Sanders Sound Systems by far the best sound. The only speaker I wanted to take home. The least impressive looking room.
Focal Scala Utopia my next favorite speaker.
The Sigma Acoustics/AGD room was where I spent the most time. Sounded mostly beautiful but the soundstage was enormous, as was the speaker, and occasionally I heard a little stridence in the upper treble. I couldn't decide if I liked them a lot or not at all.
Most of the other rooms were perfectly acceptable with the following exceptions:
P.S.Audio. I was expecting a lot. I didn't care for what I heard at all. Way too tilted towards the middle bass.
Alsyvox/Omega Audio. Too hard and grating for me. I was not expecting that, don't know what the problem was.
Kii. A lot of bass out of a little box. Tonally they were fine but the imaging was not. I would have blamed the room, but these are supposed to correct for room problems.
Klipsch Cornwall. Too soft at the high end, although I suspect this room was way too small for this speaker.
Troy Audio Hellena Mk II. Not bad per se, but disappointing. They are based on the Great Plains/Altec drivers. I made myself a horn speaker with Altec drivers, and I love them. The Hellenas have a horn tweeter and they sell for $80,000 with internal crossover, $120,000 with the external crossover. My speaker cost $4,000 with an active crossover (half of that was the tweeter, I could have built them for less). My speaker is better. Significantly better.
I am a rank amateur, I should not be able to cobble together a speaker that is better than most of what I heard at RMAF, but apparently I have done just that. I made the speakers just to go with my 2 watt amps. I went to this show because I have heard pretty much none of the new gear that everyone talks about here, and this was a chance to hear almost everything in one place. Except for perhaps the Sanders Model 10s, ($17,000--with a Sanders amp! Possibly the best value in the show) there was nothing that made me want to throw away my Altecs and my Sound Labs (O.K., I have two really good speakers), my Levinson ML-2s and my (handmade, the first by me) single ended triodes. The speakers are 1960 vintage for the Altecs, with a new RAAL ribbon tweeter, and 1983 vintage for the Sound Labs. The ML-2s are from 1978. The triodes range from 20 to 2, but they could have been built in 1930. I have long contended that there has been no real advancement in audio technology for a long time. I stand by that statement.
Focal Scala Utopia my next favorite speaker.
The Sigma Acoustics/AGD room was where I spent the most time. Sounded mostly beautiful but the soundstage was enormous, as was the speaker, and occasionally I heard a little stridence in the upper treble. I couldn't decide if I liked them a lot or not at all.
Most of the other rooms were perfectly acceptable with the following exceptions:
P.S.Audio. I was expecting a lot. I didn't care for what I heard at all. Way too tilted towards the middle bass.
Alsyvox/Omega Audio. Too hard and grating for me. I was not expecting that, don't know what the problem was.
Kii. A lot of bass out of a little box. Tonally they were fine but the imaging was not. I would have blamed the room, but these are supposed to correct for room problems.
Klipsch Cornwall. Too soft at the high end, although I suspect this room was way too small for this speaker.
Troy Audio Hellena Mk II. Not bad per se, but disappointing. They are based on the Great Plains/Altec drivers. I made myself a horn speaker with Altec drivers, and I love them. The Hellenas have a horn tweeter and they sell for $80,000 with internal crossover, $120,000 with the external crossover. My speaker cost $4,000 with an active crossover (half of that was the tweeter, I could have built them for less). My speaker is better. Significantly better.
I am a rank amateur, I should not be able to cobble together a speaker that is better than most of what I heard at RMAF, but apparently I have done just that. I made the speakers just to go with my 2 watt amps. I went to this show because I have heard pretty much none of the new gear that everyone talks about here, and this was a chance to hear almost everything in one place. Except for perhaps the Sanders Model 10s, ($17,000--with a Sanders amp! Possibly the best value in the show) there was nothing that made me want to throw away my Altecs and my Sound Labs (O.K., I have two really good speakers), my Levinson ML-2s and my (handmade, the first by me) single ended triodes. The speakers are 1960 vintage for the Altecs, with a new RAAL ribbon tweeter, and 1983 vintage for the Sound Labs. The ML-2s are from 1978. The triodes range from 20 to 2, but they could have been built in 1930. I have long contended that there has been no real advancement in audio technology for a long time. I stand by that statement.