The final day of the Festival
     So how was the show with its new venue and format? We'll get to that.
     Having had some time to tour pretty much nearly all the rooms, we pooled our impressions and went back to listen again to the rooms that mattered. The exercise was an interesting one, because it points up something that may not be obvious. If you walk into a room, and at that particular moment something is playing that sounds horrible, or if nothing is playing at all, or if it's too crowded, or if people are talking loudly over the music, then for you that room was a bust. And that's if you remember it at all.
     We went for another listen at the Linn room, where there were comparative demos of Red Book CD and SACD. Since the source component was a Unidisk 1.1 (yes, the same one we have at UHF), both were pretty close to their best. Each time we dropped by, there was no difficulty getting concensus that SACD sounded bigger, and by implication better.
     That demo was carried out with Linn's new Artikulat speakers (which Aldburn Electronics' Mike Remington is showing off in our picture). These speakers are expensive, at some C$48,000, but they are inetrnally triamplified, which helps cushion the blow. The only other components in the room were a preamp and a video display to show the player's menus.
     Albert was still talking enthusiastically about the Totem Tribe speakers for home theatre, which are long and thin and can be placed about a screen. They're way beyond mere home theatre in a box, and there's no doubt about that. In the meantime, Gerard sat down to interview Totem's Vince Bruzzese, which will be featured in our next issue alongside our review of the Totem Mani-2 Signature. We were in fact the very first to review the original Mani-2...14 years ago! We then thought it was one of the world's best speakers. We're looking forward to the session.
     We spent a little time with another speaker, a large German-made Elac. It is both large and expensive (C$17K). Its distinguishing feature is the presence of a Heil tweeter, the famous alternative technology tweeter that is notable for its lack of the usual "hi-fi" peaks. That's a 360 degree super-tweeter sitting atop, by the way, and it is also available as a freestanding add-on. We pulled out our recording of Isabel Barakdarian singing songs of Pauline Viardot, and its smoothness and natural tone were exemplary. "She used to sing in our church," said the Tri-Cell rep, with obvious pride in a fello Armenian (rightly so in our view).
     By the way, not all Elacs with Heil tweeters have such large price tags. We saw one that costs just $1650 a pair...and you'll be reading about it in our next issue. It will be one of three loudspeakers reviwed in that issue.
     Nearly as large as the Elac but not nearly as expensive was the LaHave Wedge, from Nova Scotia. It looks as though it is a single-driver design, though in fact the single driver is a coaxial. It's attractive both visually and musically. The price: $5000 the pair.
     We saw a couple of people we hadn't seen in a while.
     One was Andrew Marshall of Audio Ideas Guide. We hadn't seen Andrew at a show in years, and we knew that last year he had suffered a mild stroke...resulting in a not-so-mild five weeks in the hospital. He was looking hale and hearty, and we were glad to see him.
     The other was Richard Dolan. The Ottawa designer was the architect of the Dolan PM-1 preamplifier, which was reviewed back in UHF No. 25 (the same issue which had the original YBA One amp on the cover). After many years he was back with new monoblock power amplifiers (one of which is shown at left), built around a modified version of the B&O amplifier module. A preamplifier is coming, as is a CD player.
     In our Vegas report we showed a new amplifier from Audiolab, which is now in Chinese hands, but which still has one of the original Audiolab engineers aboard. So what happened to the other engineers. Cambridge Audio says it has them...and they are behind the new Azur 840A integrated amplifier (which reportedly would have been an Audiolab if that company had not been sold and resold). We haven't heard it, but the 840A uses what the company calls "class XD" operation, a sort of sliding class A operation which rivals the efficiency of class B operation. The claimed power is 120 watts per channel.
     Bryston was showing a mockup of the largest of its Torus power line conditioners (a real one, but smaller, was feeding power to the Bryston system in the room). The units contain large toroidal transformers with electrostatic shields, plus surge suppression. There is even a version that can plug right into a NEMA connector at your electrical panel, bypassing the usual doubtful household electrical distribution network. Just call your electrician, and then your Bryston dealer.
     Visitors to the Festival love to meet celebrity designers, of course, and so do we. Mimetism's William Andrea was there (an interview will be coming in the future). So was David Berning, designer of products of the same name. That's him at left, with his new ZH-7070 tube preamplifier (at the top of the rack...that's an emmLabs universal player down below). Even more interesting were the monoblocks, possibly the world's only amplifiers with switching power supplies that use tubes! The amps were prototypes, though they already sounded very good, feeding Peak Consult Empress speakers. The amp crackled whenever we took a photo, as photons hit the power supply tubes and got things moving.
     Rogue was there with the rather nice-sounding little Atlas amplifier, using EL34 tubes (yum!) for 55 watts per channel. It's US$1395, and the matching tube preamp, the Metis, is below $1000, though not much. Feeding Eggleston Works speakers, they had a pleasantly sweet sound.
     A show like this is a place to discover new companies, especially local or regional ones. Merikaudio is about a 12 minute drive from the UHF offices, in Longueuil (which, in case you don't know, is a suburb of Montreal). Its first showings include a power amplifier, shown in our picture below, plus a small but solid loudspeaker. A preamp is coming, and in the meantime a Nakamichi preamp was filling in. The sound was pleasant, and the products are possibly promising.
     Less promising, we thought, were the Odyssey loudspeakers, which mount in the wall, and are meant to look from the exterior like picture frames. Convincing? Well, one of the options is a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. The result was not unlike those look-alike art pieces one finds in big office buildings, pieces a colleague refers to as "Xerox art." As for the sound, it wasn't bad considering, but we have trouble imagining crowds beating a path to Odyssey's door.
     Since we've been ending these reports with pictures of turntables, we might as well end this report the same way. Down below you'll see a turntable bearing the Thorens name. It was plugged in and spinnning, though neither of us got to hear it. Perhaps next time.
     So...how was the show?
     Organizer Marie-Christine Prin declared the shift of venue and ortientation a success. She was disappointed by the lack of photo companies at the show, but there is a small photo show in Montreal immediately after. For next year she hopes to join forces with it.
     Certainly the exhibitors in the larger halls (which are plentiful at the Centre Sheraton -- that was the reason for the shift) were pleased. There were some complaints about confusing signs, but that can of course be fixed. There were also complaints from some exhibitors in the hotel rooms that the rooms were too small and acoustically far inferior to the ones at the Delta, the old venue.
     A success, this new Festival? Overall yes. The challenge now will be to build on what has been accomplished.

[BACK TO UHF HOME]