What were the best and worst rooms at RMAF 2009?

Jaybo, I agree. A "Classic" Room at RMAF would be cool. A local audio society or even Audiogon or Audiokarma members could supply the equipment and time. Maybe small donations could be made, like a tip jar as people enter to help fund the room. A speaker, amp, turntable set up that could change every day or half-day.

Another approach would have vintage dealers or those that repair or sell replacement parts and refurbished equipment could share the costs of a room and showcase their work. I'd love to hear a Marantz 8b and 7c and some Tannoys or a Marantz 2325 receiver with double Advents.

Or, some vintage Accuphase, McIntosh, Western Electrics or Kondo's through Tannoy's, Altec's, JBl Paragons or exotic Klangfilm's. It would blow peoples minds how amazing vintage gear sounds to 90% of what is heard today.

almonduck,spl...it would definately keep things in perspective.

Hi Agear,
Ya, and after their (Intuitive Design) no-show last year, I was really looking forward to it. Two years ago I was blown away by the sound with those monster water-cooled muthas. When I heard them this year however, I was underwhelmed, to say the least. I'm not a fan of powered subs integrated into the design of speakers, and the amps that fit into those bases were MIA two years ago, and with just the monitors working, I thought they sounded magnificent. With that woolly, inorganic bass this year? No thank you.

All, I made a major factual mistake in my previous post, for which I apologize to all concerned: suite 589, where I listened to the excellent bel Canto Ref 500M mono amps, was completely wired with Cardas Clear, NOT with XLO. Hence any reference to XLO in my previous post is completely unwarranted and should be ignored

. The paragraph in question should have read:

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Regarding the Bel Canto room in 589-590. . . yes, the sound of the room was not 'warm' to my ears. . . rather, I found it to be rather neutral with a very slight overpressure in the treble region, and a minor tendency to intermodulate in harmonically complex sostenuto passages in the upper treble. The overall gracefulness of the sound was one of the reasons why DCSTEP and I remained there for the better part of an hour or may be even more, in spite of a slight tendency to tippiness in the treble that made the sound suboptimal. As I am not even faintly familiar with the Joseph Audio house sound, nor with the Cardas Clear wires, I have no idea about their relative impact on the overall result. However, being quite familiar with the sound of the suite from last year, as well as with the extremely graceful Bel Canto Ref series sonic signature, I am inclined to exonerate completely the BC R500M from being the origin of the very slight treble anomalies, which may have been caused by something as simple as speaker placement issues.

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PS. This morning I had requested via email that Audiogon staff nuke my previous post entirely, so I could resubmit it cleanly with the amendment above. Unfortunately, the duty administrator tersely declined my request, stating that removing posts is against policy. This of course is quite surprising in view of historical data. It is also a sad commentary about the apparent dualism still existing between the new and friendly image that Audiogon is fostering through its "Hub", and a much more basic reality persisting in the trenches, which makes me seriously consider alternate audiophilic climes.

Regards, G.