Opening day
     Actually this report cover two days, because Thursday was reserved for the trade. And for the press, of course. There have to be perks connected with being ink electron-stained wretches. Let's begin with the venue, new for this year, namely the Hotel Bonaventure.
     As already noted, when this massive building was built before Expo 67, it was a marvel, showing for perhaps the first time that concrete could look good, even great. Atop this commercial and convention space was built a hotel which, like the rest of the place, was something to marvel at. It still is.
     .And remember that the hotel is not on the ground floor, but high atop this massive structure, which dwarfs the Great Pyramid. It is surrounded by what looks like a wildlife habitat (Albert photographed a duck on Friday -- you'll see it in our print issue). The lobby looks warm and inviting, in a way that few chain hotels can be. The corridors to the rooms are much the same. There's a certain cozy feel to this hotel, and several exhibitors commented on it in much the same words.
     It's easy for a show like this one to seem lost in the maw of a very large hotel (like T.H.E.Show at the Flamingo in Vegas this year), but the Bonaventure is just the right size. And the organizers filled it with the Salon's presence, thanks to very good signage (including backlit signs), and a registration desk that clearly says Montreal Salon, right down to the iconic blue-haired ladies. (That's Gerard, picking up his badge, at left.)
     How are the rooms? For the exhibitors that was what mattered, and there were a lot of good reports. And, inevitably, some complaints too. They were good-sized compared to those of the Centre Shaeraton, the old venue, but a little cramped compared to those of the Delta, where the show was long held. Room entrances were wider than those at the Sheraton, less accommodating than those of the Delta. There were complaints about hollow walls, a surprise after an asumption that, because the building was concrete, the room walls would be too. That had been true at the Delta, which had been designed for condo apartments.
     As in any hotel, the flimsiest rooms were those of the big halls, because their "walls° are designed to fold back like curtains. So it was with the very large Cabasse room, which featured La Sphere, a dramatically-styled four-way speaker which looked distubingly like the eye of a giant, and moves so much air that Christophe Cabasse (that's him, leaning against his creation) put a subwoofer flush against one wall just to keep it from moving when the going got loud.
     Which happened more than once, because these speakers are quadramplified, and they therefore come with eight monoblock amplifiers and a digital crossover network. The kit comes to $205,000, which also includes Christophe for a day, because he comes to your house and adjusts the filters to suit your room and your personal listening habits. High end gear indeed. We should no doubt add that, although all too many super-expensive speakers sound just dreadful, that is not at all the case of La Sphere, which likes to show off power, but also coherene and finesse.
     Seeming almost like an entry-level product by comparison (but only by comparison) is the newest Wilson speaker, the Sasha Watt/Puppy, which is shown below left. It costs "only" $27,000, the Canadian sales tax on the Cabasse.
     Yes, It's a replacement for the famous Watt/Puppy, and the $3000 price drop relative to the previous version is due to plant expansion and a gain in productivity...or actually a decrease in rejects. A first impression: it sounds very, very good.
     But then again, if there's truth to the phrase "garbage in, garbage out," the reverse is also true: magic in, magic out. Kneeling next to the Sasha is recording engineer Peter McGrath, who had brought his hard-disc recorder and some of the classical recordings he has made recently. Among the goodies: the young Chinese soprano Xiang Xu singing Schubert, and excerpts from Handel's Messiah, and the operas I Puritani and The Barber of Seville. Nobody walked out while any of that was playing.
     Among the other gear making the music was the VTL 5.5 Series II tube preamp and a very large pair of Pathos tube monoblocks.
     There were much smaller monoblocks playing over at the Simaudio room, which was more like a listening room that the big halls the company has generally been settling for in both Montreal and Vegas. In prototype form, the monoblocks driving the Dynaudio speakers were the new 400M's. They don't look like monster amps, but they are called upon to replace the W-5.3 power amp, the descendent of the famous W-5 (a W-5LE powers our Alpha reference system). Projected price: $3000 each. A matching preamp, the 350P, will cost just below $2000.
     Klipsch was at the show with its flagship loudspeaker, but if you're thinking Klipschorn...guess again. We were told that the company was embarassed that its "best" speaker was over 60 years old, and really needed to go in a corner for optimum performance. The Palladium (the big one at right) is presented as the new top of the line. Driven by a Cyrus system, it did sound very good.
     In total contrast to the massive Palladium was the diminutive Joseph Audio Pulsar, at left. The compact but potent $7000 speaker uses the same tweeter as the Joseph Pearl, but with a new woofer with a cast magnesium cone. This was Joseph's first visit to the Montreal show, though it is a fixture at CES. With sources alternating between a Moon player and a MacBook Pro plus an Airport Express, the speakers sounded (as usual) truly excellent.
     What a contrast to a $20,000 speaker not far away, which we won't name because the odds of your running across it are low in the extreme. Where to begin? Strange styling, with a finish that seemed...well, unfinished. Sound that was dull when it was soft, and turned into an Excedrin headache if it got even moderately loud. It's heartbreaking to see well-meaning people put their energy, hopes, dreams and money into a project and coming up with this. We could add that such things happens less often than it once did, though of course poorly-executed demonstrations are all too frequent.
     If you have fond memories of the hi-fi of the 60's and 70's, you'll love the Leben tube gear, like the integrated amp at right. That was not the actual model we heard, just the one easiest to photograph. It was driving a pair of DeVore 3XL speakers, with a Brinkmann turntable and SME IV tone arm as a source. The DeVores are not large, but they delivered some surprisingly chunky electric bass. They delivered some tubbyness too, the fingerprint of the room modes. We grew to recognise it, room to room. One answer might be to angle the speakers reltive to the real wall, as we do at the magazine, and as some experienced exhibitors, such as Joseph Audio, did too.
     Totem has a major presence at the Salon, as it commonly does...but that was a surprise seeing that this year, for the first time in memory, it was not at CES. The company has all but abandoned its North American Native theme (though we did spot a Dreamcatcher on one wall) in favor of a modern decor aesthetic. At left is a set of Totem Tribe speakers for home theatre, decorated with optional "skins" like the ones commonly sold for iPhones and laptop computers. Spectacular is the word.
     The Salon commonly includes a cocktail party for the trade and the press. This year it included lots of food as well, plus entertainment. The sponsor was CEDIA, which has its own yearly event for custom installers. This year CEDIA was present to offer courses for home installers, who could pick up valuable knowledge without needing a plane ticket.
     At the party, two awards for lifetime achievement were given out. One winner was Nizar Akhrass, at right, holding the trophy. Nizar was founder of the audio distributor May Audio Marketing, which he set up 40 years ago. He still runs the company of the same name in Niagara Falls, New York. Ane he works closely with his son Nabil, who set up Justice Audio, as well as its successor, Liberty Trading. Liberty had a large room this year, and we wonder how many people even noticed the change of corporate name.
     Actually, the trophy plaque names Alice and Nizar Akhrass. Alice was Nizar's wife (and Nabil's mother), and was very much a part of May Audio and its successor companies. She died last year, much too soon.
     The other award winner, in the retail category, was Yolande Roberge, known as "la sorcière du son" (literally the witch of audio). Founder of Montreal store Audiorama, she was a pioneer in high end retailing, one of the few women in that male-dominated business. Strong-headed and opinionated, as any woman must be if she is to make her way in a man's world, she wouldn't hesitate to yell at a customer who disagreed with her (or to scream at us for 20 uninterrupted minutes because of something she had read in UHF). Salon president Michel Plante says that, when he was one of her young competitors, he hated her. But he adds, "That was before I realized that the reason I hated her was that she was better than I was."
     So far you may have gotten the impression that the Salon is ticking right along. We have the same impression. See you tomorrow

[ON TO DAY TWO]