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Posted by AA-RMAF (R ) on October 4, 2005 at 14:59:10

Here's the first of a few installments. Apologies for the tardy and
less-than-stellar pics ... technical challenges there and a real job
back at home have conspired to make this somewhat challenging.

Cain & Cain Company, spinning vinyl on Terry’s Teres.

Cardas Audio Room featured deHaviland Electric, Amazon, Morch, Dynavector (Karat), and Wilson Benesch.

Art Audio’s big room featured several models of Ars Aures loudspeakers and Dynamic Design A/V wiring. The 845-based Quartet (capable of 50 wpc)were doing push-pull that sounded damn close to single-ended when I visited. The soundstage went wall to wall and then some! Ensemble transport, Gill Audio Elise DAC and Elana pre did their part. The speakers are described as “first-order network, coupled cavity, transmission line bass and terribly underpriced.” No, I didn’t ask. But I later looked up the price on the larger one: $18,995

Here’s a nice SOTAwith a Tri-Planer arm in the Classic Audio Reproductions room, featuring (of course) Atma-Sphere toobs. I’ve never heard a bad CAR room at any show. This one was no exception. Very natural sound. I didn’t want to leave.

A pic from the highly touted BAT/Avalon/Tara Labs room. “Best of Show?” I don’t know. My ears had shut down by the time I made it to that floor that day. It was, however, apparent to my body, that the Clearaudio Champion Magnum was doing a great job of propelling the cut in play: SRV’s “Tin Pan Alley.”

The passageway between Thigpen’s two rooms was … erm … modified … to create an appropriate enclosure for his infrasonic sub. While chatting with Keith Herron later (who’s also now venturing into speaker production) he mused, “I wish I had thought of that!”

Last year’s hero, this year’s (comparatively speaking) couch potato, is looking damn happy to have let go of the reins. Here’s Ron along with the CAR T-3 speakers and that's an early Teres ‘table.

Dave Adams and the The Dowdy Lama (here's the mesh-plated 2A3) teamed up to show off their latest. Dave's speaker employs a custom-ized PHY driver … experimental at this point; he's hoping to bring product to market within a year … prices to start at $15,000. A recent Josh Stippich creation did preamp duty in this rather spartan room. Overall. there was a vast sense of musical space and and amazing conveyance of the size/scale of instruments.

The High Water Sound room was another treat. Horning Loudspeakers and Tron electronics. DaVincini Audio Labs tonearm on TW/Acoustic's Raven. All on a Silent Running Audio rack. In a word, excellent.

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RMAF '05 photos and commentary courtesy of audioasylum.com
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