FERN & ROBY
Christoper Hildebrand’s beautifully designed Fern & Roby components—Montrose Heirloom TT, Amp No. 2 Integrated (25-watts), Raven III speakers (94dB, 8-Ohms), Fern & Roby equipment rack—and the Weiss Helios DAC was, decidedly, one of those most musical and most inviting systems.
KUBALA-SOSNA
It did not take long to discern of the Kubala-Sosna room that “There be magic in that room.” Having familiarity with Vivid Audio speakers, Grimm Audio, Mola Mola, and Kubala-Sosna, I know without a shadow of doubt, an iota of a doubt, for that matter, that these components were part of the powerful mix that made this small room so incredibly compelling!
FIDELITY IMPORTS | SOUL NOTE
It was good to see Steve Jain of Fidelity Imports. Suffice to say, that Fidelity Imports was putting on quite the show and while I am quite remiss that I was not able to spend time across all of their rooms—seven—given my time constraints, I’d certainly love to get to know more of their distributed products.
GESHELLI LABS
Though all of the members of the family behind Geshelli Labs were not there it was great to see Geno, Sherri, Rachel, and Rachel’s ‘Friend’. Did I mention the fact that they, as a family, are definitely the “salt of the earth”—good people!
MACO AUDIO | VIA BLUE
It is always good to see Debbie and Armando of MACO AUDIO, a talented and creative couple always purposed to bring their best, which they consistently do. And this outing, like the very first where I’d met them in Toronto was truly beguiling.
DEVORE FIDELITY
John Devore went ‘Old School’ on us and in big way, as he spun vinyl records at 78rpm. And, if I might say, it was wonderful and memorable and truly engaging. There was also the added bonus that should the ‘Internet of Things’ go ‘KerPlunk’—cease to exist—you will, nonetheless, be able to spin 78s until the cows come home, wake up,
AXISS AUDIO - SOULUTION | TRANSROTOR | GAUDER AKUSTIC
Just prior to the music playing there was a black-quiet stillness, a clean slate, if you will, that heralded the music. And when the music began, the soundstage was quite wide, with great transparency and clarity, The tonality was good and the music leaned more to the natural and the engaging.
AXISS AUDIO - AIR TIGHT | FRANCO SERBLIN
This first thing that came to mind as I entered this room was “Music is being played here.” And true to form Arturo was spinning vinyl disks on the Reed Muse 3C turntable with two Reed tonearms—5A Tangential Tracking tonearm and 2B Pivoted tone arms—and the AirTight Opus One moving coil cartridge.
AXISS AUDIO - SOULUTION | GAUDER AKUSTIK
In this room “seamless and extended frequency extension,” found its way to my notes as did “ethereal in an electrostatic way,” which spoke to a rendition of music that brought with it an abundance of air and ambiance, a deeply set stage.
STILL POINTS
This was a most interesting room. Still Points, the manufacturer of, well, isolation devices and racks, pulled a system together and placed that system upon their racks and isolation devices and took a shot at best of show. And while its cost would, no doubt, place it as a ‘big room,’ let me tell you how close their shot got to Best of Show.
BRICASTI | TIDAL
Damon and Brian were manning the Bricasti room and it was good to talk with them both and to gain more insight on Bricasti and its new M19 SACD player.
WELL PLEASED AV
The small rooms with their few-piece systems were, for me, the rage of the show as many of them consistently put together systems that were incredibly enjoyable, musical, and brought all the technical information one could want or need to be drawn into the music.
GRIMM AUDIO | LINEAR TUBE AUDIO (LTA) | ZELLATON |
The Grimm Audio room is always a rather commanding demonstration of the “less is more” philosophy. That is to say, that with the Grimm Audio MU2 DAC/streamer/preamplifier at the helm of any system (as I’m experiencing at home) …
PASS LABS | PURE AUDIO PROJECT (PAP) | MOJO AUDIO | FIDELIUM
It was good to see Ze’ev, Benjamin, and Jeffrey. They were all in the best of spirits. The system that they had together assembled was assembled from Pass Labs, Mojo Audio, Fidelium components ( list below)