Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2008

twich54 said:

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 !)

Click to expand...

Dave, I forgot to tell you last night that I DID make it into this room yesterday afternoon. CD Player was the top of the line Audio Aero Capitole. My impressions of this room were spot on with the way you describe it. Very nimble, articulate and tunefull. Deeper bass and better dynamics than I can ever recall hearing from a Merlin product.

I get audio wood over the Joule Electra amps, some of the very best looking around without a doubt.

twich54 said:

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 !)

Click to expand...

I have heard the Merlin speakers and they are a great sound for such a small foot print.

Man those Apogee are sexy still !

YG Acoustics

Well, here you have it, the "Best Loudspeaker in the World" if you are to believe TG President and Designer Yoav Geva. I've listened to the YG line for the past 4 years, and the DO get better every year, and this iteration IS the best thing I've heard from them, but it wasn't the Best Sound of the Show, much less the best speaker in the world. I didn'y hear the price directly in the room myself, but someone I was talking to later said that he was told they are $260K as shown here. The FM Acoustics amp certainly was adding it's fair share to the presentation. Digital source was a Weise Transport and DAC, neither of which I am familair with.

Analysis Audio

The Analysis room was one of my favorites last year and they didn't dissapoint this year either. If anything the sound was better, perhaps in part to the supporting electronics. Last year they were paired with Behold electronics, this year they were running with a full VTL setup. The VTL stuff was in many a room and it always sounded good. Here there was a VPI Aries 3 (just like Papa Dave's) and Meitner one box CD/SACD player feeding the VTL TL 7.5 pre-amp (18.5K) in turn feeding the stunning MB 450 monoblocks ($15K). The Analysis Amphityron's ($28K) were cohesive as all get out, with dynamics to spare. I liked these even better than the Apogee's I was praising above. You better have a tall ceiling though!

Usher

Usher was demonstrating a full bevy of their Berrillium tweeter equiped speakers including the big BE-10's (right) and Be-10 Exemplar's (left) shown here. The Ushers continue to offer jaw droppingly good performance at relatively reasonable prices. These are truely state of the art speakers, both available under the $20K mark. Usher was demonstrating the equipment using Exemplar electronics driving the big Belles MB-01 monoblocks. Everything was resting on Stillpoint racks. The analog source was one I was going to see over and over at the festival this year, the Dr. Feickert Analog Twin (it can accept two tonearms. This is a VERY slick looking and serious sounding turntable.

Nola

The Marchisotto family was in Denver to present their Baby Grand Reference speaker system, and it was making sweet music of Diana Krall's "Let's Face the Music and Dance". The speaker retails for $55K and was being driven by an all ARC lineup comprised of the CD7 as a source, the Ref 3 pre-amp and the very sweet Ref 210 monoblocks. Very good sound indeed.

Oracle

Oracle was showing their beautiful electronics with the Usher Berrilium driver speakers, the 718-Be. I've been a big fan of these speakers for the past two years and they sounded good as usual with the Oracle Delphi turntable and updated $6400.00 CD player which was doing justice to a few choice cuts from Seal.

Craigs new ClearAudio !!

Craig, Your a man if you think you can pick this beast up ! 700 plus pounds of pure analog fun ! This was in the Focal room, approx half million dollars worth of gear.....gulp ! But man-o-man what sound, I know Tim has done more exstensive photo shoot of this room and associated equipment, so I'm sure he will further update one and all !!

Aix

The big story in the AIX room wasn't the $25K/pair German Physics speakers (of which there were 5) or the big Vitus amp. The clue resides in the 3 Benchmark DAC's paired with the AIX music server. The server is equipped with a 500Gig hard drive standard, but can ge upgraded to 2 Terabytes, and lists for an astonishingly low $3500.00. It is apparently the ONLY server on the market that does full high resolution audio in 5.1 channel formats. AIX records their own material in high rez 5.1 and they also own iTrax.com, where high rez downloads are available in 5.1 as well. The German Physics speakers weren't exactly my cup of tea, but a high rez recording of Jennifer Warnes doing "Train Time" was quite engaging.

Got tubes ???

Valve Amplification Company made its debut of the new VAC Phi 200 @ RMAF this year. 100 watt, KT-88 beauty that could be seen / heard driving numerous sytems throughout. It aint cheap ($9800) but assming it is like those VAC's before it should prove worthy !

I knew I could count on you guys to take great pictures! Thanks!

MiTT said:

The Analysis Amphityron's ($28K) were cohesive as all get out, with dynamics to spare. I liked these even better than the Apogee's I was praising above. You better have a tall ceiling though!

Click to expand...

I nearly bought a pair of Amphityron's off a chap who works for Analysis. Then I got real about my 16 x 12 listening room... heard the Omegas many years ago. Excellent, I thought.

twich - great camera - what is it??? Ah - Canon Powershot A700. Nice!

MiTT said:

Oracle was showing their beautiful electronics with the Usher Berrilium driver speakers, the 718-Be. I've been a big fan of these speakers for the past two years.

Click to expand...

Tim, I too love the sound of these little beauties !

Did you get (hopefully) some shots of the super bookself speakers(can't remeber name.......duh...show special like $1100) that were in the GIK, Korato (Serbian made poweramp and two box pre) room ????

Myself, Joe and Steve thought hands down they were the bargin sound of the show, hell I though the serbian made electronics were mighty find sounding as well.

Brian (bpage is his username on various forums I believe, also GIK designer along with Glen) is sole importer, distributor and dealer.

Wavac

One of my favorite rooms on the second day was the Wavac room, but I was kind of in shock when I went back to look over their price list - now wonder I liked it!

What you're seeing here is the Continuum Criterion turntable with Copperhead tonearm ($55,595.00), sporting the Ait Tight PC-1 cartridge ($6,000.00). It's connected to the Wavac LCR-X2 3 chassis phono stage ($25,000.00). Digital Source is the EMM Labs TSD1 transport ($11,500.00) tied to the EMM Labs DAC2 ($9,000). Pre-amp is the 3 chassis, transformer coupled Wavac PR-T1 ($29,000) running into the Wavac EC-300B stereo SET amp ($26,490). The speakers were the VERY nice Lansche Audio 4.1's with Corona ion tweeters ($55,595.00). Everything was connected with a staggering $36,000.00 worth of PranaWire cables on top of $2000.00 worth of Sistrum racks. Bottom line is slightly north of $240,000.00.

How did it sound? It did not disappoint, I spent a good half hour here listening to pure, unadulterated music.

twich54 said:

Tim, Did you get (hopefully) some shots of the super bookself speakers(can't remeber name.......duh...show special like $1100) that were in the GIK, Korato (Serbian made poweramp and two box pre) room ????

Myself, Joe and Steve thought hands down they were the bargin sound of the show.

Click to expand...

Dave, I believe you mean these ACI Sapphires. I've been singing the praises of this little gem for the past two years and they sounded better than ever this year. I agree with you, they were the bargain of the show by far. These things sound staggeringly good and easily embarassed many far more expensive speakers. I promise you, someday I will own a pair of them!

Vincent

Vincent was making some very good sound coupled to the $2399.00 Roberts Acoustics Rapide Monitors paired with the same companys Vigor sub ($899.00). Sources were a Mac laptop running through a PS Audio Dac Link III ($995.00), and a VPI Scoutmaster running a Benz Ace through a PS Audio GCPH phonostage (also $995.00). The Vincent SA-T8 Pre-amp ($2499.00) and SP-T800 Hybrid monoblocks ($4900.00/pair) make for a very nice system with a sensible price tag.

Esoteric

You all know how big a fan of Esoteric I am, so this room was about as close to digital heaven as it get's for me. We got to listen to the D-03/P-03 transport/processor combo ($26K) linked to the G-05 Master Clock ($8K), running through the C-03 pre-amp ($10K) and A-100 amplifier ($19K) and finally the MG-20 speakers. This is digital done right. Music was Shelby Lynne singing "Just a Little Lovin'". I'm in!

McAlister Audio

McAlister Audio is another new company out of Canada specializing in high performance tube based electronics. They were demonstrating their wears with a set of Italian made Acoustats! Yes, Acoustat is around in a different iteration. The Italian company purchased the rights to all of Acoustat's technology and patents and they are manufacturing new speakers under the brand name. The catch is that since Acoustat offered lifetime warrantees on all of their products in the US, the Italian manufacturer doesn't want to bear the burden of any potential liabilities here, so while they are available in other parts of the world, it's not likely that we'll ever see them again here.

Peter McAlister hand winds all of his own transformers, manufactures his own oil filled capacitors and uses some uniqe circuit topographies utilizing horizontal sweep tubes. The amps are geared specifically to planar magnetic and electrostatic speakers. The MB-130 monoblocks captured here put out "more than" 130wpc and cost an incredible $3840.00 per PAIR! I am intrigued...

Veloce

Yet another new company, this time out of Ambler, PA., Veloce Audio makes some rather unique tube pre-amps and solid state power amps. What's unique is that they are battery powered and , when in use, completely off the grid. Their $14,000 pre-amp was receiving input from an AudeoAero Capitole CD player and their $12,500 monoblocks were feeding a pair of Kharma 3.2 monitors to great effect. I actually prefered the sound of the Kharmas in this room to the way the updated 3.2.2's sounded in the Kharma/mbl room. Cyrus Chestnut sounded like he was in the room with us!

Oswaldsmill

Oswaldsmillaudio is a pretty uniqe operation. Based out of New Tripoli, PA, not only is their name cumbersome, but these monsters had to be beasts to move and set up. President Jonathan Weiss builds "ultra fidelity audio components that reflect their passion for horn loaded speakers, triode amplifiers and vinyl". Certainly not including the ribbon tweeters in these speakers, many of the drivers employed are 60 years old, originally intended for theater use and limited to the stock they have on hand. Given their inventory they'll be limited to 60 pairs, so get your orders in soon. I didn't get the skinny on this turntable, but believe it is their own design. Music was the long out of print "Njoma Plays Liszt" on Reference Records and it sounded pretty darn good. I have no idea how much these monsters cost.