Best Speakers at Montreal Show this past weekend?


I'd like to hear from people who attended the Montreal Son & L'Image audio show this past weekend as to what rooms sounded the best in their opintion.

I was at the show for Friday & Saturday and saw it all. In my opinion the very best sound came from:
(1) Globe Audio distributors out of Stoney Creek, ON, showed the latest CD/SACD Audio Aero source, 4 prestigue AA monoblocks with a 5th amp driving the subwoofer, and incredible speakers by Weiner Loudspeaker Manufacturer (http://www.wlm-loudspeakers.com/) with one subwoofer using 2 12" drivers. Globe Audio also had 2 other rooms where the least and most expensive speakers were being fed with AA gear. Ernie Fisher of The Inner Ear magazine showed off the most expensive WLM speakers with the dual 18" woofer subwoofer speaker and wow what great sound, even in a smallish hotel room. Everyone was amazed at the "you are there" sound.
(2) FAB Audio speakers (made in Toronto, http://www.fabaudio.com/intro.htm) along with Korato pre/power amp (http://www.korato.com/company.php?id=5) and Audio Aero Capitale CD player sounded just as good as (1) above and also used the Muratta Super tweeter and a huge FAB subwoofer which allowed their system to go from 10Hz - 100KHz !! The sound was very adictive and lifelike. In fact, the FAB/Korato and WLM/Audio Aero rooms were the only two that sounded life like with the band being 'there.' Coincidentally, both the FAB and WLM speakers were 2-way designs and very high efficiency (97/98dB) - could there be a correlation here?
(3) Raido out of Denmark had two rooms showing their Eben X-Baby, X-Centric and X3 speakers and their less expensive Emile S2 speaker driven by Cary electronics in one room and Chapter electronics+Electrcompaniet CD player in another room. With a ribbon tweeter going to 50KHz and special Audio Technology drivers they sounded very pure, clean and fast with no listener fatigue.

Honourable mentions go to the Kharma room (no surprise there), Avalon with VTL, and Verity Audio.

Now let's hear your thoughts please.
kevinzoe
Correction: the Korato website is at http://www.korato.com/company.php?id=5.

For the record, I have no affiliation in any of the above listed companies.
Kevin,
I was impressed with a small speaker by Fidelio Acoustics i believe was the name. The imaging was incredible compared to some of the big names.
Kevin to my ears and taste I found nothing better than the Verity Parsifal/Berning/Stillpoint at the Holiday Inn and Verity Parsifal Ovation/Nagra/Silversmith rooms in that order. The only other room close, in my opinion, was the Kharma room. My only issue with Kharmas is they seem a bit too reticent in dynamics and the soundstaging is larger than life but tonally they are excellent.

The openess, dynamic contrasts and tonality of the 1st Verity room was as close to the real thing as I heard, stunning sound and an ability to play any kind of music with aplomb. I think the size of the room helped with the prototype Berning amps really showing an ability to open up the speakers with pleasing results. I left the show with a great love of the Verity Parsifals, they are a quite refined design. I had a really tough time leaving these 2 rooms and went back at least 3 times.

I found several nice rooms, several that could have sounded much better with more careful consideration of set-up (Avalon/Gryphon comes to mind, the speakers were at least 15' apart and the sound was diffuse but it had more potential) many of the others rooms were nice but nothing else that gripped my attention like the above.

Best value and also superb sound, Charisma. YMMV
I agree with Kevinzoe, but the Aurum Acoustics active setup simply dissapeared and had full range bass. High mentions for the Sonus Faber Stradivari driven by Ayre electronics and the 2 rooms with Verity Audio speakers, one with the new Parsifal Ovations driven with the pyramid shaped Nagra amps and DCS source and the other featuring the Sarastro biamped with 2 Nagra VPA pairs. A lot of fellows liked the room with the Von Schweikert VR-4 with BAT electronics.

Serge