RMAF 2008 - Your impressions,...

Just got home. The show help me realize that I am unlikely to ever change from my Merlins which remain the speakers that sound best to me for my room and the kind of music I listen to (chamber, small jazz combos, acoustic folk, bluegrass etc.) What I learned at the show is that I almost never like speakers with a lot of drivers. They are impressive in some ways, but the never sound natural to me - oversize instruments, incoherent sound stage, etc. I agree that there were some nice sounding speakers from AV123, I especially like the small 2-way they were using with the Dodd pre and poweramp today. I also like the Von Gaylord setup with all electronics and speakers made by them. The Reimyo room also sound very good with there small concentric driver speaker ($6,000), and I was also impressed with the Wilson Benesch speakers, the small Curve speakers was very nice paired with DeHavilland amplification. With all I heard, I kept going back to the Merlin room (Joule electronics) and I realize just how good and sorted out the VSMs are - one part part of my system that I have ceased to question.

i missed the show. were there any panel speakers ?

I thought the Raidho speakers were terrific, and the WLM speakers RedWine audio was showing were very nice, and the new Avalon Indra is as good as you've heard or read about them....and I agree with everything written above...

MrT, Sound Labs had several hundred square feet of electrostatics filling a large room. They used Emm digital to demonstrate a recreation of a drum and bugle corp on a football field. It was very impressive indeed. I've heard that sound from both on the field and in the stands. It was simply incredible.

The IsoMike recordings used have incredible sound stage and ultra real timbres.

For me the demo clearly showed the best and worst of electrostatics. The good was the wonderful midrange and timbral accuracy. The worst is it took HUGE curved arrays to achieve this stunning presentation. If you moved to a single flat panel, we all know what happens.

Dave

I neglected to mention the Avalons, they sounded might fine indeed. Also the Harbeth M40s driven by McIntosh sounded fantastic too. The Apogee Divas were very good as well - I wasn't aware that Apogee speakers were still being made. They were driven beutifully by Pass XA100.5 and Audio Research Ref preamps.