Day two at the Festival
     On the first day of the show we were surprised to see how sparse the lineup was at the ticket counter. No such thing on the second day, as you can see from our picture.
     We're used to the fact that on Saturday afternoon the show is actually too crowded. And that was the case once again. Overcrowding was especially noticeable in the high end section, meaning the hotel rooms. Not only were most rooms smaller than the ones at the Delta (the Festival venue lo these many years), but the narrow entrances to the rooms caused major bottlenecks. That was really no surprise.
     Before we go on, we'll recall that on the report of Day One we showed a turntable called the Red Point and said it was anything but red. But we had overlooked the turntable right beside it. It gets full marks for being red...but loses marks for not having a tone arm!
     Raysonic, one of whose tube amplifiers was on the cover of UHF No. 74, was there with a newer and potentially better amplifier, the SE20A. As the model name suggests it is a single-ended tube amp, but using six EL34 tubes, for 18 watts per channel. It was feeding a pair of Living Voice speakers, which are of course familiar to us since we own a pair too. The source was a new top-loading tube CD player, the Raysonic CD128, shown below. The sound was very pleasant, with some detail inevitably vanishing into a soft haze, but without calling one's attention to anything that might be missing. In musical terms, this was one of the more successful rooms of the Festival.
     We were happy to see, once again, a pair of Escalante speakers. We saw and heard the large Escalante Fremonts in Vegas in January. this time we heard the Pinyons. We pulled out one of our favorite demo discs, the one of songs of Pauline Viardot. The sound was very nice, with especially good reproduction of the hall sound. Escalante is looking for distribution.
     Cabasse was back at the show, not with the prototype of the giant eye-like white speaker we saw in Vegas (you'll see its picture in our last issue), but with a more affordable model, the Riva (shown below). As Cabasse speakers go it seems like a bargain, at $2600. And that's in Canadian dollars, as are nearly all the prices in these reports.
     How come the Italians manage to get such incredible finishes on their loudspeakers? Looking at it another way, how come no one else makes Lamborghinis? The Opera speakers don't look quite look Sonus Faber speakers, but you can't look at them and not guess they are from the country shaped like a boot. The Opera SP is slim and doesn't look like a speaker that would knock you back on your heels, but it on the right recordings it is amazing.
     Speaking of Sonus Faber, we saw a new model, the Guarneri, bearing the serial number 002. That's them at left. They won't come cheap, at more than C$14K. If it's any consolation, the stands match and they're included. They weren't connected, but we did hear another Sonus Faber, the Amati Anniversario (the distributor thought the company might be 25 years old, or something like that). The room was large and the sound was very much 15th row, but there was a naturalness to the tone you seldom hear from loudspeakers.
     Were there fewer home theatre demos than in previous years? Of course a lot of big sets were in the large halls, though without sound. One of the upstairs demos was that of Toshiba, which was showing off HD DVD and predicting (or perhaps hoping for) the demise of competing Blu-Ray. The demo, which we had seen before, is not quite honest. It puts alongside HD DVD not a conventional DVD bur the definition you might expect with cable TV. Still, it looked good. Surprisingly, the people from Toshiba Canada had not yet seen the SED display shown in Vegas by both Toshiba and Canon. Well, they will soon, and we predict they'll be as knocked out as we were. Write it down: SED. Coming next year.
     In the big hall, only Samsung was showing Blu-Ray. A spokesman for Sony, which invented Blu-Ray, said he didn't know why his company hadn't bothered showing the technology.
     We were glad to see Kharma present at the Montreal show. The company is known for slanted and very massive enclosures, ceramtic drivers, and prices that appear to follow oil prices, though in only one direction. However the Kharma MP-150se (shown at right), with a price of just $12K, is a little more affordable (actually, they initially quoted a price of $3400, but we figured it couldn't be right, and it wasn't...that was the price of the Kharma amplifiers driving them...for each one). The speaker uses a new ceramic tweeter, the CE3.1. Rather nice.
     Mirage was showing a new speaker, the OMD28. The new series replaces the OM series, which replaced the M series. The $10K speaker has carbon fibre woofers and midrange, and a dome tweeter facing upward into a diffuser, a format Mirage has used before.
     We enjoy speakers that look, well, different! So how about the Canadian-made Sound Fusion speakers. They're made from heavy laminates, and there are matching stands, platforms, and anti-vibration devices. The SF70 Luna, at left in the picture, was the one we preferred, sounding quick and dynamic. The Hyperion, next to it, had a heavier sound that was more hi-fi, though even so there was a lot to like. The latter was biamplified, using NuForce amps custom-designed for the purpose.
     Linn was back at the show with something unexpected...an LP12 turntable. It was there because Linn was also showing its new Majik Control preamp, which replaces the Kairn and sports a phono preamp (MM and MC, configurable though not instantly switchable). Along with the preamp was the Chakra power amp, and a new CD player too. The Majik CD player will cost C$4300, and will replace the now discontinued Genki and Ikemi players, both of which we praised richly. The new model has a price part way in between, and Linn claims it is better than either. By the way, HDCD decoding has been retained.
     There was more from Linn and we'll tell you about it tomorrow.
     Shall we end with some turntables, as we did yesterday? There really were more of them this year. We heard complaints from audiophiles who deplored that they were present but weren't being played. Our suggestion: ask for them to be played. Suggested gambit: "May I look at what you have in the way of LPs?" Like they're gonna refuse!
     At left is the J. A. Michell Orbe SE MkII, equipped with a Graham Phantom tone arm and a Benz Ebony LP cartridge. It sounded very fine.
     At right is the Troy turntable, running with a Mørch arm, and sounding rather nice too. We heard it through a pair of LaHave Wedge speakers...wedge-shaped of course.
     Tomorrow we wind up the tour and the on-line report. And we prepare material that will wind up in coming issues of UHF, including the very next one.
     Tune us in tomorrow!
  

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