rather curtailed harmonics.
Danish hi-fi manufacturer GamuT was displaying its large multiway floorstanders, the $150k S-9s, in the Evergreen A Suite, driven of course by Gamut electronics. Since Gamut’s owner used to be a key player at ScanSpeak, the drivers were naturally sourced from that company; the gorgeous cabinets were built (very Magico-like) of stacked birch-ply, reinforced internally by solid wood fan-shaped structures. The source was a $20k Music Life O/ turntable/tonearm from Germany decked out with a ZYX cartridge. The sound here was the first I marked with an asterisk—meaning it was the first contender. On my great Nova LP of Reiner Bredemeyer’s “Schlagstücke 5,” which can sound as if it were cut direct-to-disc on the right system, the sound was superb—neutrality, transients, resolution, tone color, and driver-to-driver coherence were all top-notch. Oh, the bass might have been just a little soft (I’m not sure of this), but the S-9 sourced from the Music Life ’table was clearly the best sound I’d hear thus far.
In Evergreen B I listened to the latest incarnation of JBL’s $60k Everest DD66000 loudspeaker, with horn-loaded beryllium high- and ultra-high-frequency drivers and twin pulp-cone woofers. The system was driven by Levinson electronics and sourced via EMM Labs digital. When I came into the room someone was playing back a CD of “All My Trials” sung by the Mormon Tabernacle choir in, uh, the Mormon Tabernacle. Maybe, I’m just used to hearing Joanie sing it with a single guitar accompaniment, but the effect was…not the same. The sound was very dynamic—as you might expect—but a bit piercing on crescendos.
We now move one floor up to the Mezzanine, where the first thing I heard was the $70k Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate Edition, a relatively compact floorstanding five-way that looks like its built upside-down (woofer on top, mids in the middle, tweet on bottom). Driven by Levinson electronics, it was not at all what I expected from Dynaudio—by which I mean it was quite musical and not overly bright and analytical. A little dark-hued with a lively touch of extra upper-midrange energy and very impressive weight in the bass it sounded swell on drum, fiddle, voice.
Next on the Mezzanine came the lovely, $57k, candy-kiss-shaped, multiway floorstanding Vivid G1 Giya, driven by Luxman Anniversary monoblocks and wired with Synergistics new Gallileo cable (so named, I assume, because you will need a telescope to bring its out-of-this-world price into focus—$40k for the cable, $25k for the interconnect). If there were an award for most-improved sound, the G1 would win (although it would have to share the award with one other). I’ll be goddamned if I know what all has changed since I heard its less-than-sterling debut at CES, but this year the G1 was terrific—neutral, fast, surprisingly airy, just plain excellent, with none of the bloat and confusion it suffered from in Vegas. Wotta difference! Definitely one of the better sounds of the show. (Maybe that cable is worth what Synergistics asks.)
Next on the Mezz came Hansen’s The Emperor—a $60k three-way, four-driver floorstander driven by Accuphase electronics and wired with Tara Labs. This was one smooth, coherent transducer—simply lovely sounding. In the room it was in, I thought it was a bit polite, perhaps because there was a bit too much bass; still, The Emperor sounded gorgeous, as Hansens typically do.
Next on the Mezz was the $185k Focal Grande Utopia—Focal’s huge, articulating, multidriver flagship, which had such a rough debut last year. As was the case with the Vivid G1 Giya, here is another instance of a speaker that made a considerable turnaround, sounding much better this time when driven by MBL’s superb electronics. Big, bracing, fast, more coherent top to bottom, with tremendous power in the midbass, the Grande Utopia was superb on brass, drums, bass. The smallish room caused it to sound as if it were a little dark in overall balance, and I thought I heard a tiny bit of overhang on the woofer, but, good Lord, what an improvement! Another Most Improved Sound Award winner.
Also on the Mezz was the Legacy Helix—a big $46k multiway floorstander that sounded good but not great.
On to the second floor of the so-called Marriott Tower, where Focal was playing its $30k Scala three-way floorstanders. I happen to have the two-way Focal Diablo Utopias in house for review and, honestly, these things sounded so much like Focal’s two-ways with more bass that I was shocked. I played a little Joan Baez and she sounded very damn lifelike, with no excess sibilance on voice or guitar. Indeed, the Scalas were neutral, transparent, fast, coherent, and lifelike on everything I played, including an LP of HK Gruber’s big, noisy, delightful Frankenstein!! The Scalas may not have resolved the last iota of ambience, but so what? This is one excellent loudspeaker.
In room 2007, MBL was showing its latest omni, the $34k 111F, driven by the usual panoply of ultra-expensive, ultra-good MBL electronics. Folks, I know you’re tired of hearing me say this, but those MBL omnis are just fantastic. You can literally sit anywhere (including “behind” them) and hear a breathtaking stereo soundstage, full of detail, energy, beautiful tone color, and phenomenal bass. I swear it’s like going to the Berliner Philharmonie. If I hadn’t done it so many times before, I would award these sui generis musical-excitement-and-color machines yet another Best Sound of Show. As it is, they were one of the top two or three, as they always are. The damn things gave me goosebumps playing back Track 7 of The International!
In Room 2004, I heard the $71k Tidal (pronounced “Tee-dahl”) Contriva multiway floorstanders with all ceramic and diamond drivers. (The $20k Bergmann air-bearing-tonearm, air-suspended-platter record player was also being shown in this room, and it was terrific.) I think the best word to describe the Tidal sound is beautiful, because it certainly is that. Joan Baez came across with more ambience than I heard with the Focal Scalas and very good reproduction of her characteristic tremolo and her fingerpicking. Though not quite as high in resolution as what I’m used to listening to—nor, ultimately, as lifelike on something like Guitar Gabriel’s “Keys to the Highway”—the Contrivas are truly gorgeous-sounding transducers.
The $48k multiway, floorstanding Hansen Princes were being shown in Room 2013. I listened to The International again on The Princes and the sound wasn’t as dark as it was in the MBL room (a signature of MBL amps), nor was it as thrillingly dynamic. That said, it was still pretty damn thrillingly dynamic. Good speakers.
We come now to one of my two big surprises (the second awaits you later on). In Room 2017 I heard a speaker I’d never heard of, Electrocompaniet’s The Nordic Tone, a $30k 3.5-way in a beautifully sculpted aluminum enclosure. Apparently, this speaker was a Norwegian state-funded project that’s been in the works for four years and, having been taken over by Electrocompaniet, is finally on the verge of coming to market. Folks, I played Track 7 of The International in many rooms, but none of them—including the fabulous MBL room—came close to delivering the extraordinary detail and extraordinary dynamics of this speaker. The experience was tremendous, astounding (which is what I wote in my notepad). I would’ve named this newbie Best of Show were it not that I wasn’t sure, on the basis of the short amount of listening I did, whether the slight darkness I heard with it was coming from Electrocompaniet’s own electronics or from the speakers. In any event, this is one I plan to review. It could well be one of the truly great ones.
A speaker that I know considerably better—and that I also will review—was in Room 2021. For several shows in a row now, the $55k, open-baffle, ribbon/cone hybrid Nola Baby Grand Reference has been making wonderfully lifelike music. This year, at RMAF, an improved version (with better ribbons) driven by ARC electronics and sourced by a tape machine playing back The Tape Project’s second-generation dubs of mastertapes was simply marvelous—so open, so sweet, so clean, so continuous. If there was anything about it I could criticize, the BGRs might have been a little less transparent in the bass than in the mids and treble. But I don’t know for sure. Alongside the Vandersteen 7s, they sounded the most like music to me.
I transport you now as if by magic—I had to take an elevator—to the ninth floor of the so-called Marriott Tower, where Wilson Audio was introducing, in Room 9022, its new floorstanding, multidriver, WATT/Puppy 8 replacement, the $27k Sasha W/P, driven and sourced by ARC electronics. Since I visited this room twice (as you will see), consider this a first take. On “Rainy Night in GA” Captain Luke’s voice and guitar were duller and darker-hued than what I’m used to hearing—not as bloomy and alive as they usually sound. OTOH, the speaker did respectably well on a very challenging Mario Lanza aria, with only a little (perhaps amp-related) compression on his incredibly powerful fortississississimos and good bottom-end “finish” on the piano. Altogether, not great but not bad (the very words I wrote). HOWEVER, when I returned the next afternoon (at RH’s request), things had…changed. Mids had opened up. Air, bloom, sheer realism were shockingly improved. There was still a little room-induced boom in the midbass, but the low bass was now tremendous. If I gave an award for Most Improved Sound At the Show, the Sasha W/P would win going away.
In Room 9010, Carnegie Acoustics was showing its open-baffle, multiway floorsander, the $22.7k Grande Lux, driven by McAllister amplification. On a variety of music, I thought the bass was well defined albeit a little soft; the mids were a little forward, adding nice bite to saxophone but also adding a little upper-midrange brightness (though not enough to really bother me). Cymbals sounded sweet but a little down in energy, as if the top were slightly rolled. The sound was good, but not among the best.
A few doors down, in 9013, I did hear genuine high-end greatness in the $45k Vandersteen Model 7, sourced and driven (like the Wilson Sashas) by ARC. Both Robert and I wrote at some length about the Model 7 in our CES reports; outside of its integral powered 12” woofer, which is taken from the Vandersteen Model 5, the 7 is an all new design, incorporating Vandersteen’s most advanced thinking and R&D. Its beautifully sculpted, demure enclosure is built of layers of carbon-fiber over carbon-fiber struts; other than the woofer, its drivers are carbon-fiber/balsa composites. It is darling looking, and its sound…well, might as well spill the beans here. Its sound was, overall, the best I heard in Denver, with particularly remarkable midband and lower treble. No other speaker reproduced Captain Luke’s guitar and voice, Guitar Gabriel’s guitar and voice with the kind of realism that this Vandy/ARC combo mustered. They just sounded “there.” Bravo, Richard! (And congrats Robert—our Mr. Harley will be reviewing this little gem in the near future.)
In a corner room, I heard the $51k Audio Note AN-E/SEC Sig—a plain-looking two-way box speaker that is meant to sit in corners, like a very bad boy. The thing has silver voice coils, Alnico magnets on both drivers, three-braid SOGON (AN’s top-grade cable) wiring, silver-foil caps—the usual Audio Note niceties. It was driven, naturally, by AN electronics and an EMM Labs DAC. A bit to my surprise, the AN-Es were sweet and smooth customers, with lots of bass (predictable given the corner locations) but pretty good bass definition (not so predictable). Imaging was a bit woolly (predictable), but not completely amorphous (not so).
Back in Room 9002, I came across a speaker I’d never heard before (or at least, don’t remember hearing), the $20k Haniwa HSP2H07—a DSP’d two-way from Japan comprising a spherical horn on top and a spherical sealed-box woofer in a small curvaceous enclosure. Not only was this the best horn speaker at the show, it was one of the best sounds period (and remember I’m not wild about DSP). On piano, the Haniwa was just plain terrific—sensationally realistic. In fact, it was damn good on everything. It might have been a little bit down on top, but not much. And there might have been a bit of a room-induced thump in the midbass, but, once again, not much. Dynamic range (in spite of DSP’ing and digital XO’ing) was fee-nominal. This is a speaker The Absolute Sound ought to review; in fact, I ought to review.
On the tenth floor, I heard the two-way floorstanding Merlin VSM-MX sound rich, warm, and sweet, and the quasi-Walsh-driver German Physiks Borderland Mk IV (driven by Vitus electronics) sound quite open but, alas, also quite bright and aggressive.
Like Rapunzel, we move out of the Tower now back to the so-called Marriott Atrium floors and Room 422, where the whimsically named $20k Wharfedale Airedale—a front-ported, three-way floorstander with drivers boasting Alnico magnets—made its American debut. Alas, it wasn’t an altogether successful opening night. The speakers were sweet enough, certainly, but also a little dark and boxy and a little bright on top. In Room 457, I heard the three-way, floorstanding, $23k 21st CAT Shangra-La, which, unfortunately, were considerably less special than their name. In Room 403, the $20k Avalon Indras—longtime favorites of mine—were plying (or would that be “playing”) their trade. For reasons I don’t understand, this was not a good showing for the Indras, which sounded pleasant and present with decent detail, but curiously dark and canned, short of their usual breadth, air, and bloom. Maybe it was the electronics.
On to the Fifth Floor of the Atrium, where, in room 589, I heard the $28.8k Joseph Audio Pearl II three-way floorstander, driven by Bel Canto electronics. “Rainy Night in Georgia” sounded very delicate and full-range, but a little dark and not so much realistic as lovely. I gotta admit I tend to point the finger at the Bel Canto stuff, which has given T.A.D. speakers a somewhat similar signature. In Room 556, I heard the Audio Acoustics Sapphire ti-c—an MTM two-way that uses Accuton ceramic drivers in a very interesting box made up of seven layers of gel-coated laminates. The sound was very promising—in fact, it was gorgeous. Given the Sapphires very high sensitivity, they might be just the ticket for SET fans. A speaker for TAS to consider for review.
The three-way $20k Ascendo F—with adjustable head unit and bandpass woofer—was in Room 582, and sounding impressive on Track 7 of The International. The bass was just a little loose and ill-defined (coulda been the room); everything else was good.
Another Fifth Floor winner was the Lotus Group’s $69k-$160k two-way dipole Granada with ultra-sexy full-range Feastrex field-coil 5" driver, two cone woofers (to augment and take a bit of the load off the Feastrex), a rear-firing ambience tweeer, and (great Caesar's ghost!) a digital XO (the same, I am told, that A. Wolf uses in his near-half-million-dollar Magico Ultimate II horn system). Although it hurts me to say this, on the basis of listening to this speaker and the Haniwa I gotta admit that digital XOs have definitely gotten better (or, at least, these two have). In fact, this speaker was so good it earned one of my little asterisks as a “Best of Show” contender (and I only gave out a handful of these). Outside of the Vandy Model 7, the Granada reproduced my Guitar Gabriel (“Keys to the Highway”) and Captain Luke (“Rainy Night in You Know Where”) cuts with more sheer you-are-there realism than anything else at the show. I know nothing about Lotus Group but, like the Nordic Tone and the Haniwa, this is a speaker that may truly be great. (BTW, the Granada’s design is uncannily similar to that of the Da Vinci Virtù, which so wowed me at the last CES and which I also think may be a world-class transducer.) I don’t know if it was the Granada or my ecstatic response to it, but soon after I left the room the lights in the hotel went out.
In Room 505, I heard the $27.5k electrostatic/cone hybrid Janszen Model 1s, driven by Bryston’s 28B amps. On “Rainy Night” the Model 1 generated a big image with fundamentally neutral tone color on voice and guitar. Captain Luke sounded a tad more forward than he usually does, perhaps because of speaker placement. Low-level detail was just superb, as it always is with ’stats. I was about to award the Model 1 an asterisk when I listened to a bit of the Rach 4 and found I could hear the cone woof (which crosses over at 250Hz, I believe), doing a little bit of woofing. It wasn’t a marked coloration—just a little reminder that when it comes to mating cones with electrostats or ribbons nothing comes free.
Best Sound of Show: Vandersteen Model 7, with the Nola Baby Grand Reference, the MBL 111F, The Nordic Tone, the Lotus Group Granada, the Anat Reference II (Parish room only), and the GamuT S-9 runners-up
Best Introduction (or Speaker I Hadn’t Heard or Don’t Remember Hearing Before): Lotus Group Granada, The Nordic Tone, the Haniwa HSP2H07 (tie)
Best Source Component: The UHA-HQ 15ips 2-track tape deck from United Home Audio ($10k) and Tape Project tapes in the Nola room
Best Bargain: Well…in my neck of the woods a bargain ain’t exactly a bargain, but I did hear Odyssey Khartagos sounding mighty damn sweet in somebody’s room
Biggest Improvement Over Previous Shows: Focal Grande Utopia and Vivid G1 Giya (tie)
Biggest Improvement During the Show: Wilson Sasha W/P
Most Interesting New Trend: From my point of view it wasn't the plethora of server/DACs or the abundance of those Draculas of high-end audio, turntables, tonearms, and cartridges. Nope, it was the improvement in digital XOs and eq. In at least two very impressive systems, I heard digital XOs sound, well, terrific (and shockingly non-digital).
Comments
Hey JV,
Great report - thank you. And cheers for checking out the Lotus Group's Granada. Those little Feastrex field-coil drivers have certainly piqued my interest, and I've been a big fan of open baffle designs in the past.
Great to hear you enjoyed what you heard.
Cheers again for the great reportage.
Thank you, niner. For those interested I'll be posting photos of many of the $20k+ speakers shortly.
YG Acoustics Anat Reference II in the GTT Audio Room. A revelation.
Lotus Group Granada. A world-class loudspeaker?
Wilson Audio Sasha. What a difference a day makes!
Nola Baby Grand Reference. Superb musicality.
GamuT S-9. A model of neutrality.
Vandersteen Model 7. Best of Show.
Electrocompaniet The Nordic Tone. A future Best of Show?
MBL 111F. Always a contender.
Under the cavet, your milage may vary - I am certain of only one thing - hotel rooms with really loud A/C units or excessivly hot listeners don't make for good listening sessions. My other big complaint is hallways full of loud talking reps from other exhibitors just cruising by to "say hi". I actually went to the show with intent to buy things (and I did) but it was made much harder by folks who ought to know better.
Other ought to know betters: Perhaps someone should offer classes on "setting up your gear in a trade show" Too many well reviewed items sounded less than expected. So much so that I can't blame it all on overly optimistic reviews. To my ears for example,the big Dynaudios lacked the lower bass resolution a "more than a good lux car costs" speaker should display. But many of the smaller items seemed to punch well above their weight class - often I noted they had clearly taken some time to do some trial and error setup.
But don't get me wrong - it was still a great couple of days and money well spent traveling from Washington DC to Denver - but I think the really high dollar items got less out of the show.
Thank you, Jon! Attn other writers/reviewers: Have you read this report?
I agree with Jonathan re the Vivid speakers. I could hardly listen to them at CES- at the time it was the most expensive "hi fi" I've ever heard with over 100 k in electronics (Luxman) and 250 k in cables and power products (Nordost Odin). Fast forward ten months, same speakers and electronics but now I heard effortless holographic music, not hi fi.
Thanks JV,
it brought a smile to my face to hear how impressed you were with Vandys Model 7..it's so nice to see one of the pioneers of HIGH-END-VALUE hit a home run and at a reasonable price....Who said the high-end is dead!
Questions
1.Which line of Kubala/Sosna cable was GTT audio using with the YGs?
2. Though the electronics were different would you say the new Vandy Model 7s and YG Anats offer the same sonic signature? Same transparency?
3. Again, I know its show conditions, what were the difference in sound between the Soulution and FM Acoustic sound?
Thanks in advance.
WD,
1) I believe GTT was using the new top-of-the-line K-S Elation. But I'll double-check.
2) No. Though they share some qualities, I would not say they have the same "sonic signature." The dipole Vandys sound like Vandys, which is to say they sound a little like planars--big, airy, bloomy, freed-up, natural. To use a different analogy, they sound a lot like ARC tube electronics (which is why they've always been such a great match with ARC), Though also open and unboxy, the YGs have more of a point-source kind of presentation--somewhat more precisely focused and controlled, somewhat less bloomy and three-dimensional in timbre and texture (though, at least with Soulution electronics, not overly lean or flat), somewhat harder-hitting, somewhat more finely detailed. To use the electronics analogy, they sound more like Solution or Technical Brain solid-state. The two speakers do share a neutral tonal palette and both are very coherent, octave-to-octave.
3) I cannot say with any confidence. What I can say is that the Soulution electronics, which I've lived with for almost a year, are the most transparent-to-sources components I've yet tested (particularly the Soulution 710 stereo amp, which is what Parish was using).
JV
I too was surprised by the YG Anat reference, but had the opposite impression - the GTT room sounded a little dynamically squashed to me. Given what you have said about the Soulutions electronics, I attributed it to the K-S cabling, which I have heard sound soft and overplush in the past. You were right in identifying the Elation cables in that system. The speaker is mightily impressive.
I heartily concur about the NOLAs, the Vivid Giyas and the Sashas; I wasn't at the show Friday, so I didn't hear what they were like that day. But they sure were musical and impressive on Saturday.
Paul,
Nice to hear from you!
I didn't think the Anats sounded "dynamically squashed" in the GTT room, although I'll grant that the sound was much less aggressive. Considering how sharp, mechanical, and analytical they've always sounded at trade shows (including this one in YG's own room), I think they needed "humanizing"--which is what GTT's setup supplied. I'm not at all sure the Anats are great speakers, BTW, but they did sound a lot more like music in Parish's setup. I haven't had any real experience with K-S cables, so I'm not sure what role they played in this.
I'm pleased that we agreed about the Nolas, Giyas, and Sashas.
Jon
Great to hear from you as well, Jonathan. I saw you a couple of times around the show, but we were always headed in opposite directions and I managed to be constantly behind for both days, so I didn't stop to chat. Too much to hear and too little time to hear it.
It's nice to be back in the swim again after a couple of fallow years. I must say that RMAF is a much more enjoyable show than CES to use as a re-entry point. The big Vandys sounded appreciably better to me on Sunday than on Saturday - maybe just a case of getting well settled-in. Carl's room was extremely impressive. At last the NOLAs have a package/look which better reflects their overall sound quality and price points. What was startling to me was how well the Micro Grands held their own against the Baby Grands. Sadly, the BGs are too big for my room as I'd be sitting too close to them for proper integration. Carl suggested a pair of Micros with one or two Thunderbolt subwoofers. That might be interesting.
Paul
JV,
Aside from the obvious cableing differences, do you bealive the ART room correction contributed to the Vivid G1's improved showing? They really sounded like two different speaker systems despite having the same electronics.
Asian,
I just don't know. Something was making a huge difference.
It just occurred to me that Philip was using the ART stuff at CES last year, so....
Jon
JV, I don't recall the ART system in Vegas this year on the G1's. Last year on the little Vivids at RMAF yes, Vegas not so much (I'm not sure anyway
JV,
Re your choice of "Best Source Component: The Tape Project tapes in the Nola room". I would imagine the quality of the playback deck is a significant factor in playing back the Tape Project tapes you mentioned. Can you post which tape deck was used for playback and who sells them? Thanks.
Tim
reelguy,
Carl tells me that the tape machine was a remanufactured Tascam 15ips 2-track, built by Nola dealer United Home Audio (for which, contact Greg at audio [at] unitedhomeproducts [dot] com ">audio [at] unitedhomeproducts [dot] com or go to www.unitedhomeproducts.com/reel_to_reel_hq_tape_decks.htm.)
Jon
(I am commenting on the difference between the Giyas showing at CES vs RMAF. Just in case my above post is unclear)
Thank you Jonathan for those kind words.
-Peder Beckman-
Electrocompaniet Inc.
Peder,
You are more than welcome. You earned them.
Jon
Jonathan,
How did the Nola Baby Grands perform when fed by your personal CDs? Did they even have a CD player set up?
Regards,
Rex
Rex.
To tell you the truth I was so entranced by the sound of the tapes I don't know if Carl had a CD player.
Jon
JV is being kinder than usual. Overall that was not a very good sounding show, IMO. The YG in the GTT room, for whatever reason, were simply more held back then usual so they were not as offensive but, unfortunately, just as mediocre as usual. To call it a revelation is simply trying too hard. The new Wilson sounded more or less the same to me on both days I visited. Not so bad, but certainly noting to write home about. The Avalon/VTL room was pleasing and so was the Classic Audio Reproductions. The Nolas were a bit confusing and so are the MBLs. Very hifi sounding. The entire show felt “cheap” and somewhat “underground”. For the prices some of these guys are charging, you would hope for a classier presentation.
FWIW, I found the Sasha/ARC room uninspired as well. But on Sunday afternoon I decided to try the Sashas a second time, in the Ayre/Sasha room (can't recall who sponsored the room); Peter McGrath was there. As a guy who has heard WPs at length over several iterations over the years and never cottoned to them, I was impressed with their newfound (to my ears) midrange transparency and musicality. Very good, though not great, sound IMHO.
I liked that particular playing of the Sashas, too. Especially on the Sunday; Peter - armed with his own recordings - detected a bump in the room dynamic, somewhere around 69-72Hz. This was eliminated thanks to the clever interfacing between Amarra and Ayre QB-9, delivering a subtle bit of digital EQ to correct matters. I heard it both in and out... it made a big, positive difference to the sound.
The guy from Amarra also let slip just what the program does, which explains why it needs so much RAM and why it's not just smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately, I've been sworn to secrecy on this, but now I understand both why it does what it does and why they can't talk about it.
Sorry if this sounds cryptic.
And yes, I like the new midrange too. I reviewed it in Hi-Fi Plus issue 67 (available from all good downloading sections of this website) and said exactly the same thing.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
While I credit (blame?) JV with pulling me into the audiophile orbit with his Magnepan 1.6 reviews years back, I am scratching my head over the MBL room. I went there twice (Fri and Sun) and found them good but nothing to write home about. I attributed my lack of enthusiasm to the clearly (well, seemingly) too small room, but to see JV praise that setup as among the best-of-show is puzzling. OTOH, I didn't have my own music with me to really get their measure. I wasn't impressed by the Gamut either, but I did hear it early Friday, perhaps before it had a chance to settle in.
On another note, I share his disappointment with the Avalon Indras. They were good, but one of my early hi-fi revelations came a decade ago with their Avalon Radian 2C3D setup--making this outing somewhat disappointing, relative to my expectations. Also, I too found the GTT YG setup clearly superior to the other one.
Jonathan- would you prefer the Magico V3s or Sashas? i am going to finally audition the V3s this weekend, and hopefully the Sashas soon.
The V3.
amazing how you are in total sync with HP. hanson, scala, janszen, etc. - do you guys ever disagree? please share. : )
as an aside, the YG room was great when i was there. someone told me that loud volumes would overload the room.
i wasn't feeling that the gamuts were capable of handling the size room they were in.
analysis audio was lifeless when i was in there.
also loved the granada, but thought it was getting congested at higher volumes.
I hope when you got to hear the United Home Audio reel-to-reel deck you got to hear them playing the tape of The Alan Parsons Project's I Robot. I can honestly say I don't recall ever hearing it sound better, and believe me, I've heard it off just about every source imaginable (Arista LP, MFSL LP, CD, MFSL CD, and Classic Records LP and 96/24 DVD-A.)
That room was one of the few where I just sat for about 20 minutes and listened; sad as that's kind of supposed to be what the show is all about. :-)
I'd also award the Vandersteen 7s best of show, though the Sashas didn't sound terrible when I was there. I think for dealers that carry Vandersteen and Wilson it's going to be a hard sell moving MAXX 3s.
The Acoustic ART system always just bothers me; logically it shouldn't make such a difference but it most certianly does. I would say, however, that the difference they made was far more pronounced with the Vivid B-1s they used at last year's RMAF with the room oriented with the speakers on the short wall of the room.
The power outage was just funny; I imagined (and actually experienced) exhibitors telling people to go away and come back in an hour after the electronics had warmed back up.
Ironically there was a second brief power hit just about an hour later. :-)
Finally, I'm surprised you didn't mention the Harman semi-trailer in the parking lot where they had the combo of Levinson Electronics and Revel Ultima2 Salons sounding as good as I've ever heard them before, especially from the sweet spot of the Eames chair...
BillK,
I didn't get to the Revel/Levinson semi. (What's with that, BTW? Stereo in a semi? Was it designed for the late Chris Penn?) I probably missed a few other things, as well.
I didn't hear I, Robot, but the classical Carl was playing was mighty fine. Man, I'd like to get my mitts on one of them UHA decks and The Tape Project tapes. I used to listen to 1/4" reel-to-reel commercial tapes (from Merc and RCA, among others) and did a little home and semi-pro recording in my youth, but I've never heard professionally recorded 15ips 1/2" mastertapes on my home system. I'm afraid they might put me into a coma.
Jon
Which Levinson electronics did you guys hear?
The system in the semi consisted of a No. 326S preamp, No. 532 stereo amp and No. 512 CD/SACD player and was driving a pair of Revel Ultima2 Salons.
It actually sounded very good as the environment inside the custom semi was actually better than in the Marriott rooms.
Acoustic ART? Really?!
Come on (I've never heard them but...) they've got to be soo small to do anything except perhaps something very subtle and only at the highest freq's.
I missed the the demo so I'll not call fraud until after CES. Were it not for the players involved I'd be 100% certain instead of 98.7%
I was in the room when Ted conducted a demo. No sleight of hand was involved. He played one track with the ART pieces in, then out, then in again, removing them and replacing them in plain sight. I cannot explain why, but the sound was substantially better with the ART devices set up. Same technique was used for the charge being applied to the cables. Things like this drive me nuts. At least Roy and Steve (in the Nordost presentation) had measurements to explain things. Unfortunately, with the Synergistic Research products, hearing is believing.
Edited for clarification
That's why I said what I did above.
I don't want to believe it's doing what it's doing, any my lying eyes are watching the soundstage shrink away as he removes the ART pieces and then grow again when he replaces them.
It shouldn't work; but it does, and that's what bothers me. :-)
I heard a demo, too. The things add depth and width and, for lack of a better word, order to the soundstage and change image focus, too. Whether these additions and changes are "right" in the sense that they accurately reflect what's on a recording is an interesting question. They are certainly attractive--to such an extent, with the Giyas at CES, that the soundstage sounded crudely phasey without them. Last fall I heard the ARTs do much the same thing in Istanbul, too, with Kharma's big speakers. Since I use the Shakti Hallographs, which have much the same effect and are equally inexplicable, I can't throw stones at the ARTs.
Thank you very much for your kind words regarding the The Lotus Group's Granada Loudspeaker which we introduced at RMAF last week. Since you mentioned that you were not familiar with The Lotus Group, I thought I would give the briefest synopsis possible: In 2002 we began making super high end cables under the name PranaWire, which continues today. In 2005 we added importation and distribution of parts and accessories from Japan with two lines now expanded to seven lines. One of these, Feastrex, presented us with a conundrum: Feastrex's handmade full range drivers are the best drivers we have ever heard. They have only promoted these as single full range drivers and have created several different cabinets that feature one driver only to cover all ranges. We felt that in order to bring Feastrex into the mainstream, something else was needed. We would have to depart from the one driver only philosophy and create a speaker that would retain the magic inherent in the Feastrex drivers while relieving them of the necessity of driving the lowest frequencies. Though it might seem a simple matter to cross one driver over to another, to properly do so in this case was actually quite complex and required extensive measurements be taken 360 degrees in both the vertical and horizontal plane and subltle adjustments made to account for axial response, listening window response and power response. The extent to which we have created a speaker whose complexity disappears in the listening and reveals the magic inherent in the drivers, is the extent to which we have succeeded.
Hi Joe,
Congratulations on the debut of the Granada at this year's RMAF. It certainly seems to have garnered extrememly positive comments, and by JV and RH, no less.
I was wondering if you wouldn't mind expanding upon the design of the Granada (if, indeed, it is politic to do so in the context of this forum). My understanding is that by virtue of the fact that it is an actively bi-amplified loudspeaker, it therefore requires a pair of stereo amplifiers for the Feastrex and 12" drivers respectively, as well as power (voltage) for the field-coil and digital crossover. In the photos however, I can only see the Pass amplifiers - did you use another set somewhere? Being actively driven, I can only assume that the crossover, then, is an onboard device requiring one's pre-amp to have two sets of line levels outs for each set of power amplifiers. Is this correct? Finally, is the rear mounted tweeter also fed from the digital crossover, or instead from a conventional, passive, analogue crossover?
Congratulations again on the Granada, I hope it continues to impress all who have the fortune to hear it.
Cheers!
Thank you very much for your kind words regarding the The Lotus Group's Granada Loudspeaker which we introduced at RMAF last week. Since you mentioned that you were not familiar with The Lotus Group, I thought I would give the briefest synopsis possible: In 2002 we began making super high end cables under the name PranaWire, which continues today. In 2005 we added importation and distribution of parts and accessories from Japan with two lines, now expanded to seven lines. One of these, Feastrex, presented us with a conundrum: Feastrex's handmade full range drivers are the best drivers we have ever heard. They have only promoted these as single full range drivers and have created several different cabinets that feature one driver only to cover all ranges. We felt that in order to bring Feastrex into the mainstream, something else was needed. We would have to depart from the single driver only philosophy and create a speaker that would retain the magic inherent in the Feastrex drivers while relieving them of the necessity of driving the lowest frequencies. Though it might seem a simple matter to cross one driver over to another, to properly do so in this case was actually quite complex and required extensive measurements be taken 360 degrees in both the vertical and horizontal plane and subtle adjustments made to account for axial response, listening window response and power response. The extent to which we have created a speaker whose complexity disappears in the listening and reveals the magic inherent in the drivers, is the extent to which we have succeeded.
Thank you, NIner.
The Granadas were vertically bi-amplified by a pair of Pass Labs XA30.5 stereo amplifiers. The power supply was partially hidden behind our PranaWire sign at the base of the rack. Though a direct digital input may become a future option, the crossovers were situated between the output of the Lamm LL2.1 pre amp and the input of the Pass Labs amplifiers. The rear firing tweeter is intended to balance the high frequency power output of the Feastrex drivers and is passively crossed over. So the Granadas are still purely a two way speaker.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the clarification. Again, I wish you much success with the Granada.
Er, JV, any chance of a review?
Cheers.
Maybe. We'll see. I'm certainly interested in the technology, but I'm kinda booked up at the moment. I'll be visiting Switzerland at the end of the month, where, among other things, I hope to get to hear the Da Vinci Virtus again (the first iteration of this kind of speaker).
Oh, man. I've seen the Virtu on the Audio Exotics forum. Let's just say if I was to ever buy a speaker solely on how it looked and what I could imagine it sounds like, then the Virtu would be first on the list, possibly edging out the Granada by a veneer. Open baffles, field-coils, digital crossovers... It's a brave new world! Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Virtu. Cheers, JV!
Funny you should comment on digital XOs and Eq Jon. For the past year or so, I've been playing around with a Lyngdorf RP-1 in and out of my systems. I like a simple signal path but I'm not dogmatic about it. I would have to say that this DRC box is quite transparent considering it does a whole lot of AD conversion and DA conversion just to get it's EQs working. I had similar impressions of low cost Digital XOs like the Behringer (did I spell that right?) unit that comes with those Emerald Physics speakers.
I'd say about 95% of my listening is vinyl and 70% of that to classical music. After investing all that time and effort into chasing "Analog Perfection" folks found it strange that I even considered "digitizing" all that and having it reconverted. What I was after was the global setting of the box where to someone in the sweet spot the sound would become diffuse but for everybody else soundstage be darned there would be an even tonal balance pretty much anywhere. I have large speakers that go pipe organ low and couches in corners. As you might have surmised I meant to use it for parties with the system playing unobtrusive but still very pleasant muzak behind good conversation. I do not wish to cause nausea for the poor chaps or ladies in the corners. I thought of it as "Omni-izing" my system. I was surprised however that they didn't make my system sound digitized in any of it's other algorithms either even when listening critically. I dug out an old Philips Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 with Richter playing just to be extra sure of this. Yes there was some degradation but it was not of the "jittery" variety just a slight raising of the noise floor as compared to the direct pre to amp connection.
The id to my audiophile ego is where I hark back to my college days and do some DJing. I use the usual Technics SL1200 decks but opted for a digital mixer from Tascam mainly because I wanted to record via the onboard SPDIF output onto a Protools M-Box. Here is where I made the realization about digital equalization. Using an analog mixer you can perform certain effects by manipulating the analog EQs. These effects are primarily phase shifting effects. With the Digital EQs there was almost no phase shift to be had. Actually there really was no phase shift I could coax from it unless I engaged the flanger function. The same holds true in the studio when comparing the use of an outboard analog eq's recorded output to that of a "pencilled in" manipulation on a decent digital workstation.
Considering that crossovers are essentially a collection of "fixed" eqs sans the knobs that determine cutoff, gain and width I am not surprised with your observations. It's something that apparently the pro side of the music technology industry have been doing for almost a decade both in the studio and at live events. The Hi-End just may be benefitting from the availability of OEM modules and parts originally used elsewhere in much less costly gear and applications while Meridian has been slaving away on their own road which apparently was not all that different in principle afterall.
M.D.,
The very thought of digitizing and then re-analogizing my beloved LPs is truly nauseating. BUT...if the only way to get a speaker to sound great is to A-D and then D-A, then you come face-to-face with The Big Question: "Is this speaker worth this sacrifice? Or, to put it differently, do the sonic gains outwiegh the sonic losses entailed by A-to-D and D-to-A conversions?"
In the case of the Granadas, I don't know the answer to this question because I haven't heard them at enough length to judge whether they're truly in the running. Yeah, they sounded great at RMAF, but there was other stuff that also sounded terrific and there were lot of speakers that just weren't there. Let's face it: There are so many extraordinary conventional loudspeakers out there--the Magico M5 chief among them--that the Granada would clearly and unmistakably have to be in the small group of "the best I've heard" to even tempt me to turn analog into digital.
I'm not saying the Grandas are not worthy, BTW. A. Wolf uses the same digital XO that The Lotus Group uses in his statement loudspeaker, the near-half-a-million-dollar Ultimates, so it must be pretty good. I'm just saying that, at this point, I don't know for certain if the speaker is among the best I've ever heard, although it was certainly among the best I heard at RMAF.
Before I went full tilt into two channel my system was built around a Proceed AVP which AD-DA'd any analog signal fed into it. When I compared my then simple table and phonostage with the AVP with my table into a second hand No.320s I acquired later I'd have to say that there were no sonic gains to speak of in fact the process just brought harm in spades.
Now I'm still not convinced of any sonic gains with the RP-1 in bypass mode. As for the DSP settings they are for convenience rather than critical listening anyway since my room is quite decent and needs little active correction if ever. What I can be confident in saying is that the boards available today (in the RP-1 and DEQX at least) do practically no harm when compared to my only other frame of AD-DAing reference the AVP.
This was really a surprise to me considering the rest of my system and room today is leaps and bounds better than what I had then in all aspects especially my analog. I don't like rattling off what I have but to give you a better context from which I've made my observations, I use a 3 motored table that you reviewed although I got it before you published, the arms (yes I have two of them mouned) they went to show with at CES 08, the higher model of the Airtight Supreme's virtual twin from the Matsudaira-San's own company and the higher "T" model of one of HP's longest running cart references, a Jade version of your Onyx and a phono stage that you have that took an inordinately long time to really show its chops. My speakers are speakers that you once described as worthy of risking bodily harm to secure a review sample or something like that and my amplification is from the same company that made your low power reference.
I'd like to believe I'm a better listener as well because I'm more into musical meaning than in the past where poor sonics in my old systems just distracted the heck out of me. Now that you've mentioned that the Lotus group uses DXOs on multi amped Ultimates (Alon has a more traditional analog XO for using just two channels of amplification. I've been told) I guess it holds even more water that the AD-DA processing has come a very long way.
You're right though there's no fair way to compare a DXO'ed speaker with an AXO'ed speaker. There will just be too many variables. It will just be a case of whether the final results can speak for themselves.
Nobody was more reluctant than I to go the digital route on the loudspeaker. Our engineer kept saying, “Delay your judgment until you’ve heard it. It’s utterly transparent.” In fact, I was on my way to pick up some black cloth to hide the crossovers altogether at the show, figuring, we’d just keep mum on the subject, as I knew for certain that they would give rise to controversy, when I went through the only “no turn on red” stoplight in Novato and took home a nice fat ticket (the karmic cost of going digital? Or the digital angel giving me hell for wanting to cover her up?). When we first listened to a stereo pair, we were all floored, and the concerns went out the window.
Some questions to ponder:
1.) What is gained from a properly designed digital crossover?
2.) What can’t be done with an analog crossover?
3.) What price are we paying for analog crossovers?
a. What about phase anomalies?
b. What happens when all those 5% and 10% and 1% reactive parts interact?
4.) Is there such a thing as a free lunch in loudspeaker design?
5.) Which compromises are most/least worth making?
We did not make the single driver only camp happy when we added woofers and a tweeter to a Feastrex driver. Single driver speakers are all about no crossover. We probably upset the single ended crowd when we used Pass Labs solid state amplifiers on a driver that is generally thought to run best on glass bottles, and we further upset the analog crowd (apologies to Jonathan) by creating a situation in which the subtle gyrations of a stylus in a groove were given any further processing than bare bones necessity dictates.
We were just as concerned at first that the analog source might take on a “digital” characteristic, but all we heard from it was wonderful texture, presence and realism as one would expect from a first rate analog rig.
Hi JV,
Thanks for the report, you were by far the most comprehensive and I appreciate your input.
Any idea why Magico is not represented at RMAF? I've been to the show twice, and there doesn't seem to be any Magico dealers willing to set up a room?
I have a question for you:
Which would you pick, the Magico V3 or the MBL 111F?
I realize they are quite different, but they are relatively similarily priced and they're my top two favorite speakers in this price range.
While I really like both speakers, if I had to nitpick at their faults, I'd say the Magico is a little recessed and less detailed in the midrange than absolute neutral, and the MBL is a bit fuzzy in presentation from bass up to midrange, while the highs are not as smooth as absolute neutral. On the positive side, Magico's bass is beyond reproach (the sealed box must have something to do with the articulation and coherence this speaker is capable of in the bass frequencies), and the MBL's soundstaging presentation is startlingly unique and 3D.
I'm interested in your thoughts as to the faults of each speaker, and also the positives that would prompt you to proclaim one superior over the other.
Thanks!
PS. Did you get a chance to listen to the Acoustic Zen Crescendo? I thought they sounded great and were priced quite reasonably ($14k).
Harry,
First, thanks for the kind words.
However, I don't know quite how to answer your question, since you've kind of answered it yourself. If the highest fidelity to the sound of the real thing is foremost, then the V3 is far and away the better choice. If goosebump-raising dynamic thrills, awesome soundstaging, and uncanny three-dimensionality are foremost, then the 111F is the clear winner.
Let me know which one you pick.
Jon
P.S. No, I didn't hear the Acoustic Zens. Unfortunately they were outside of my purview (speakers $20k and above). Also, the reason that there was no Magico at RMAF was because A. Wolf doesn't attend RMAF.
I would any time choose 3D/soundstaging and dynamics over neutrality. But maybe not the MBL :). On the other hand I wasn't impressed by the V3 that much either, it sounds constrained/compressed. If it would cost around $10k, would be an honest good speaker for small rooms, but it doesn't sound beyond that value. The M5 might be better, but price is out of this world. It would be interesting how a more cost-efficient version of the M5 would sound (keeping the drivers & crossover, and a simple plywood cabinet).
Hi Jon,
Great feedback, thanks! Long term satisfaction is the key for me, I'll keep you posted...
Harry
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