Montreal Salon Son & Image - Roll Call

[cmalak]

Originally Posted by metaphacts

Kronos Turntable
SME 312S Tonearm
Lyra Cartridge
Nagra VPS (Phono)
Naim HDX SSD
DCS Scarlatti up-sampler
DCS Scarlatti DAC
Audio Research Ref 5
Audio Research Ref 210
Siltech Interconnect and Speaker Cables
Shunyata V-Ray and Anaconda on the power side

Don't recall the name of the treatments in the room but the concept makes great sense: Lower third is a bass trap, upper 2/3 on the front is diffusion with some mild absorption on the back. Seemed to work well though I didn't really get a chance to rigorously test them. They also seemed to pass the test that so many treatments miserably fail - first do no harm.

Rene was selling his Fidelio hi res recordings on SD cards. You can can see the "credit card" packaging hanging from the Naim in the picture. It is Rene's contention that USB has sonic issues in the high frequencies and these are avoided with the SD carrier. Interestingly and independently, Peter McGrath posited the exact same idea to me about USB without ever having spoken to Rene about it. I can tell you this:if those two leading edge recording engineers are saying it, there is something to it. More to come.

Bill...thx for the update

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by tonepub

We never do show reports....

Stereophile and Soundstage do such a good job, why reinvent the wheel?

Hey Bob and I did reports for AA while we were at RMAF and Ivan took care of CES.

Jim

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Hey Bob and I did reports for AA while we were at RMAF and Ivan took care of CES.

Jim

And a fine job I might add!

[Tonepub]

The Fidelio stuff is awesome!

The card works great....

[VT Skier]

I was in and out of the room a few times, and only digital files were played. The turntable is an impressive piece of gear as far as looks go.

[rgbyhkr]

Originally Posted by tonepub

We will be in room 1228 and the nice folks at Burmester will be supplying the gear. Please drop by and see us if you get to the show.

Hey Jeff,

Were the speakers in your room B20, B25 or B30? Thanks!

Jeff

[Tonepub]

They were B20's....

We honestly could have used a bigger room, they were loading up a bit. And the Burmester guys like to crank it, which I highly appreciate.

[rgbyhkr]

Originally Posted by tonepub

They were B20's....

We honestly could have used a bigger room, they were loading up a bit. And the Burmester guys like to crank it, which I highly appreciate.

I've spent some time with the B20s recently and I really liked them. They are different form there much larger B80 brethren, which I've also spent time with, but they really hold their own both at the price point and their modest size. I've actually been giving some serious thought to a pair of B30s and will be comparing what I heard to several other possibilities over the next few weeks.

Jeff

[rgbyhkr]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Looks like those who attended spent way too much time working and not enough time reporting and taking photos.

Jim

One attendee's Flickr set of the show:
Salon Son et Image, Montreal Hi-Fi Show, Sony A55, April 2011 - a set on Flickr

Same attendee's videos of various rooms:
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Totem Video Wall
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Verity, Nagra
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Legacy, Aryon
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Advance Acoustic, Totem
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - MBL Reference Line
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Raysonic, Revolver
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Cabasse, McIntosh
YouTube - Proacguy1's Channel - Burmester

That last one is of Jeff's Burmester room. I took the liberty of tracking down the song and album (Song was "Save the Whales in Placerville and Hickston" by David Munyon on the album Poet Wind) after hearing this. That's one really cool aspect of shows for me - discovering new music. :-)

And here's a different attendees compilation 20+ minute video of various rooms at the show:
YouTube - Montreal Hi-Fi Show - Salon Son & Image 2011

Jeff

[rgbyhkr]

Make that 2 music purchases. I liked what was playing in the Cabasse video so I tracked down that one too. The song was "Shape of my Heart" by Dominic Miller & Neil Stacey on the album New Dawn. The beauty of this one was that it is available as a full res download from Naim Label (naimlabel.com). These days I far prefer this route even over buying CDs due to instant gratification. I have used sources like HDTracks in the past, but this was my first usage of Naim.

Jeff