My individual experience of THE Show 2015

TAS Reporters

Jim Hannon's Best of Show:

Best Sound (cost no object): The Audio Element room featuring the new Wilson Sabrina speakers driven by VTL Signature Series electronics, dCS Vivaldi, Grand Prix Monaco 1.5 turntable system, and Peter McGrath’s brilliant recordings was harmonically rich and lifelike.

Best Sound (for the money): A tie between the very spacious and natural-sounding Magnepan system with three Maggie .7 speakers ($1400/pair) driven by Bryston electronics, and the Emerald Physics KC 11 open-baffle loudspeaker driven by an EP100.2SE 100Wpc hybrid digital amplifier.

Most Significant Product Introduction: The all-Kyron system ($112k including cables) features an open-baffle dipole speaker with a DSP crossover and room correction, and a separate electronics unit sporting six 1200-watt amplifiers. The presentation was very dynamic, open, and spacious with a lot of direct sound.

Most Significant Trend: Better sounding digital loudspeakers with built-in DACs and DSP, and more digital functionality in integrated amplifiers.

Most Coveted Product: The EnigmaAcoustics’ Sopranino add-on super tweeter in the Robyatt Audio room helped make the original Quads, restored by Electrostatic Solutions and driven by DNM electronics and cables, one of the best sounds at THE Show.

Neil Gader's Best of Show
Best Sound (cost no object): A close call, if not a dead heat, between the balance and delicacy of Audio Element’s dCS/VTL/Transparent/Wilson Sabrina-based system, and the heft and dynamics of GTT Audio’s Kronos/Audionet/Kubala-Sosna/YG Sonja 1.3 rig.

Best Sound (for the money): Former TAD helmer Andrew Jones is already working his renowned magic just months after joining Germany’s Elac. If the modest Debut B5 loudspeaker represents the shape of things to come, watch out! Price: $229. (Yes, that’s right, the price is NOT a typo.)

Most Significant Product Introduction: The resurgent Elac brand, an old-guard German company with concentric-driver engineer Andrew Jones at the helm could be the story of the year. I can’t wait for CES 2016.

Most Significant Trend: The trend is moving inexorably toward streaming music and wireless connectivity, but I’m doubtful these will displace more traditional physical audio media anytime soon. Much like Amazon’s Kindle was supposed to spell the end of the hardbound book, traditional books are cool again. Just like the vinyl LP.

Most Coveted Product: D’Agostino’s new Momentum Phono. I don’t even care if it even works. I’ll just sit there for hours staring at its sublime gorgeousness.

Paul Seydo's Best of Show:

Best of Show (cost no object): A toss-up between (1) the VTL room with Wilson Audio Sabrinas ($15k/pr., maybe the most natural-sounding Wilsons I’ve heard) driven by VTL electronics playing some of Peter McGrath’s fabulous private recordings; and (2) Optimal Enchantment’s room featuring
Vandersteen Model Seven Mk IIs driven by Vandersteen’s new M7-HPA amps with Audio Research front end and Basis Audio’s Inspiration turntable and arm.

Best Sound (for the money): Emerald Physics KCII speaker system ($2495/pr.) driven by Emerald’s EP100.2SE amplifier and Anti-Mode’s Dual 2.0 as preamp playing CDs from a modest Marantz player. This demo featured among the most involving overall sound that I heard at the show.

Most Significant Product Introduction: Vincent Rossi’s LIO modular integrated amplifier.

Most Significant Trend: Lots of zero feedback in amplifiers and more transformers in for mc’s in phonostages.

Most Coveted Product: Air Force 1 turntable with Graham Phantom Elite tonearm


Robert Harley's Best of Show:

Best Sound (Cost no object): As good as many systems sounded, my vote for Best of Show goes to the Optimal Enchantment room with Vandersteen Model 7 Mk.II speakers driven by Vandersteen’s radical new liquid-cooled M7-HPA amplifiers. Credit also goes to the Audio Research phonostage and preamp, Basis Inspiration turntable (with the Basis Super Arm), and AudioQuest cabling.

Best Sound (for the money): The Andrew-Jones-designed Elac Debut B6 ($229 per pair—that’s not a misprint) may not only be the greatest bargain at the Newport show, but may turn out to be the greatest bargain in the history of audio. This tiny econo-box was spectacularly, stunningly, amazingly great for the price. I can’t wait to hear the higher-end speakers Jones is developing for Elac.

Most Significant Trend: Powered DSP speakers were once a rarity, but more companies are embracing this approach including outstanding demos at this show from Piraes Audio, Kyron Audio, Legacy, Goldmund, Dynaudio, and of course Meridian, which pioneered the technology in 1990.

Most Significant Product: The Kyron Audio Kronos represents a rethinking of system architecture as well as a loudspeaker design. With its six channels of amplification and DSP in one chassis, and a pair of open-baffle dipole speakers, the Kyron active Kronos system sounded fabulous, making a bold visual statement that shook up the conventional paradigm.

Most Coveted Product: After hearing such great sound from the Acapella Audio Arts Atlas and Avantgarde DUO Mezzo horn loudspeakers, I can hear the manifold virtues of horns.
 
MusicDirector said:
I don't think I went to his room if memory serves.
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Klaus and GIK shared two rooms with Odyssey equipment; one had more room treatments (and different equipment than the other, but still Odyssey). Both Klaus (Odyssey) and Glen (GIK) were in and out of both rooms throughout the show.
 
rbbert said:
Klaus and GIK shared two rooms with Odyssey equipment; one had more room treatments (and different equipment than the other, but still Odyssey). Both Klaus (Odyssey) and Glen (GIK) were in and out of both rooms throughout the show.
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Come to think of it, I may have stepped into Klaus's room as well. I do remember him fiddling with a turntable. I did not get any info from him as he was busy talking another guy that walked in. (Might have been someone from some big audio site, nice guy though). I do recall Klaus saying something about how he liked the room in spite of it's odd layout. He wasn't playing any music when I was there. Oh yeah, now I remember, I wasn't sure if he was nice or not at very first, but turns out, he is a big ol nicey.:)
(My short term memory is for the birds, that's why I try to write stuff down).
 
Klaus is a really nice guy, just seems a little guff at first sometimes and a practical joker. Brutally honest though about gear and the prices.
 
Legacy room: Sometimes it seems to me the more expensive the speaker the stricter the music selection is. The Legacy room was a good example. They were showing their Focus SE. On those they would only play a vocal track almost acapella and then what sounded like someone beating on pots and pans (it actually sounded Tibetan to me). Why do they do that? Any request for something more taxing or just different was met with a respective “Sorry, can’t do that in our demo structure”. (Someone standing next to me asked the guy playing the demo). Hmm, $10k plus speaker and it can’t handle much? Why only play those two tracks?
On a side note, they were having a drawing for something. It turns out the drawing was for a demo CD they made. The wild thing is that I have the same one from 3 years ago! Weird, huh? I did not know it was a collector's item, but according to them, it is.

Meridian and MQA: I also got to demo Meridian’s MQA, well, sort of demo that is. Again, a very controlled and rehearsed demo, but appropriate in this case, in my opinion. The problem I had though was with the equipment and there was no A/B scenario. The Merdian gear leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. The rep came up to front and started talking about Meridian in a way I thought there might be an altar call or passing of a tithing dish. Then he started going through a laundry list of gear, something about 4 amps and 4 dacs and such in each speaker (the Meridian DSP7200SE)
The source was a laptop. The rep then said that they are using these speakers because they did not want to spend the time to set up gear. (In my head I heard “uh oh”).
He also stated that the music was on loan and they could not download it, but had to stream it using Tidal, but it was in MQA format. (Ok, at least we established that it’s a format).
So they start the demo and right away I struggled to hear what was so great because I think the speakers may have been falling apart, at least that’s what it sounded like. I heard a fair amount of what sounded like rattling inside a plastic box. Also the imaging was very narrow, I was seated on the left side one row back and I could hear the left speaker far more than the right. (If imaging was right I should have been able to hear both equally or at least close to equal).
From what I could tell I think MQA may sound better or more natural than CD or Hi-rez, but I don’t know for sure with what I heard in the demo due to poor sounding equipment and no A/B comparison. During the Q&A I asked if all that gear was required to hear MQA or use it. The answer to the relief of half the people in the room was, no.
However, I also learned that presently, only Meridian makes a dac that is able to decode MQA which runs about $300 and is for headphones and pocket size. It does have a line out, but it requires USB power and is not very strong, so one has to hook it up to a preamp. I really wanted to delve deeper, but the demos were timed for 20 minutes and the Q&A bit was only 5 minutes. In spite of all that, I believe MQA may be a good thing, but we will have to wait until real-world application occurs and perhaps we can do our own A/B comparisons in my opinion.

Revel: They had a static display room with the speakers I wanted to hear (The Concerto model) and another room where they were playing the Salon model. Though the Salons were far more expensive and way out of my range, I stopped in anyway. I can't say I was impressed, but I can't say they were bad because they weren't overall in my opinion. Personally, I found them a bit too bright for my taste and the lows were just a tad short. Imaging was ok, but good separation of instruments and other details. I thought they were ok, but not worth the price in my opinion. Makes wonder what the Concertos sound like even more.

~Eric
 
Eric, I can't tell you how many people say that exact thing about the Salon 2's in shows. I don't know what the HELL harman does to the setup at shows, but almost no one is impressed.

The "Professor' (Jock) said that to me before he came over to my house and heard them. After he heard them here, he changed his mind. So, as most people say: Don't judge equipment from show demos. Which begs the question, why and even go??
 
MDP said:
Eric, I can't tell you how many people say that exact thing about the Salon 2's in shows. I don't know what the HELL harman does to the setup at shows, but almost no one is impressed.

The "Professor' (Jock) said that to me before he came over to my house and heard them. After he heard them here, he changed his mind. So, as most people say: Don't judge equipment from show demos. Which begs the question, why and even go??
Click to expand...

Yeah, shows are tough to deeply evaluate anything, harder than shops. One never knows what the heck some dealers or makes do in their set ups. (Heck, I wanted to run down to my car and get some screwdrivers or something during the Meridian demo).
I just set my expectations low, I'm just looking for a taste. Also the rooms were better than mine anyway, so why not. The Salons are probably better than what I heard as you point out, but out of range for me and my mission anyway. I also still don't think they could best my current speakers despite their price. Could be a design difference or something to account for that. Ultimately it's our ears that account for those evaluations and judgments.
 
I can shed a little more light on the Revel Salon2 demo at this show. First, the only source material was Tidal (CD quality) streaming, even though they had a SACD player in the room (the demo'er said it was only on display). Second, all Mark Levenson electronics, in this case the Class D amps which most Salon2 owners (at least those who post on-line) don't feel are a good match.

The much more expensive K2's next door sounded better, but again not all that impressive (unless you were comparing them to $10k/pr speakers, in which case they sounded pretty darn good!)
 
Another installment:

Vandersteen room: I went there hoping to hear either the model 1Ci or 2Ce Sig II. However they only had Model Seven MKII hooked to their liquid cooled M7-HPA mono block amps. Those speakers looked very much like Wilsons to me, but you could see a difference. They sounded good to me except if not a bit on the warm side as the highs sounded rolled off a bit. I was not interested, so I didn’t sit and listen. I noticed the amps looked like the same design as the speakers which unfortunately, made them look like cheap plastic. The design works for the speakers, but not the amps in my opinion. In fact, what’s odd is that in the same room they had an impressive display of AR gear, but it was static as far as I could tell. They might have been using some AR piece as source, but I’m not sure.


Channel Island room: They had their Stereo amp which is a dual mono configuration again, their preamp and dac unit. Source was a PC. They also had a pair of prototype speakers playing. I was not so sure about the speakers, they sounded very boxy to me and imaging was not that great. However, they are prototypes so judging them is not really fair in my opinion. The Channel Island gear is small, but everything is at good price points and I didn’t detect anything wrong with any of the units. I thought all performed well. If your cramped for space and want to put together a fine system in say a really small apartment or something, Channel Island is a good bet I'd think.

Auralic Room:I went to the Auralic room hoping to check out the new Mini they are offering, but upon inquiring about it, the rep told me that they have it, but it was too much of a pain to set up, so they decided to just show the other gear they offer. That left me scratching my head. I sat and listened to the Ryan 630 speakers they had going for at least a full song, but I don’t recall how I felt about them. Must have been nothing notable I guess. Here's a little video I found:

~Eric
 
Scansonic room: I wanted to hear the floor standers, but they were focused on the bookshelfs. I stayed for a bit to listen out of curiosity (about 15 minutes). For tiny bookshelves they sound good in my opinion, but that’s as far as it goes. I forget what they were using to drive them and for source (it wasn't vinyl), but I found them to sound well balanced, but a little rolled off in the lows (not unexpected). Imaging was nice, but lacked a little detail. I also started feeling fatigued after about 10 minutes.

Out to the Headphone area to find Cavili and Schiitt, (both were stops to say hello). I am looking to upgrade my current headphones, but I wasn’t going to find that here. The only headphones around were investment level stuff , which is fine if one uses cans primarily.
I stopped by the Cavili booth because I owed a visit since I was too chicken at CanJam. I found that they came out with a $600 headphone amp and their gear is highly praised and usually highly priced too. I sat and tried it out and to be honest, it sounded good, but I also would not know a good headphone amp from a bad one unless it was obvious. I don’t think it had quite as good a sound as the Oppo HA1 I tried, but I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it and it appeared to be very well built and the size was pleasing. If I ever need a headphone amp it was on my list. I say “was” because the rep mentioned that they are just starting to produce them in about 3 to 4 weeks and that I should order one now if I want it because they are raising the price by almost $400 when production starts for any orders not already in (That's $1000)! Talk about a deal killer! If that was a sales tactic, it was real bad for business in my opinion and somebody needs an economics refresher course at least. For that money I can get the Oppo which is also a dac.

Then there was the Schiit Audio booth, Jason Stoddard was there talking to folks too, such a nice group of folks at Schiit. I stopped to say hello and confirm a solution to a PC sound problem I have with my desktop. They were so helpful.
It was determined that I could go one of two ways to solve the issue by either getting a dac or they also have a USB interface that also may work and it was the least costly solution possibility. The rep however told me that it will definitely get rid of most of the noise, but could not guarantee all. A dac on the other hand would not only solve the noise problem, but improve a few other things as well. I was looking at the Bitfrost, the Modi 2 Uber and the Loki. The first thing he asked was if I was into or needed DSD ability. I told him I read that DSD is good and I have no doubt it is, but I would not know a DSD if it came up and bit my nose off. I could always add it later.
Then I wanted to know the difference between the Modi 2 Uber and the Bitfrost besides a few hundred dollars. I was thinking the Bitfrost was that much better possibly. So he went through a lot of trouble and set up a comparison for me. Source was MP3 320kps unfortunately, but it’s all there was and the headphones were these huge things that weighed 400 pounds on my head…well, ok, not that much, but still too heavy for me. The only other cans available were Beyerdynamics which I find too bright. While the Bitfrost did have a noticeable difference in sound, nothing astonishing mind you, but enough for me to consider it in spite of the extra cost, the rep talked me out of it and into the far less expensive Modi. That there is honesty at its finest! They could have easily chatted me into the Bitfrost, but instead talked me into the Modi because it would more than do the job and the Bitfrost was just too much overkill for it with relatively subtle gains. If I had a different situation then the Bitfrost would have been much more suggested. That kind of honesty is rare!

~Eric
 
Magnepan room: (There were two rooms for them on different floors. I cold not get into the second room as they were also running scheduled and controlled demos and it was a two hour wait before I would have my time per the lady at the door. If I were purchasing I wouldn’t care, but not for a 15 minute controlled demo).
I went and heard Magnepan’s offering of the .7 maggies in the other room, which I happen to hit at the right time I guess. However, the dealer was using new subwoofers from a different manufacture in conjunction, so I felt I really was not hearing a true representation of the speakers. I would have prefered they use their own bass extenders if anything. (In my opinion, if I were putting together a 2 channel system, I would not want to have to get two subwoofers to make things sound right).
The source was PC of course, running through a Moon dac and amp.
I was hoping to hear the Maggies themselves. They also had it very locked down as the dealer presented only a certain 3 music selections, which were decent choices, but nothing that posed a heavy challenge. What bothered me most though was that the whole time he was telling everyone what to hear, not even what to listen for. Ultimately, I think nothing should be said and let the speakers talk. Kind of spoils it to me. Overall, I found them to have very good imaging, good separation of instruments and just a tiny bit on the bright side, but not bad. (They may not have been run-in yet, I don't know). I just wish I could have put them through some paces. Very nice for the price point in my opinion.

NFS Audio room: I read about this room from another show and just had to check it out. The NFS room is the opposite of most other rooms which are NSF (non-sufficient funds). See what I did there?:lol: NFS I found stands for Not For Sale. There is nothing for sale in the room. I liken it to a rest stop or Free Parking if this was a Monopoly board. They just do up the room in weird objects, lights, fiber optic lights, string lights and the whole place is covered in tiny lights (projected I think), ceiling and all. In one part of the room and separate in this case, they had some African world music going on a pair of big ol Magnepans driven by the McIntosh 275 amps, what I call the V-8 McIntosh tube amps. I would have preferred a different style of music, but ok. It was also very crowded when I ventured into the room.

~Eric
 
Cary Audio/Tannoy room: The Tannoy Revolution XT 8F speakers were the star here. I liked these speakers as well. Imaging was standard and the highs I found a tiny bit shrill, mid range was nicely smooth and the lows met standards in my opinion. All in all, not bad for the price point.
It was in this room that I had my “hey, I’ve never heard that artist before” moment. I think they were playing vinyl, but I can’t remember now for sure. Anyway, with what I was hearing, I was not going to leave the room yet. I'm told the artist is London Grammar and the album was Hey Now. They are a trio from the UK and described as indie rock. I found them more on the chill side of the fence and more smooth and acoustic than hard electronic, a delightful sound.
Had the NFS room been playing them I might have gotten a buzz on with that combo of that and the lights and all. (Yes, I can get high off music, so what? I’ve always done that).:D
Lastly, to finish off that room, I got to leave with a free Tannoy T-shirt! Nice! Everyone in the room got one. Thank you Tannoy rep!

ELAC rooms: The big surprise was the ELAC rooms and I later found out were the talk of the show in some respects. I heard folks in the halls telling others they need to go check out the ELAC room.
In one room, they were demonstrating a pair of Andrew Jones designed bookshelf speakers (the B-5) with a next to give away anticipated price point in my opinion. They were powered by a Bel Canto amp and source was a tablet PC.
What was amazing was the sound. These are their smallest model with a 5.25 inch woofer and 1 inch cloth dome tweeter in a two-way bass reflex design at a freq response of 46 to 20,000 Hz and sounds like it reaches even lower, which is nothing short of amazing for a speaker this size in my opinion. I was expecting to sound like the old “Where’s the beef” commercial saying “Where’s the bass”. To my surprise I did not need to. What’s really amazing is that there was no subwoofer to be found in the room and yet they were reaching down quite well for music and amazingly low for their size. They also have very good imaging and astonishing good clarity including in the low end. The only other time I heard something similar was with the Vantoo speakers, but that’s comparing apples to oranges in my opinion. The Vantoos are powered with a passive subwoofer in back. These ELAC B5s are passive all the way!
The other room had a static display of all the new Andrew Jones speakers coming up. They also had a couple of new subwoofers that have built in room correction which is done via iOS or Android. Mr. Christopher Walker demonstrated how it works for me and it’s a trip. The big thing I like about it is that it virtually eliminates the need to do sub crawling trying to find perfect placement. Many times perfect placement is not possible. It was also really enjoyable talking to Chris about the company and stuff they are working on.
I’m still amazed by those tiny bookshelf speakers and wondering if Mr. Jones isn’t using magic or something. LOL! I’m looking forward to the full line coming out. I really enjoyed my time at the ELAC rooms.
Here's a little ELAC video from the show I found:

Spatial room: I finally got to hear the Spatial speakers.:celebrate008_2:
The ones I heard are the new Hologram M3 non-turbo version. (Two-way, open baffle design with 2 15 inch woofers and one wide band compression driver, an 800Hz passive crossover, freq response of 32-20 Khz in 3db room response sensitivity at 94db and 4 ohms). They were driven by a little Red Dragon S500 stereo amp with 250 watts @ 8 ohms and 500 @ 4ohms. This was only one of three rooms out of the ones I visited that were willing to allow for visitor demo music if one liked. The rep was really nice too. I heard a few different selections (all nice ones) from his PC he was using, but nothing posing a hard challenge. After 15 minutes or so, I decided to ask if I could have him play something I brought. He was happy to do so. I told him “I’d like to throw something very complex at them” to which he responded, “yeah, lets see what these babies can do.” I thought to myself, “ok, you might regret saying that” and so it was one of my goto selections from Rush (the most complex music I had with me on CD as his USB port was not working right so I could not go with full orchestra classical). Yup, afterward he asked if he could copy it into his system for later use and of course I let him, (happens all the time).

I really liked the sound of the Spatials through all the selections played. To my ears, they have a nice open wide staging, great imaging, great presence, nice separation of instruments. They sound good from almost any position one is sitting. The mids are very present and at the right level, vocals are nice and smooth and very clear without being veiled. Lows are nicely tight and quite detailed. I think the highs might be ever so slightly rolled back, but it’s hard to say for certain. They are very nice, non-fatiguing speakers in my opinion. I could listen to them for hours. At the price point of these, it’s a fantastic buy in my opinion, almost a no-brainer. Even at the turbo version price point its fantastic value in my opinion.
From the 20+ or so speakers I heard, I think the Spatials where best of show in the speaker category in my opinion.
I found a video for these from the show as well. Don't let the poor sound of the video fool you. There was no distortion or anything in person.

I would not mind a pair of these myself, but they are a bit much for the room I’d use them in and I’m not parting with my current speakers in my living room (those also would be too much for the smaller room). Who knows, I might end up with a pair of Spatials anyway at some point. I like them that much.



Rooms I missed: Besides any I have already mentioned, I missed the Usher Audio room, The Vana Ltd room (They had Vienna Acoustic speakers of which I was interested in two models), the Salk room (I may have mentioned that one already), The Chapman room and the Silverline room.

To wrap up, I think all the manufactures were super nice folks and 99% of the dealers I visited were nice too. The venue was much improved from before in many ways. All in all, I met some nice folks, including other attendees and generally had an interesting, non-boring time.

If I attend next year, I'm going to try to do a better job of it.

~Eric
 
@MusicDirector

#1. You are now a rock star to me. How super groovy awesome that you got to go. I have never been to a Comic-Con version of an High-End Audio Show. Wow.

Do you have any photos to share?

I am vicariously living the experience through your written tales.
 
Golucid said:
@MusicDirector

#1. You are now a rock star to me. How super groovy awesome that you got to go. I have never been to a Comic-Con version of an High-End Audio Show. Wow.

Do you have any photos to share?

I am vicariously living the experience through your written tales.
Click to expand...

Uh oh. The "tales" are only my opinion and personal experiences I had, no doubt entirely different from anyone else. No, sorry, no photos. I only have a huge DSLR (it's the only kind of camera I can use. I was weened on SLRs - film. You should have seen my headache just learning the switch to digital photography. Of course it's cool now, no worrying about film cost. I can do framing shots until I turn blue and not spend a penny).
Anyway, I did bring my camera, but only got 2 or 3 shots that were not that good in my opinion. After an hour I had to put the camera back in the car because it was too cumbersome trying to take pics, hold notebook and pen, look at map, meet reps, etc. with a big camera in the way all the time. If I go again next year, I'm going to try to go for at least 2 if not all 3 days so I can spend at least part of one day just taking pictures. What I did can not be done in one day, I just found that out the hard way. Also, I hope to do a better job of it. I've never done this before, so I have that excuse I guess.
Mike here made me do it!:lol: All kidding aside, I'm glad you encouraged and supported me in going for it Mike.

The first and only other time I went was a trip through hell to me. This time was way different!
 
My wife and I were also very impressed with the Spatial Hologram M3, especially at the price. She is talking about trying to fit them into our living room / home theater, which given their dipole nature is probably not realistic but I was happy to hear her talking about something like that!

BTW, the Vandersteen room next door to the one you described had the Treos (about $5k-6k IIRC). I don't really care for these that much but a lot of people do at their price point.
 
Good job Eric! I enjoyed reading your take on the different rooms, people and gear. Glad you had an enjoyable time this go around.
 
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