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VTV Show Impressions and Pics

Posted by Jon L (A) on November 20, 2005 at 23:42:10

It was great to see some familiar and new faces along with great products, many of which are surely products of blood and sweat. On Day 2, it was not crowded, and I was able to enjoy the sweet spot in every room and play my demo disc, which seldom happens at big shows.

Imagine HiFi room was one of my favorite rooms at the show. The absolute stunning bargain of the show was the Almarro A205A EL84 single-ended amp, producing 4.5 wpc at $800! Paired with Cain & Cain Abby or IM Ben, A205A produced great sounds, period, not great sounds for the price. This amp even has a headphone jack in the back, which I'm very curious to hear b/c the speaker outputs are so good.

With Abby, A205A produced fast yet relaxed sound with plenty of musical detail and texture. With Ben, A205A reproduced center-of-earth tonal weight and density with plenty of bass that was firm and extended. Excellent timbral accuracy and textural richness all around. I need to buy this amp.

Oh, yes, Gallo Ref III was making some sumptuous sounds with Almarro 318B SET amp (price to be announced). Gallo does have one of the best treble around, although the midrange doesn't quite have Cain $ Cain type of coherence.

Acoustic Horns room had some interesting horns on display. The one on left is the "modern" horn using Acoustic Horns horn, and it definitely sounded way more modern than the vintage horn on the right. This room was running only mono speaker (one speaker only), so it was difficult to compare to other rooms.

Tonian Labs room had a lot of interesting toys. Esoteric DV50 as transport to Stellavox ST-2 DAC to Stellavox PW-1 monoblocks. One of the few rooms running all solid-state gear, and while the level of detail and resolution was way high, the tonal balance was quite different from the majority of other rooms running tubes. I'm sure this room gave eargasms to those into this type of presentation.

Audiokinesis room was featuring Cheetah speakers, which feature Fostex 206E driver combined with powered dual woofers. Price was $1900 as I recall. I paid too much attention to the stock Pioneer 563A and almost missed seeing the Blowtorch sitting beneath!! Apparently, they were planning to use EMM Labs frontend, which didn't work out, so Pioneer was used as backup. I wish EMM Labs could have made it, but even with Pioneer, the speakers seemed to offer a lot of value for the money; it's even got drivers on the back and a bass amp inside.

Jumping Cactus Speaker room. This is a speaker company to watch. All those square modules are aluminum with all Eminence drivers. 15" Dayton Titanic powered sub takes over at 60Hz, and everything included is $9800.

Even with some old Panasonic CDP and AES 300B SET amp (w/ WE 300B tubes), this room had a lot to offer. Now, if they could offer TWO subs at the same price :) Hey, didn't Goldmund make similar speakers and charge $100K?

Zu room. Zu Druids are the real deal. Consonance Droplet CDP to ZVEX "Imp Amp" making wopping 1 wpc out of 6111 tube made some rich music through Druids. The Imp Amp is around $550 and is the tiny thing sitting on top of Droplet CDP here.

I could sense that more power was needed to open up the extension and resolution a bit, but the sound was still extremely rich in midrange with astonishing bass quantity out of such a slim speaker. I couldn't convince Sean to hook up the Audiopax 88 Mono's, but that's what was powering them on Day 1 with reportedly better results.

I got my wish and heard the Druids with some serious amplification in the VRS room, though. $16K Shindo Catherine preamp to $17.8K Shindo Sinhonia push-pull tube amp. VRS Revelation Music Studio hard-drive player was not hurting the cause, either. This room had the most tonally saturated, deeply rich sound of the show. Druids are rich-sounding speakers, and I have to believe Shindo gear also sounds rich b/c the whole room just had no trace of brightness or grit. Some may prefer more sparkle and "air" up top, though, especially if you liked what you heard in Tonian Labs ribbon speaker room.

JAS room. The 805 SET (w/ 300B driver) amp was humongous and gorgeous-looking. I believe the price was $3290, which seems like quite a bargain. Playing through JAS floorstanding speakers with ribbons, the sound was mellow, relaxing. Like many rooms, there was a big bass room node, but I would suspect the amp doesn't have particularly tight bass control. Worth checking out if you are near JAS dealers.

deHavilland room. Their stereo 845 SET most certainly did NOT suffer from any soft bass. This amp gets my vote for best SET bass at the show. Sony SCD1 as transport to Metronome C20 sig DAC modded to Mercury pre added to the whole package, not to forget Hyperion 938 speakers, which are good value.

Edgarhorn room. It was nice to see the good doctor after the accident and all. The Slimline Signatures are stunning-sounding speakers, and they sounded like how I remember hearing them in the past, which is detailed, uncolored, and fast. Cyrus Brenneman Cavaliar Plus amp was supplying the necessary clean power as usual, and I still can't understand why this amp doesn't receive a LOT more attention from audiophiles. It's a mystery.

Acoustic Image room was one of my favorite rooms. Cary 306 SACD player was gracing the impressive system including Messenger Reference preamp and Wavestream V8 push-pull amp. Dali Euphonia MS4 speakers were handling the business end. This room also had a huge midbass room node, but ignoring that, the rest of the ranges were impossibly lively, detailed, immediate, and robust.

Tube Sonic room was featuring vintage Cerwin Vega 211 speakers and some custom push-pull monoblocks. Wadia 830 was feeding the signal. Given the 50 year-old speakers, the room had no business sounding as good as it did.

re:X speakers. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the speakers use round pipe-like backbone with small bamboo-based drivers in front and a woofer on top. Nice sound, though once again, bass was not as crisp as I'd like like many rooms here. What's even more interesting was the complete iPod system including the interface, speakers, and sub. Sure beats any iPod system you can buy at Apple Store.

Sonist Loudspeakers. Definitely another speaker company to watch.

Fountek ribbon tweeter with simple paper-cone woofer. I've heard other speakers with this formula, but Sonist seems to have gotten it right. Stock Sony NS875V multi-disc player to Royal Device 300B SET ($3295) was making some seriously good music with strong bass and coherent integration. Speakers cost $2495 and definitely worth checking out, if only for the beautiful, thick 2" solid poplar baffle.

Welbourne Labs room was featuring the large "Cogent" Field Coil horns as well as Ultrapath battery pre, 45 SET, Welbourne tube-modded Denon 2900, and a Carver sub. The room was entirely too small for these horns to do their thing, but those field coil drivers need to become available to us like yesterday.

Tekline room was featuring Speaker Art Super Clef TL speakers, TRL mod Sony 2000ES, Sonic Euphoria pre, and NuForce 9 monoblocks. It seems like NuForce amps are popping up everywhere, and that's a good thing. Don't forget the complete like of Tekline cables, some of which I have owned in the past.

In conclusion, it was a great time. As always, my impressions are under "Show Conditions" only and should be taken as such. Looking forward to next time and good work everybody!

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Herbie's Audio Lab

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