Rmaf 2017

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

I’m serious, this would take quite a bit of planning. I would need to book the booth now for 2018.

I will reach out to them right after they get back from RMAF; and discuss exhibitor rates which I know runs into thousands.

I would definitely help with this. We better start the process of picking the system as the differences of opinion and number of potential choices could take a while to wade through [emoji4] [emoji106] !!!

[Mikado463]

so Gents, do you all agree that this years show was lacking , by that I mean attendance ?

I've heard that it was down both in exhibitors and attendees ?

I haven't been since 2009, maybe next year ???

[2fastdriving]

Originally Posted by Mikado463

so Gents, do you all agree that this years show was lacking , by that I mean attendance ?

I've heard that it was down both in exhibitors and attendees ?

I haven't been since 2009, maybe next year ???

Not sure, but my first year at RMAF was 2013 and it has been on a downward trend since then in my opinion. I *think* this year was better than last in terms of attendence because of the hotel remodel being completed, but i could be wrong.

BTW, I am not a fan of the remodel in general. Some of it looks nicer, but some of it is less functional. The new restaurant layout is...weird. And more beer bar focused. burger-y. Less classy I suppose.

[SL1800]

My opinions on best sound at RMAF 17 and some random thoughts.

Random first, after attending an event like RMAF the real question becomes will you still respect your system in the morning??? Yes I think my system is still very good, major difference being that of room size, the larger rooms at RMAF just give a completely different perspective on the sound compared to my small space.

As for my pics of best sound at RMAF 17

First place was the Wilson Alexia/Constellation or Alexia/Nagra rooms, both were fantastic. The Wilson/Constellation room had dynamics in spades and the Wilson/Nagra room was ultra smooth. I would have to give the nudge to the Constellation room.

Second was the Martin Logan 15A/D'Agostino room, some could say I'm a fan boy of ML and they would be right but I really enjoyed my time in this room. This system had that classic electrostatic disappearing act down pat. On the other hand the sound from the ML Neolith was less than stellar to my ears.

Third for me was almost any room using Magico speakers of which I heard three and they were all good giving best to the Nordost room featuring Jeff Rowland/Magico S7(I think it was the S7). This system was good enough to make it easy to discern changes in power cords and other such changes.

Forth was the B&O room showing the Beolab 50 active speaker system. Amazing how far processing power has come and what can be implemented into a home speaker system. I think this would be a great speaker in the living room where multiple listeners would be well served by it's "wide mode" setting.

What I'm realizing as I write this is every one of the rooms I enjoyed the best were much larger rooms than I have. Perhaps my "holy grail system pursuit" would be better served by spending my upgrade money on a new listening room!!!

As for the group of AA guys I hung out with............thanks guys it was a great weekend!!

[audioguy3107]

First, a couple of thoughts and then rest of the pictures.......

1. This is most important and was a great refresher since I last attended AXPONA. It's the...ROOM, ROOM, ROOM, ROOM. I'll say it again. The ROOM is the most important thing you can set up/fix/tweak/whatever do to your system. I could not believe some of the sound from some of these mega buck systems and I have no problem giving the equipment and speakers the benefit of the doubt, especially considering the cost involved. If your room isn't properly treated or at least set up correctly regarding speaker distances etc., then you're losing about 50% of the battle. As Steve above said, you just can't put Martin Logan Neoliths and ARC Ref 750 monos in a room that's 14 by 20. It just doesn't work. They played "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash for me on vinyl and I almost had a headache within 90 seconds. I could go on here for a long time about this.

2. The most excessive product (possibly of all time) - The Stromtank. I mean seriously, I love high end audio as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure who needs a 330 pound German battery supply that's the size of a small refrigerator and costs $30,000. I feel like I need to take a shower after just typing that.

3. I not gonna beat a dead horse here, but what the hell is wrong with the guys playing "DJ" in some of these rooms? As Marc and I both felt, some of the rooms were like going to a funeral. Special shout out to the guys at PS Audio, and Bryston for actually acting like they were enjoying themselves.

4. I felt like I had more enjoyment finding the lower priced gems among some of the higher dollar stuff. Examples include the Elac room, the Aurum Cantus room, and the Dynaudio monitors.

Now some pics:

[audioguy3107]

Martin Logan ESL 15 and D'Agostino amplification, hooked up to the aformentioned "Stromtank". It sounded nice as it should.



Closeup of the Stromtank. Everyone should own one Maybe it would've come in handy when we lost power due to the remnants of Hurricane Irma.



Martin Logan and Benchmark. Don't remember anything about this room.

[PHC1]

Did anyone happen to see if Dynaudio Special 40 Monitors were there?

[audioguy3107]

Now this was an interesting room, I enjoyed this setup mainly because I confiscated their ipad and played whatever I wanted for about 30 minutes, so I got to spend some time with the smaller Magicos. Very clean, airy sound, pleasant but nothing earth shattering either. This would make a very enjoyable system for a smaller room.



Devore Fidelity and Linear Tube Audio. This was a pleasant sounding room but the image height was very very low. The speakers are not tall to begin with, but I felt like I needed to recline on the floor just to hear a proper image.




Von Schweikart (I know I probably butchered the spelling here) and Audio Net electronics. Great sounding room probably because there was some breathing room. Top 5 for me overall.




Devore Fidelity Gibbons......I enjoyed these much more than the other room, didn't spend a ton of time there since the music was less than stellar.

[audioguy3107]

Audio Physic and Simaudio Moon. For me, this room offered an example of what could have been. The room was just way too small for these speakers but they were still extremely smooth sounding with good bass and extended highs. I would have loved to hear this in an average sized living room. I think it would've been a winner.




Bryston. I appreciated how friendly the guys were here, they played one of my favorite Holly Cole tracks so I got a good feel for the sound. Very nice.




YG Acoustics and Auralic. Nice but nothing special. They had this system set up along the horizontal wall in the room. Everything sounded OK but constricted especially the depth. there wasn't much of it.

[audioguy3107]

Diapason and Rogers High Fidelity. As you can see from the picture, the speakers were setup in a weird diagonal orientation, thus they were way too far apart. I couldn't even get close to getting them both in the picture. Anyway, I think they might have sounded pretty good but couldn't really tell to be honest.




Harbeth and Vinnie Rossi Audio. This room sounded pretty decent, I could tell the Harbeths sounded much better than the room layout presented them.





YG Acoustics.....aaaannnnnndddddd Christmas Lights from Home Depot. What the H#$%????? Don't even ask me what the random light pattern on the wall was about. The room was full when I arrived so I didn't get a good listen to Radiohead's KidA which I'm familiar with, so I'll defer to Marc and Ed who did hear some of it. All I can say is when you have a pair of $120,000 loudspeakers, why on earth would you lay 80's Christmas lights in front of them on the floor? Did they forget their Lava lamps?????




Aurum Cantus. This was the $5000 entry level room where everything total was $5000. The speakers were $1800/pair with a 60 day in home trial. Go buy a pair. NOW. This was my best budget sound at the show. Hands down. You would not believe how nice these speakers sounded. Just beautiful. Smaller presentation obviously than the bigger systems but just as enjoyable.