RMAF 2016 Recap – Mile-High Music..!
Leading up to this year’s 13th edition of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, located at
Denver’s Marriot Tech Center, the buzz was...
Construction…
What the…?
Suffice it to say, a rather substantial remodel of the
Marriot is in progress, leading to some room issues and, uh, relocations. But enough of that, as the show ran smoothly regardless. Now for the subject of today’s tome…
Music…
Or more precisely, the gear that reproduces said
melodies. Companies from the world over were
present, showing their audio wares.
Systems covering all price ranges from highly obtainable to unobtainium
were present and accounted for. Digital
and analog music sources were everywhere.
The CanJam headphone extravaganza was in full effect. MQA was
present, marketing buzz and all. There
were several product debuts as well.
And now for the bad news…
Circumstances limited me to a truncated day and a half covering
a 3-day event with somewhere along the line of 150 exhibits. But who’s counting, right? With apologies to all the rooms I was not
able to attend, and many more not pictured, here were a few highlights…
Esoteric was
showing off their new F-05 integrated amplifier ($10,000) which displayed excellent
dynamics with material sourced from their N-05 Network Audio Player ($6,500) or
K-05X SACD Player ($8,000). Cabling was Audioquest, with Canton’s Reference 3K speakers ($15,600/pr)
putting forth the sonic juice…
Lars Kristensen from Raidho
Acoustics was grooving in one of the best sounding RMAF rooms with their
D4.1 loudspeakers ($110,000/pr) sourcing material from a Nagra CD player through an Aavik Acoustics U-300 integrated
amplifier/DAC ($30,000). The musicality
was superb here, with palpable imaging and highs that were simply stunning.
One of my favorite rooms was hosted by the effervescent
Philip O’Hanlon from On a Higher Note.
Vivid Audio Giya G3 speakers ($40,000) were holding court, fed by a
TechDAS Air Force III turntable ($29,750), Graham Elite tonearm ($12,500) and
TechDAS TSD TCd01 Ti Cartridge ($15,500) for the analog front end, and a
Merging Technologies NADAC Multichannel-8 music server/DAC ($14,000) for the
digital side. Luxman provided the rest
of the chain with their EQ-500 tube phone preamp ($7,500), C-900u control amp
($19,900) and M-900u stereo amp ($19,900).
Cabling was supplied by Magnan Audio.
The room was a blast with Philip playing classic Zeppelin and M.J.’s
Thriller! The sound was top shelf…
France’s Devialet
showed off their groundbreaking engineering and design work with a pair of
systems. The top system was built around
their new Expert 1000 Pro, a dual-chassis integrated amplifier/DAC
($39,990). These technical marvels
powered a pair of Excellent sounding Focal
Sopra No2 speakers ($11,000/pr) over AudioQuest
cables. The second system consisted of
the wireless and powered Gold Phantom ($2,990/ea) streaming tunes from a laptop. These speakers are simply unlike anything you
have ever seen, and sound amazingly powerful and controlled. Kudos to Devialet for thinking outside the
box…
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more odds and ends from
RMAF 2016. Congrats to all involved for
a job well done. My ears are happy…!
Cheers!
Marty Feldmann, The Connoisseur, is the
highly sought after consultant who assists businesses and individual clients
with the acquisition of the finer things life has to offer. Whether you are planning a weekend getaway to
wine country, selecting audio equipment to outfit your home, planning your
dream vacation or purchasing your ultimate transportation, Marty is your
personal connection to the good life…
Marty can be contacted at: 916.952.9529 Marty@ConnoisseurCorner.com