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Quick impressions of Montreal Show

Posted by middleground on March 25, 2006 at 06:02:20

Was there yesterday afternoon and bought three LPs and two XRCDs, all of it overpriced as far as I'm concerned, but at least there is no shipping charge and you get to run home to listen to them.
Very quick impressions:

New venue, some nice large conference rooms, great that it is all in the same hotel now. Shows are not a good place to listen for all the reasons everyone always mentions. Most of the visitors are men my age, that is on the very mature side, wonder if there is a future for high-end audio. Am always amazed at the number of people from the trade that are on hand, guess these shows are important for them as I don't think they do it for the mere fun of it all. Turntables everywhere; surely a renaissance and a great way to suck more dough out of the audiophilius gullibus. Stuff that looks crappy in print often looks more decent in real life. Am always struck by how the scale of things can never be rendered in photos: some of those power amps and speakers are huge; on the other hand I was struck by how smaller Manley stuff is than what I had gathered from the mags.
Stuff that impressed me sound wise and in a positive way:

EMM digital playback Peak Consult speakers;

Avalon speakers with VTL electronics in the very large room of Coup de Foudre, a new store here in Montreal run by a very knowledgeable and friendly couple;

The Naim room, although I didn't much care for the music being played. some British pop/rock-type thing that sold a gazillion records and that everybody except me can identify by name;

Never heard horns that I liked, but the Edgarhorn (I think that's the name, look I ain't paid to report!) room produced very pleasant sounds and the speakers look cool;

As in previous years, I liked the big Dynaudio speakers (C-4s I guess) powered by Sim Audio;

The Chord room was ok, no more, no less;

Was impressed by the Usher speakers. Excellent on their own merits but also great value fro the dollar;

Most over the top components: McIntosh with those huge speakers and giant power amps with imitation analog meters the size of a computer screen. Couldn't help but smile when I left the room to the pleasure of the McIntosh man there. It sounded good, but oh my one would have to line in an aviation hanger for it to make any sense.

Jadis and those huge French speakers named after their designer, forget the name, oh Reynaud I think, sounded good if in a sense, too big. And the gold on those Jadis, I swear I have seldom seen electronics that gaudy.

Conrad Johnson with one of my least favourite speaker brand, Totem, in the Audioville room sounded quite good.

Verity Audio with their giant speakers named after a dead composer to give them style and class at no cost to the manufacturer I guess driven by Wavac sounded good on solo piano, although not $88, 000.00 good. the piano sounded fro some reason like it was twenty odd feet wide; call me difficult.

Audio Research LS-26 on static display proved that it does exist in some form. Didn't hear anything too outstanding in that room.
Some of the fugliest speakers I have ever seen that look like they were designed by a cartoonist actually sounded very good, wish I could remember their name!

Manley equipment is, to my eyes, despicably ugly, but sounds quite good;

Gershmans “Black Swan” speakers that looked pretty bad to me in photos, looked decent enough in person, they sounded warm and round to my ears, not at all like the "imaging is everything" school of high-end sound;

Well that's about all I can remember from my mad dash.

Well worth the price of admission; you can get your money's worth in the first hour and the rest of your visit is free! Come one, come all!

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Schiit Audio

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