RMAF 2010 Show Report

[MiTT]

Emille

The gorgeous Emille electronics were getting a lot of attention hooked up to a pair of matching silver Wilson Sophia's. I love the look of these amps.

 

[MiTT]

Onedof

This is a brand new turntable manufacturer from right here in my own back yard in Littleton, CO. Using a Triplanar arm and a Benz Glider cartridge this table sounded great through a Rowland integrated amp and a set of Platinum speakers. The table goes for a whopping $150,000.00. The designer was knocking on the stand as a Pavarotti record was playing and there was no transmission of sound to the music. The unique features are the bearing and the motor controls, developed in Switzerland working in conjunction with the very tight machined tolerances on all of the major components. The bearing is self centering with machined tolerances of .0005" total runoff. It really is a beautiful piece to set your eyes on, and the designer says that he will build virtually any turntable you want depending on your budget.

Append: The rather odd sounding name stems from the wording One Degree Of Freedom - meaning that the cumulative sum of all the machine tolerances only allow for one degree of freedom; that being rotation. This really was a VERY silent sounding table, so there may be something to the design rationale.

 

[MiTT]

Cary and Usher

The new Usher Mini 2 speakers feature a diamond tweeter in a D'Appolito configuration. In this room they were driven by some sweet Cary mono blocks as well as all Cary source and pre amp. These speakers we very polite compared to what I've heard from Usher in the past, but did summon the huevos to do justice to Stravinski's "Rite of Spring" where necessary.

 

[MiTT]

Levinson and Revel

I'm sitting next to Robert Harley from The Absolute Sound right now listening to the big Revel Ultima Salon II's driven by the big Levinson No.53 mono blocks being fed by the new No.512 SACD player through the No.326S pre amp. They're playing a wide variety of music - Ricki Lee Jones "Easy Money" right now. For approximately $22K a pair these are pretty versatile speakers.

Append: I really didn't say much about the Levinson gear, and I should. I'd always been a fan of the brand, especially when the man himself was associated. The look for me was trend setting, but it seems like a lot of folks have copied it. There have been some subtle design changes to keep the brand current, but you have to look close to see them. It's still gear of the very highest quality, and whether you love the sound or hate it's cool approach, it is pretty unflappable on the most demanding material.

 

[MiTT]

Von Schweikert and KR

The Von Schweikert VR-35 speakers ($7995/pair) were being driven by the KR Audio SXI MKII 50 watt integrated amp utilizing the monstrous KR T-1610 tubes - one of the biggest sets of tubes I've ever seen. Sara K with Chris Jones sounded very lifelike - and this is a recording I'm very familiar with.

 

[MiTT]

Lansche and Bermann

The Lansche loudspeakers feature a plasma tweeter similar to the Acappella's, and what a smooth sounding top end they provided in these $40K Model 5's. The $54K Bergmann Sleipner Reference turntable sounded as good as it looked, as did the associated Ypsilon electronics.

Append: You have to turn off your flash and hold steady to get a picture of a plasma tweeter in operation. Elusive little buggers they are...

 

[MiTT]

Avalon and Jeff Rowland

The new Avalon Transcendent was paired with Jeff Rowland electronics in this room. Hugh Masecala was playing via an Ayre universal player, and it was coming together quite well. The Transcendent's don't have quite the visceral impact that make the Indra's a favorite of mine, but they are still pretty sweet sounding. I believe they go for $15K a pair.

Append: As someone else mentioned later in this thread, the Rowland electronics really do pair well with Avalon. Regarding the clear cylindrical contraptions in the corners of the room - I'm only guessing some sort of room tuning devices based upon their placement. Anybody seen anything like them before?

 

[MiTT]

Wilson, VTL, Basis and dcs

Yet another rom with the Wilson Sasha's, here playing Ray La Montagne from his latest release via the dcs stack and VTL electronics including the big tuned mono blocks. Now there is some acoustic George Harrison doing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (man I miss George). I think it's impossible for the Sasha's to sound bad. Simply good music again.

Append: When I was leaving I snapped a quick shot of this smaller sized VTL Integrated amp that looked very cool. I seem to recal it put out 70 tubed watts and I want to say it was under $4300.

 

[MiTT]

Coincident

Steve, I made it to the Coincident room and am happy to report that this was a fantastic sounding room. Right now they are playing the Mancini "Pink Panther Theme" and it really sounds great. They are showing the M300B Frankenstein Mk II amps along with the 211 mono blocks as well as the Statement Linestage and Phono Stage (although there is no turntable in the room). Digital source is the Esoteric P05/D05 combo. Their Pure Reference Extreme loudspeakers sound quite good too ($26.8K). They remind me of the Art Audio stuff in their jewel like appearance, making them pretty difficult to photograph. I hope the pictures do them justice..

 

[MiTT]

Audio Physic

This room was as refreshing as a cool drink of water. After a sea of rooms playing the usual audiophiles dreck this room was playing a lot of great music that I have never heard. Soundhound got a workout and I added a lot of new bookmarks. The equipment sounded really great too.

 

[amey01]

This room was as refreshing as a cool drink of water. After a sea of rooms playing the usual audiophiles dreck this room was playing a lot of great music that I have never heard. Sound hound got a workout and I added a lot of new bookmarks. The equipment sounded really great too.

This equipment sounds GREAT........as electrostatic-like as, well, electrostatics!

With what were they driving it?

 

[slowGEEZR]

Steve, I made it to the Coincident room and am happy to report that this was a fantastic sounding room. Right now they are playing the Mancini "Pink Panther Theme" and it really sounds great. They are showing the M300B Frankenstein Mk II amps along with the 211 mono blocks as well as the Statement Linestage and Phono Stage (although there is no turntable in the room). Digital source is the Esoteric P05/D05 combo. Their Pure Reference Extreme loudspeakers sound quite good too ($26.8K). They remind me of the Art Audio stuff in their jewel like appearance, making them pretty difficult to photograph. I hope the pictures do them justice..

Thanks Tim! I need to hear those products. The only authorized dealers in the U.S. (according to their website) are in CA, NY and CT.

 

[Rich]

Thanks Tim! I need to hear those products. The only authorized dealers in the U.S. (according to their website) are in CA, NY and CT.

CT is lovely this time of year . . .

 

[MiTT]

This equipment sounds GREAT........as electrostatic-like as, well, electrostatics!

With what were they driving it?

Adam, it was all driven by the German made Trigon gear. I'll post pictures as soon as possible. Need to spend some time with the much ignored this weekend family. May be a day or so, but worth the wait.

 

[Jimna]

here is a slide show to my pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimna/sets/72157625186777024/show/

here is a link to the full set to pick through: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimna/sets/72157625186777024/

 

[Jimna]

some of these are repeats of Tim's, sorry for the redundancy.

 

[Satch]

Hey Jim,

Great shots! I checked out the photos in the link. #_82 is a really good pix of my Ayre V-5xe. Tim has one in post #68. Looks like you had fun in the J-Corder room with all those Technics reel to reels. Ditto Wilson, Y&G and MacIntosh "Big Macs".

Hey Tim,

Did you really take the plunge on a J-Corder? Like that sweet black one? Maybe I'll let you borrow one of my Tape Project tapes. I did notice a Tape Project tape in post #57 Luxman & Vivid. Vivid, hmmm, that name rings a bell. Maybe I'm thinkin' video. ha, ha...

Satch

 

[eknuds01]

Great report, Tim!

If I didn't have so much going on, I would have attended this show for sure. I just went on vacation to Europe, but after seeing your wonderful posts I wish I would have ventured out to CO! There's just so much to see and audition!

Great job!

Erik

 

[Jimna]

Hey Jim,

Great shots! I checked out the photos in the link. #_82 is a really good pix of my Ayre V-5xe. Tim has one in post #68. Looks like you had fun in the J-Corder room with all those Technics reel to reels. Ditto Wilson, Y&G and MacIntosh "Big Macs".

Satch

Hi Satch, I did in fact have fun in the J-corder room, I loved all the gear in their array, some of which I used when I was a cable-tech which was cool. I must admit as much fun as their room was it wasn't very impressive sounding, the omni-directional speakers aren't my cup of tea even though the disco music had me shaking my rump. The Big Macs were stunning to check out and sounded nice, but the YG & Wilsons had some incredible sound over all, and were a nice subject to photograph too. I did take more of many shots of others that didn't turn out well due to flash issues. I had a dozen or so from the Waterfall room, Focal, ect ect..but all weren't worthy of the bandwidth to post them. My next purchase will be a new flash!

 

[cstory]

Great sounding new small speakers. Very good for the $2K asking price! Sitting in the sweet spot they completely disappeared.

I'm glad you had a chance to hear the Selah Verita speakers.

I have had a pair called the Granduer for the past year and a half in my living room system. They use a Scan-Speak Revelator woofer instead of the aluminum Illuminator woofer you see in the Verita's with the same RAAL tweeter, and they really are an outstanding value. Detailed, but not bright. Music just seems to happen with them.

If anyone is on the look out for a monitor speaker, give Rick at Selah a call or an e-mail. He can also do any type of wood or finish you can think of.

Chuck