Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2008

Symposium and Emotive Audio

OK, so here's one where I REALLYwish that I'd have had my tripod with me, and I may have to drop in today just to do them justice. I've raved the past few years about the sound of the Symposium Panorama loudspeakers, but the kobbled togeter look wasn't going to land them in too many listening rooms. Well, they finally have a production worth version of the speaker with glistening aluminum faces and all new subwoofer towers. It once again sounded amazing, but now there is actuall beauty to accompany these beasts. They sound like no other speaker on earth. I don't remember the cost, but know that they ware well out of my reach.

Grant Fidelity

Grant Fidelity is a new company out of Alberta, Canada offering great sound at very reasonable prices. The system they were playing included a front end consisting of a tube based CD/DVD player, a power conditioner of their own design, handmade power, interconnect and speaker cables and this stunning looking Rita integrated amp that puts out about 100-80wpc depending on whetehr it's configured with KT-88's or EL-34's. Complete system price - a very reasonable $7,535.00.

Grant, hey? Now that is interesting. Here is an HK pic of the same amp, which I don't think I posted - but there it was a Jungson. Anyone know anything about this?

Sorry to barge in, Tim - just thought it was interesting!

Keep it Coming:drool:

Hey Tim, great reporting! Please try to stop by the Modwright room... Dan's got his new amp, and I'm also curious if he's running his tube-modded SlimDevices Transporter as source.

User211 said:

Grant, hey? Now that is interesting. Here is an HK pic of the same amp, which I don't think I posted - but there it was a Jungson. Anyone know anything about this?

Sorry to barge in, Tim - just thought it was interesting!

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Now worries Justin - I enjoy the dialog. Very cool indeed that you saw the same product with a different name in Hong Kong. The woman I was talking to in the Grant room told me she was Chinese, although she lives in Alberta. I'm sure there's a connection for manufacturing if nothing else.

sleepysurf said:

Hey Tim, great reporting! Please try to stop by the Modwright room... Dan's got his new amp, and I'm also curious if he's running his tube-modded SlimDevices Transporter as source.

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Alan, I tried to get into Dan's room yesterday, but it was so packed I literally couldn't get in the door. Will try again today. There have been a couple of rooms running the modded Transporter< I'll try to detail them out as I find them in the pictures.

Von Schweikert and Audio Space

This room included the smallest of the Von Schweikerts at the show - the Unifield 3's at $15K. They use the same tweeter as the giant VR7's that are in a different portion of the hotel (I confirmed this with Dr. Von Schweikert himself, a very nice guy to talk to by the way). The show is the world premiere for the Unifield 3's and they sounded excellent paired with the Audio Space 300B based pre-amp and 300B/805 based monoblocks. "Keith Don't Go" from Nils Lofgren's Live Acoustic was simply awesome with a huge deep soundstage, great clarity and wonderfull bass extension. Very, very good room.

Waterfall

Well, so not everything can sound good right? These very interesting looking speakers from a company called Waterfall were aesthetically pleasing I suppose, but they really didn't make good use of materials in my opinion for a loudspeaker enclosure. These all glass speakers playing Eva Cassidy's version of "Ain't No Sunshine" off of a music server of indeterminate origin sounded, well, ... very bright!

theWB said:

Keep it Coming:drool:

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Wayne, so you said no "people" pics !!

Guess what ??? people !! Dinner last nite @ Wynkop Brewhouse

left to right....Steve (SloGezzer), Joyce(Steves betterhalf), Sandy (Tims betterhalf), Tim (Mitt), some ugly old fart(twitch), Shirley (my betterhalf),
Erik (Eknuds01), Christine (Eriks betterhalf)

Dave, thanks for the picture. Old fart excepted, I did not know what everyone else looked like; now I do.

Quicksilver & Ref 3A

A truely musical room needs to be playing good music and the Quicksilver room running Ref 3A Grand Veena's ($7995.00) certainly qualified. The Quicksilver amps putting out 80wpc did a fairly good job of driving the Grand Veena's (more on that later though). The digital source was a Bel Canto transport and DAC (they seem to be everywhere) running through a Copeland digital room correction box into the Quicksilver pre-amp. Frank Sinatra was playing when we came in, but I spied a copy of Ry Cooder's "Bop Till You Drop" LP and they graciously put it on for me. I'm pretty familiar with this recording and the Grand Veenas did a good job with the overall tone of "I Can't Win", but I think the Quicksilvers ran out of gas a bit when pushed hard. Still, very enjoyable and musical.

Bernard said:

Dave, thanks for the picture. Old fart excepted, I did not know what everyone else looked like; now I do.

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Bet you didn't know I was one of the wee people did you Bernard? Actually, I'm squatting down and Sandy is sitting on my lap. We had some good food and brews there last night!

MiTT said:

We had some good food and brews there last night!

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Yes...and some of us were actually drinking martinis in a Brew House !

True Sound Works

Possibly my favorite room of the first day was the True Sound Works room. These guys essentially rebuild your old Apogee's or, for the right amount of cash, will build you entirely new Apogees from the ground up. These brand new Diva's cost a cool $13K, but they sounded worth every penny of it pumping out some tasty Keb Mo'. Electronics were the ARC CD7 feeding the Ref 3 pre-amp and Pass XA 100.5 monoblocks. A real feast for the eyes and ears!

Musical Interpretations

Musical Iterpretations is another company I'd not heard of until Friday afternoon, but they had some interesting stuff. These hand made in Minnesota amps and speakers did a nice job playing an all bass version of Jimi Hendrix "Little Wing". The speakers are available in a more modern looking version (good thing) without the traditional looking coping along the edges. They are a very efficient bass reflex design and sounded quite dynamic being fed by the 8.5wpc (thats right eight point five) single ended amps. Fit and finish on the amps was exceptional for a new company.

Burmester

The Burmester room featured some very cool electronics and a very hot girl presenting them! (sorry, no pictures of her, I didn't want to be that obvious). At any rate, build quality is obviously something Burmester knows a thing or two about as well as evidenced by the shot with the clear top cover on one of their amps. The overall system they were demonstrating featured their smallest speakers and the new 061 CD player. With Pink Floyd's "The Wall" providing the music it was easy to see how people get enamoured with the Burmester sound - clean, powerfull, great imaging, but perhaps just the slightest bit dry for my tastes. This "baby" system in the Burmester line will set you back $92K without cables.

OK, so now I'm officially very late for the third and last day of the show so I have to blaze. Everything I've posted so far is only from the first day of the show, so there is a LOT more to come, and I know that Dave, Eric and Steve will have their own pictures and comments as well. This is going to be a long thread with TONS of hits I suspect!

Small Treasure for the Ears

One of my personal favorite rooms was the Merlin / Joule Electra set up.

Bobby Palkovic (Merlin head guru) did a very nice job of acoustically getting the room as best as possible. A small speaker(footprint) that produce big, full, beautifull sound. Let me tell you boys and girls don't let anybody tell you OTL amps can't do bass ! Jud Barber's VZN amps are not only gorgeous to look at, also beautifull to listen through as well !

Merlin VSM-MXe speakers, Joule Electra VZN "Emerald" MonoBlocks, Cardas cabing, Digital front end, (yeah dummy me forgot the CDP !)

MiTT said:

Possibly my favorite room of the first day was the True Sound Works room. These guys essentially rebuild your old Apogee's or, for the right amount of cash, will build you entirely new Apogees from the ground up. These brand new Diva's cost a cool $13K, but they sounded worth every penny of it pumping out some tasty Keb Mo'. Electronics were the ARC CD7 feeding the Ref 3 pre-amp and Pass XA 100.5 monoblocks. A real feast for the eyes and ears!

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Chargin' a bit more than over here, then. Here Duetta Sigs (smaller, I know)can be had for £1750, and a re-build will cost you about the same... Victory for the UK in the pricing stakes at last!

Mug shots were cool, actually Face to a name etc... as Bernard said.