Day Two at the Festival
     Is the Montreal show smaller than it was the past two years? It's difficult to be sure, even by counting the number of exhibitors, since some exhibitors have more than one room, and sometimes multiple exhibitors share a single room. It may be a sign, however, that for the first time since the show moved to the Centre Sheraton, parking there even on Saturday was a piece of cake.
     No one was unhappy with the attendence, however. Though the multiple registration tables prevented the long lineups of years past (which we loved to photograph, you may recall), the hallways and the rooms were thick with people. The same had been true Friday as well.
     There did seem to be far fewer home theatre exhibits this year, though the ones that were present were mostly very good (or perhaps we just ignored the ones that weren't). The DreamVision D-ILA projector shown at right, equipped with a very good anamorphic lens, was responsible for one of the very best ones. We watched the always astonishing "parkour" chase sequence from the opening of Casino Royale, and it was about as good as these things get. We also liked the room with all the Pioneer Kuro displays, which looked convincingly state of the art. The Sharp displays seemed to be very good, but were in a sunlit hallway that did nothing for the quality of the blacks.
     The Montreal store Coup de Foudre had several of the hotel rooms, plus its usual big room on Level 2. VTL's Luke Manley was there, shepherding his amplifiers and his brand new phono stage. Representing Wilson Audio was famed recording engineer Peter McGrath (at left with a Wilson Watt/Puppy). McGrath had brought along a hard disc filled with master recordings. He told us about his new Sadie digital workstation, which allows him to edit his recordings without adding digital artifacts, and he gave us a demonstration.
     He played us a segment of Strauss's Four Last Songs, sung by soprano Renée Fleming and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The first version, which had gone through the usual computer ciruitry, had a touch of grain and maintained an emotional distance between us and this powerful music, whereas the Sadie version was more musically arresting.
     Albert was especially fascinated, because he adores that Strauss work, and had lately been searching for precisely that recording.
     Saturday saw a lightning visit by Linn's Gilad Tiefenbrun, the son of the founder, who is in charge of future product development. And he had lots of them to show. There were no fewer than three digital streaming systems being launched: the Klimax DS (which we will be reviewing in UHF No. 84), the Akurate DS, and the Sneaky DS. The first two were demoed against the legendary CD-12 player of fond memory. The third was in a separate room, and certainly captured our attention. Like the other two it can stream audio from your computer's hard disc (over Ethernet), including high-resolution audio. However it also includes a preamplifier and a stereo power amp, all for under $2000. We will be talking with Gilad in the Rendezvous section of UHF No. 84.
     Oh...there was one more new Linn product, the possibly recognizable turntable at right. Yes, it's the legendary LP12, specifically the new Majik LP12. It has the same bearing, suspension and arm board as the full-blown (and expensive!) LP12, but it has an internal power supply, like the old Valhalla, called (of course!) the Majik. The carbon fibre tone arm from Pro-Ject, and the Linn Adikt cartridge complete the set. The plug'n'play table is $3795, and can eventually be upgraded to any level you desire (and can afford).
     While we're talking turntables, we may as well mention a couple more.
     The Simon York table at left is mechanically of deceptive simplicity, with a tone arm whose cartridge shell looks as though it emerged from a home workshop. Its sound was a delight, however. We heard a recording of the original LA4 jazz group, and the Janos Starker version of the Bach suites for cello, and the sound emerging from the Harbeth speakers was warm and lifelike.
     Then there's the Calibre Mk101, at right, a $1999 table and arm from Audio Excellence. That's a store in Toronto, but it has branched out into other activities. Though the table uses some parts from China, the assembly is done in Canada. By the way, Audio Excellence also brings in Lyngdorf electronic room acoustics correction products, and Adrian Low was demonstrating how the room sounded with and without.
     Most of the rooms above the convention floor level are rather small, but there are some larger suites, and Verity Audio takes one of them for its larger speakers. The Zarastro II speakers (at left) were in the room this time.
     Frankly, the past two years the big Verities sounded just awful, and you had to go to one of the smaller rooms to get some idea of what the company's speakers can do with music. And that is despite the presence of what should be first-class sources: a dCS digital player, and even a Nagra open-reel digital machine loaded with master tapes. What was wrong?
     We suspect Verity had made some poor choices of electronics. This time the Zarastros were driven by a pair of Ayre's handsome (and handsome-sounding) monoblocks and matching preamplifier. The result was far more satisfying, and this was, finally, one of the good rooms at the Festival.
     Last year, indeed, there were so many unusually awful rooms that Mutine's oasis of quiet was especially appreciated. Well, Mutine's two rooms were still popular, even though one had to line up (visitors were limited to the number of available chairs. The main room featured the omnidirectional Duevel Bella Luna Diamante from Germany (shown below right).
     Its operation may or may not be evident from the photo. The woofer faces up, and the tweeter is in the top structure, facing down. Both fire into reflectors, which spread their output all around. The Diamantes were a hit, in part no doubt because they were well accompanied: a CEC TL0X transport, an Audiomat Maestro converter and an Audiomat Récital tube amplifier. The Audiomats, by the way, are now made in Canada for the North American market and most of Asia.
     The second Mutine room featured a much less expensive omnidirectional speaker, the Duevel Planets. Operating with a Mimetism 27.2 player and 17.2 integrated amplifier, it lacked the precise focus of the $14,000 Diamantes, but the sound was decidedly musical, and their $1500 price tag brought the dreams of visitors much closer.
     Gerard ended the day with some vinyl (including the LP version of Patricia Barber's Companions album) played through the large horn speakers from Robert Lamarre's RL Acoustique. In the meantime, Albert was following other visitors about, and noting their reactions to what they heard. He will be doing more of that tomorrow, and that will be the focus of his article in our next issue.
     Tomorrow, April 6th, is the final day of the Festival. We'll be there till the end, with the final report to be filed on Monday the 7th.
  

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