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Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) 2017 Day 2

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amirm

amirm

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Avantgarde Speakers:
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As you see, the crowd did pick up with standing room only. Of course I forced my way it and found a seat. :D
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Robert Silverman was there (see my notes on him playing Chopin for us the night before) and they played the same LP for him.
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Avantgarde: LP from Rober Silverman's Piano was a pale copy of the live session. Full of noise, lacking any of the dynamics and detail. The man deserves better. I bet the digital version -- if they had done one -- would be much better.
 
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Voxativ: A Case Of You by Diana Krall. https://shz.am/t11193421


Nice music. Not sure about the vocals. Distinctive but hissy. Will need to verify on my own system. Sounds lispy on my computer speakers just the same.
 
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Ayon: Long Distance Call by Muddy Waters. https://shz.am/t418992

The sound fully enveloped the room. So much so that I thought they were using some kind of 3-D processing. I asked them about it and they said that the drivers had very wide dispersion and were filling the room that way. Quite a unique feel. It was as if the room was a lot more reverberant than it was. This can be pleasant on some music but hearing it all the time would be wear one down.
 
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Magico. They had announced the M6 prior to the show and this was supposed to be the place to hear them. Alas, they said that management changed three weeks ago at the Hyatt Regency (different than where RMAF hotel is) and they were told they could not play music there anymore. So here we were, with $150,000 static display! Strange because I attended a great session with Avalon at the Hyatt today and they had no issue with playing music. Very disappointing.

Anyway, this is made out of half inch carbon fiber. Tweeter uses beryllium and diamond coating. And the main drivers have super thin graphene coating from Japan. It adds stiffness with very little weight and as a result, the cones were 30% lighter but 200% stiffer or some such numbers. :)
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Troy: This is a Mexican company that is producing these high-end, $100,000 speakers. I went there twice. This was the first visit which was not so good as they were serving others with their musical tastes:

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B&O folks had created a really confusing story for this crowd. They brought their $17,000 OLED TV and kept playing things from there and talking about multi-channel which completely lost the audience. Typical corporate messaging to try to say there is an integrated story between their products when the customer does not care.

Anyway, this was the demo of the BeoLab 50. They retail for roughly $35,000. It comes with mic and calibration software. Has narrow and wide modes. Interestingly, the speaker changes the dispersion for each mode mechanically with these curtains opening and closing around the tweeter. That part worked well. I actually didn't mind the wide mode on all the time.

On the look of the unit, their famous industrial designers must have been on vacation when this speaker was developed. It looks worse in person than in picture. It seems plasticy and industrial. Nothing like what I consider B&O brand to represent. Let me say the TV was ugly too while I am at it. :) I mean who in this day and age wants to put a wide chin on a TV for sound???
 
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