RMAF 2017--picture thread

Audiocrack

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Aug 10, 2012
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Although his best known music belongs to his Madrid period, returning from Paris, Manuel De Falla was born in Andalusia and his music has a strong Andalusian and gipsy inspiration. But IMHO the more intense of Falla are his works for stage. Two of his last works - El retablo de maese Pedro and El gran teatro del mundo, composed after Cervantes and Calderon de la Barca plays when he was living in Granada - are since long in my top favorite recording lists. And we also get an impressive version of the well known Amor Brujo. IMHO these recordings should be mandatory to evaluate systems with digital, including Lampizator's! :)

Victoria De Los Angeles is one of the most beautiful soprano’s I have ever heard in my life. She used to be the favourite singer of my father and as a kid I heard so many times all sort of lp’s with her as singer.

Btw, one of most famous De Falla recordings is actually with Victoria De Los Angeles as soprano and Rafael Fruhbeck De Burgos as conducter. It is an EMI recording: EMI ASD 608. They perform El sombrero de tres picos (“the three cornered hat”). Get that beautiful recording and you will be enchanted.

On Harmonia Mundi I have El sombrero de tres picos and - the in my previous post mentioned - Noches en los jardines de Espana in a dsd64 file available with Josep Pons as conducter. Mike, you have that file as well??. Good recording, also sonically.
 

Mike Lavigne

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i'm at the airport and will continue loading more pics for 45 minutes or so before I board my plane.....

overall loved the show and heard some excellent music reproduction. well worthwhile for me. two days seemed just right.
 

Mike Lavigne

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Troy audio, continued. it was the first post on this thread here;

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...picture-thread&p=472608&viewfull=1#post472608

I loaded 2 more pictures of the Troy on the first post, and deleted one. large speakers, small space, poor light, and no flash,(forgot my monopod in my room) on my Leica. someone asked details on the speaker driver specifics.....sorry....I cannot recall. but I did go back twice and listen. quite the remarkable speaker......such a small room it was not able to completely show it's true colors. hard to see where one could go wrong here; very efficient, needs about 20 watts or so (and maybe much less in an average size room). full range, to-die-for highs and mids......the vocals I heard are competitive with the best I've ever heard anywhere.

no reason this speaker could not do large scale music quite well.

I can see this speaker becoming very desired.
 

Mike Lavigne

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MSB Technology room 3013

sound very good, if not quite as good as the LA show with the Reference Dac. the room was not cooperating with setup efforts in various ways. easy to hear the difference between show rooms with identical gear.

still amazing digital sound and the best digital I heard at the show.

Ref_.jpg
 

DaveC

Industry Expert
Nov 16, 2014
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Mike,
I'm also interested in learning more about these speakers. It look like a Great Plains Audio 604 with a Fostex super tweeter and base reinforcement. Very interesting!

I was told it's a repro Altec, not vintage, so almost surely GPA. Fostex T500A MkII tweeter, which I also selected for my speaker, it's excellent. I also got a demo of the resonators and imo they are what makes this speaker work out so well. The Altec coax horn is compromised and it muddies up the mids to some degree... I've heard quite a few speakers using the Altec coax... the resonators really seem to clean up the mids, they make them sound clearer and I think far better than without. Not that it's bad without but at this level of performance it really does make a big difference.

They also did a great job of getting good sound out of a poor room, they have stones for even playing the speakers at all.... Magico M6 was a static display and I don't blame them one bit for not wanting to play the M6s in that room.

I wasn't expecting much but I think this is a better implementation of the Altec coax than I've heard before. It was impressive.

They guys running the room were also very friendly and enthusiastic, which is nice to see and appreciated! :)
 

Tango

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Troy audio, continued. it was the first post on this thread here;

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...picture-thread&p=472608&viewfull=1#post472608

I loaded 2 more pictures of the Troy on the first post, and deleted one. large speakers, small space, poor light, and no flash,(forgot my monopod in my room) on my Leica. someone asked details on the speaker driver specifics.....sorry....I cannot recall. but I did go back twice and listen. quite the remarkable speaker......such a small room it was not able to completely show it's true colors. hard to see where one could go wrong here; very efficient, needs about 20 watts or so (and maybe much less in an average size room). full range, to-die-for highs and mids......the vocals I heard are competitive with the best I've ever heard anywhere.

no reason this speaker could not do large scale music quite well.

I can see this speaker becoming very desired.

If only they could do better cosmetic, more people will be drawn into.

Tang
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Xact Audio room 3024

Steve Dobbin's room; the first time I've heard the top level CH Precision P1 and was impressed. it's the real deal.

I also liked Steve's prototype direct drive tt; not sure it's name but it says 'XX' on the front. it had a version of the Schroeder pivoted linear tracker. very good sound.

ch-1.jpg
ch-2.jpg
 

DaveC

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Nov 16, 2014
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I also can't explain all the stomach-level tweeters, is this a new trend? I don't like it... seems like a lot of speakers had really low tweets today...
 

Mike Lavigne

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Gryphon---room Longs Peak

our own Philip O'Hanlon's room, and as always.....very good sound. and music selections to die for. one particular is a needle drop from a 1948 10inch original 'long playing' Duke Ellington Orchestra. remarkable.

the Gryphon has it's own flavor, and different from Philip's Vivid line-up. i'm more in the 'more clean and neutral' Vivid camp......but the Gryphon's were making great and involving music.

Gry 1.jpg
Gry 2.jpg
 

Blue58

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Jan 20, 2013
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Troy audio, continued. it was the first post on this thread here;

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...picture-thread&p=472608&viewfull=1#post472608

I loaded 2 more pictures of the Troy on the first post, and deleted one. large speakers, small space, poor light, and no flash,(forgot my monopod in my room) on my Leica. someone asked details on the speaker driver specifics.....sorry....I cannot recall. but I did go back twice and listen. quite the remarkable speaker......such a small room it was not able to completely show it's true colors. hard to see where one could go wrong here; very efficient, needs about 20 watts or so (and maybe much less in an average size room). full range, to-die-for highs and mids......the vocals I heard are competitive with the best I've ever heard anywhere.

no reason this speaker could not do large scale music quite well.

I can see this speaker becoming very desired.

According to their website this was all behind the speakers, no wonder it sounded good.

Loudspeakers, Hellena by Troy Audio
Racks by Silent Audio Racks
Power Amplifier, TRX-P3M by Triode Corporation
Preamplifier, TRX-3 Preamplifier by Triode Corporation
Tape Deck, Sonorus PR-99
Tape head amp, Cello/King by Charles King
Open Reel Tapes by STS
Open Reel Tapes by STS
Turntable Garrard with Steve Dobbins Plinth
Tonearm, Frank Schroder
Cartridges et Phono Eq, Ana Mighty Sound
CD player, Metronome CD8s
DAC by DiDiT High-End
Cables by Zonotone
Resonators by J.Trillo
 

Al M.

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Sep 10, 2013
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Xact Audio room 3024

Steve Dobbin's room; the first time I've heard the top level CH Precision P1 and was impressed. it's the real deal.l

Yes, excellent phonostage.
 

jkeny

Industry Expert, Member Sponsor
Feb 9, 2012
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Last day at RMAF - try to catch the Ciúnas Audio ISO-DAC in the Audiokinesis room, 2014 in innovation area tower
And give us your impressions of the sound of these speakers & the ISO-DAC front-end.

You can interactively turn on/off the late reflections effect of these speakers & let us know how effective it is

RMAF room pictures.jpg
 
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flez007

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Nice set of pics Mike, thanks for posting! ... I hope there are some more coming. :)
 

Al M.

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How much MQA presence was there at RMAF?
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Pitch Perfect---room---Blanca Peak.

ok, you might ask......what is Pitch Perfect?

true story.

well, I was in this room twice, once Friday and once Saturday (with WBF member 'Alpinest'). it sounded quite good to my ears, in fact, it was doing some things which show systems don't normally do in terms of note development and naturalness that I hear in my own room. you have a mixture of Air Tight tubed monoblocks, Piega speakers, Solution Digital, and CMS racks. and the second day I noticed the banner over on the side for the Pitch Perfect footers. so after listening that second day I went over to the 'room guy' and asked him about how many of those footers were being used. he said they were under everything. I mentioned I had heard about these footers and that they typically take a week or so to gel, and what did he think about that? he said, well......I designed them and they are maybe working better since they are on my racks. I realized this was Joe L., the CMS guy. LOL!!! our own WBF member. so I introduced myself. he went and grabbed one of the Pitch Perfect footers for me to look at.

how can you walk into a room and relate what you hear to footers? you normally cannot; but something was afoot (pun intended) in this room.

Pitch Perfect.jpg
 
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Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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in that same Blanca Peak room was a new Reed tt I just read a Fremer review about. sounds like a good value tt some might want to consider. I did not hear it.

I have owned 3 Reed tonearms in the past which I was always impressed with.

reed.jpg
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Vandersteen-VTL--room---Ponderosa

good sounding room, I always enjoy seeing Luke Manley of VTL. previous years he had the Wilson's, I think I prefer the Vandersteen's. Vandersteen fans might note that he was using the new Vandersteen subwoofer in this set-up....hard to see them sitting in the corner behind the speakers, they mimic the look of the lower part of the VS cabinets.

and he played the Stanley Clark Memorial Quartet 'Voodoo' pressing for me I turned him onto 3-4 years ago. very tasty and involving sound.

van.jpg
van-2.jpg
 
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