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In Reply to: RMAF05 impressions posted by bigtube on October 3, 2005 at 12:22:03:
I came away from RMAF 05 worn-out but happy. Nothing at any price sounded as "live" as the piano in the reception area, or the band playing out by the record sellers. Not the MBL room, not the lovely multichannel demo by Mike Pappas and Ray Kimber. But the best let me kind of forget all the technical bits and enjoy the music for it's own sake. Everything seemed to have it's particular sonic colorations, and some were pretty blatant, but this did not necessarily preclude my sense of musical enjoyment.I lent a brief hand at the Welborne Labs room on Saturday, so I suppose I should let others critique that. I never was much at sales, so this year, I mostly kept my mouth shut, played music, and if someone had a question, they could ask. Man, now I want a Shelter 501 cartridge like Ron's.
Electron Luv/Dowdy Llama. I'm not sure what those wild electronics remind me of, but they're great tongue-in-cheek works of art.
Avantgarde Duos sounded a bit smoother and less peaky than ones I'd heard before, but I'm not sure it's an improvement, just "different".
Lowther America, with their beautiful Terry Cain-built horn. Not a lot of top end, but what a really likeable speaker that is.
DIY Hifi Supply w/Bastanis speakers making some fine tunes at a bargain basement price. I could take or leave the silver hammertone paint.
Zu (as in zucable.com). Could it be? Marketing SET-friendly speakers to the 30-and-under crowd? About time someone did that.
Cain & Cain. Sonics seemed so-so at best, but I applaud them for playing real music from a band I've never heard of, whose members are maybe 20 years younger. Ooh, they had a baby Wavac. I wonder if Cain & Cain will build me a shelving unit like the one they had at the show.
David Berning: Very interesting OTL amps but the room was pitch black.
Audio Unlimited: My favorite AU room was the one with Air Tight electronics and Tannoy speakers.
Naim had the audacity to bring only tiny stand-mounted speakers, so they had no really low bass, but what there was sure sounded good to me.
North Creek Music/North Acoustics were also using Naim for source and power (entry level too!). Their new hybrid ribbon speaker seemed to be having some issues, but it's voiced similarly to my North Creek Okara IIs which I'm real fond of. Definitely worth a closer look.
Moscode kind of disappointed me. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe the smell of incense, or company staff clad in silk kimonos. Instead, it was all kind of ordinary.
Was Song Audio who had micro desktop tube amps on display in your choice of pink or green! I really wanted to take one home, but they wanted $1K for it.
Can't comment too much on their sonics, but I thought the fit 'n finish of the Usher Audio and Eastern Electric electronics were looking mighty fine.
I wish Madisound would set up working demos of the BK-16 horn kit. They also had a new bookshelf speaker built around a Seas coaxial driver too. They were "considering" offering a fully finished cabinet to go with it. The sample done in light maple looked great.
MBL speakers reminded me of something out of a Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Wow, mirror-smooth cocobolo wood too. Not sure I'd like the sonics on a daily basis.
Can't remember who it was that had the Atma-Sphere OTL amps, but IIRC, sonics were good.
Someone had Thor electronics and horns, but was demoing with a Sonic Impact amp. It sounded pretty good for a cheap amp, in the same way an iPod sounds okay playing uncompressed audio: Smooth, fairly clean, some detail, but not terribly exciting. (I like my iPod for other reasons). Not sure what the point of the SI demo was.
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- Re: RMAF05 impressions - 4season 20:50:43 10/03/05 (0)
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