Sound Galleries Event

beaur

Fleetwood Sound
Oct 12, 2011
459
165
950
60
Brooklyn
A quick write-up of the event held at the BMW Museum tonight by Sound Galleries.

First let me thank Edward for inviting the online riff-raff :) to a fabulous venue and event. Had a great time and it was nice to put faces to some names here. I'm exhausted form this massive show so apologies if I didn't introduce myself.

Besides the excellent food and conversation we were treated to a demonstration of a new music server. As I am not the equipment geek I won't list too many details but the system was set up in a very large room and consisted of; the Sound Gallery bespoke music server, T+A DAC, Taiko NCore monoblocks and Vivid G1 loudspeakers.

I am basically an analog guy but this was some of the best digital sound I have heard. The work put into the server and it's integration with Roon and HQPlayer has paid off. Now I have no comparative reference for DSD 512 but I told Edward that if I had the need/ability I would have written a check immediately. I do have some quibbles but they could be from unfamiliar material and also can be solved by the customization that is possible. It's worth investigation if you are in the market and i will definitely be following any developments. While the main attraction of visit to Monaco would be the F1 race I will most assuredly visit the store if I am in the area.

Thanks again to Geoffry, Emile, and Edward for putting on a great demo and event.

Beau
 

CKKeung

Well-Known Member
Jun 17, 2011
3,053
3,172
1,410
Hong Kong
The combination of HQPlayer DSD512 upsampling combined with a T+A dac is very hot lately!
 

wisnon

Well-Known Member
Dec 12, 2011
3,525
635
1,200
A quick write-up of the event held at the BMW Museum tonight by Sound Galleries.

First let me thank Edward for inviting the online riff-raff :) to a fabulous venue and event. Had a great time and it was nice to put faces to some names here. I'm exhausted form this massive show so apologies if I didn't introduce myself.

Besides the excellent food and conversation we were treated to a demonstration of a new music server. As I am not the equipment geek I won't list too many details but the system was set up in a very large room and consisted of; the Sound Gallery bespoke music server, T+A DAC, Taiko NCore monoblocks and Vivid G1 loudspeakers.

I am basically an analog guy but this was some of the best digital sound I have heard. The work put into the server and it's integration with Roon and HQPlayer has paid off. Now I have no comparative reference for DSD 512 but I told Edward that if I had the need/ability I would have written a check immediately. I do have some quibbles but they could be from unfamiliar material and also can be solved by the customization that is possible. It's worth investigation if you are in the market and i will definitely be following any developments. While the main attraction of visit to Monaco would be the F1 race I will most assuredly visit the store if I am in the area.

Thanks again to Geoffry, Emile, and Edward for putting on a great demo and event.

Beau
Yes, I heard it was an awesome event! Too bad I could not make it. Bummer.
 
Last edited:

tsaett

Well-Known Member
May 20, 2014
126
178
348
Cologne
Being back from Munich I would like to post my findings as well.

First a big thanks to the organizers, Geoffrey, Edward and Emile for your great hospitality. It sure must have been a lot of work for you but it paid off.
The sound was among my top 4 in Munich, which were the Living Voice room, Gryphon Audio, Zellaton and Yours. Considering the prices of the others, that's quite an achievement in my books.
Particulary interesting for me was the technical session after dinner, where we compared Redbook PCM with DSD128 and 512, each step was clearly audible with 512 being the clear winner. Especially the background noise of the Miles Davis track was far less distracting with 512 than with the others. I still would rate the shift from PCM to 128 more worthwhile, but diminishing returns have to kick in somewhere.
For me personally the SGM is out of my financial league, but I definitely rate it among the top digital sources available today.

It was great fun to meet some forum members and journalists, this sure was an illustrious crowd.
Hi to Beau from Brooklyn, hope you have recovered from the trip ;-)
Also hello to Ron! (I was unable to find you in the bistro the day after, would have loved to have lunch with you and Mark, thanks for the invitation anyway)
Finally it was nice to meet Lukasz of Lampizator and Jussi Laako of HQPlayer, nice guys indeed.

Thanks again
Christoph & Tanja (from Cologne)
 

Elberoth

Member Sponsor
Dec 15, 2012
2,007
253
1,170
Poland
I'm finally back at home, after having spent 3 full days at this massive show.

First of all, big thanks to Geoffrey, Edward and Emile for pulling off such a great and well attended event.

I've been a big proponent of DSD upsampling for the past 2 years (ever since I bought my first DSD only DAC from Lampi) so the sound quality you got should not come as surprise, but it was. It was easily my #2 sound of the show, after the Magico M-Project/Soulution demo (on Saturday only, when they were using the 701 monos).

What was astonishing to me, was that you managed to get the sound of this callibre from a relatively inexpensive set of electronics - $3000 DAC and $5000 amps ! Many exhibitors at the show, could not get sound nowhere near as good having $200k-$300k worth of electronics at their disposal. I'm pretty sure your Sound Galleries server, with seamless Roon/Tidal/HQ Player integration and DSD 512 upsampling, played a great role here.

Wow, just WOW.
 

wisnon

Well-Known Member
Dec 12, 2011
3,525
635
1,200
I have been hearing a lot of Wows about the BMW demo. Kudos to the SG crew.
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,601
5,411
1,278
E. England
Just my 2 cents. A pretty interesting evening. I was better served going to listen in the rows nearer the front after the buffet. And I struggled a little to make a definitive conclusion due to unfamiliarity w/the playlist.
Again, I was maybe one of the few people who got more out of going 16/44 to 256dsd, than 256 to 512. And the a-b demo on filters was interesting, if a little confusing (w/498 others also available!!!).
But many thanx to the organisers in putting together the event and inviting the great unwashed such as myself.
 

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