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Sonist speakers at the capital Audiofest

Posted by gd (A) on June 13, 2010 at 19:35:32

I drove down from NYC to visit friends and go to the Capital Audiofest - after years longing for the old Stereophile/HE shows I could not resist. The show was a lot of fun. I hope that some pictures surface of the event, for the day I went (Saturday) there was finally a crowd that was not entirely post-middle age and white (I am sort of in the first part and definitely in the second part of the standard audio audience myself). I think that the presenters can be very happy with the mix of people at the show. Yes the rooms, many of which had some treatment, were a problem - but when is that not true for any show?

OK, so I wanted to hear the mega systems, like the GTT room with YG Acoustics speakers. Pretty great, but like a lot of places, they were playing simple audiophile stuff when I was there so the system did not have to break a sweat. The same was true for the Nola and MBL set ups, but it might just have been the time I was there? I hope more discerning ears than mine can talk about the merits of the mega setups. I’m a tourist at that level.

The other motivation I had was looking for some lower priced speakers for a friend. I was particularly looking forward to checking out the Sonist room and the Salk room. I’ve wanted to hear Salk and AVA for a long time. Jim played a CD of mine on the Song Towers and they sounded very good. On my second trip to the room they were playing the SoundScapes which sounded great, they are in a in a different league from the Song Towers. I broke my promise to come back on Sunday. One should never make promises in the throes of passion. Did I mention that I had an armload of vinyl that I bought at the show too?

I had already visited the Sonist room, and heard the slim Recital 3 and the larger Concerto 3. Listening to the speakers I was not sure what to think, the Recital 3 was fast sounding, but lacked something (like some muscle) in comparison to the Concerto 3 (this could be considered obvious). The Recital 3 made a good initial impression with the audiophile simple music that was playing, and it made the Concerto 3 seem a bit reserved in comparison. The comparisons cold be done quickly by turning the volume on his two Glow amps

I have a natural distrust of some audio initial impressions just as I distrust the legion of hi-fi speakers that “crack” and “snap” so excitingly - but really (and we should face this) really artificially. So while I thought about that I spent some time happily with the Living Voice Speakers and the Border Patrol amps and the Luxman/Joseph Audio set up by Command Performance AV. My thanks to the guy who was manning the Feickert turntable playing all types of music including a cut from Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch” LP.

Still the Sonist thing was bothering me. I wanted to hear some of my music on it. And to cut the whole narrative thing. After playing music I was familiar with on the Concerto 3 they soon showed themselves to be musical winners. In my opinion, not shared by Randy (Mr. Sonist), was that the 6-watt Glow amps were limiting the performance of the speakers on more complex material, so maybe this accounted for my earlier impression of their being too relaxed for me? The amps did deliver, and could handle dynamic swings pretty well, but (and I’m used to this from my single drivers) life begins at 40 - or maybe 12-15 watts. You want Up, Down and Out from a crescendo. Volume was never an issue.

I was drawn in to the sound of the Concerto 3 and spent a long-ish time evaluating the tonality and musical/performance feeling of the speaker. I’m convinced that it has the potential to be something special for what is becoming a dream of low watt amp makers everywhere - conventional looking high-efficiency speakers.

Luckily he has a dealer on Long Island so - though I’m not I the market - I’ll see if I bring the friend and maybe see what he thinks. The qualities of a very musical speaker are there, I’ll be curious to hear how it reacts to different typologies.

I’m looking forward to driving down again next year.


Gregg

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