FLORIDA AUDIO EXPO FEB 7-9th 2020

[Martin]

Tampa Terrace: MBL; United Home Audio; Wireworld Cable Technology and Suncoast Audio.

MBL speakers look and sound out of this world. I like that they just play music. We spent 15 or 20 minutes in this room just listening to beautiful music.

Kilgore: The Audio Company; VAC; Von Schweikert Audio; Esoteric; Kronos Audio; AirTight; Critical Mass Systems; Masterbuilt Audio Cables and Acoustic Sciences Corporation.

Disclaimer: I own Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen III HSE speakers, love their speakers and showed my racks in their rooms at the 2009 and 2010 RMAF.

The Ultra 11 and this system was the most lifelike I have ever heard PERIOD. About 4:30 Saturday afternoon a young man brought in a vinyl record of a big band recording and this system put that big band in the room. With our eyes closed my son and I could see each of the instruments separated in space as they sat on the bandstand. You could even discern individual instrument placements when several of the same type were in a section. I didn’t catch the name of the piece but it was absolutely incredible. I was flabbergasted. We stayed and listened to this million dollar system for the next 20 minutes or so.

Pavilion: Classic Audio Loudspeakers; ATMO-SPHERE Music Systems; Tri-Planar Tonearms and Purist Audio Design.

We finished the day spending about 20 minutes in this room. They were playing reel-to-reel tape and spinning vinyl. The system through the big Classic Audio Loudspeakers sounded spacious and very, very nice. I liked the sound through the ATMOS-SPHERE tube amps. (I’m one of those that find tubes pleasing.) They then hooked up the JBL Hartsfields, while not as smooth and resolving as the other speakers they sounded incredible, especially considering they were first made before I was born. Glad I got the chance to listen to a legend.

All-in-all my son and I had a great time at the show. I learned my son has a discerning ear and had many of the same observations that I did. He was the one who told me to close my eyes and “see” the band in the Von Schweikert room.

Lastly, for those of you who were there, this was me (Minus the Audeze headphones):

Martin

 

[MZKM]

I was flabbergasted

For those wondering, $325,000 just for the speakers. You better be flabbergasted for that price.

Maybe it fit better with their needs, but for that price I would have assumed a RAAL or similarly priced tweeter, not a Fountek. The ScanSpeak Illuminator tweeters and Accuton drivers are pricey though.

 

[jhaider]

Was there anything cool from AJ (Soundfield Audio)?

 

[Sal1950]

Was there anything cool from AJ (Soundfield Audio)?

Yep, more to come ------------

 

[Juhazi]

Stereophile's Julie was fascinated!

https://www.stereophile.com/content...-streamer-and-le-dac-thales-slim-ii-turntable
The diminutive Kiso Acoustics HB-N1 ($9500) two-way minimonitors stood atop metal stands (sold separately). The mahogany cabinets are made in a guitar factory in Japan and share some characteristics of hollow-body string instruments, such as a thinner structure instead of a typical rigid speaker enclosure. Resonances from the cabinet and its small port are said to amplify and benefit the sound and its dispersion. More than one show attendee who entered the room asked if those were the only speakers playing—a testament to the li’l Kiso’s room-filling sound A cut of a German LP of cello and guitar sounded lush, very three-dimensional, and true to life. An outstanding performance from these tiny transducers.

http://www.kisoacoustic.com/

 

[Soniclife]

Stereophile's Austin was fascinated!

https://www.stereophile.com/content...-streamer-and-le-dac-thales-slim-ii-turntable
The diminutive Kiso Acoustics HB-N1 ($9500) two-way minimonitors stood atop metal stands (sold separately). The mahogany cabinets are made in a guitar factory in Japan and share some characteristics of hollow-body string instruments, such as a thinner structure instead of a typical rigid speaker enclosure. Resonances from the cabinet and its small port are said to amplify and benefit the sound and its dispersion. More than one show attendee who entered the room asked if those were the only speakers playing—a testament to the li’l Kiso’s room-filling sound A cut of a German LP of cello and guitar sounded lush, very three-dimensional, and true to life. An outstanding performance from these tiny transducers.

http://www.kisoacoustic.com/

Anyone hear them playing wide bandwidth complex music? I've been amazed a few times by speakers like this, but as soon as you ask them to play something beyond their narrow playlist they don't want to talk to you any more.

 

[MattHooper]

Disclaimer: I own Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen III HSE speakers, love their speakers and showed my racks in their rooms at the 2009 and 2010 RMAF.

Martin

Hey, another VSR fan! *bro fist*

I used to own Von Schweikert VR4 Gen II speakers. I started with Quad ESL 63s but later found them a bit too ghostly sounding, lacking punch and palpability. So I went looking for a dynamic speaker to replace them. But like many who start with a pair of Quads they tend to spoil you for their utterly boxless and "transparent" quality and beutiful midrange. I demoed a sh*t-ton of speakers and finally settled on the VR4s because they came the closest to sounding like the Quads - big, beautiful, transparent midrange and almost no detectable sense of the "box" in the sound - while adding that punch and palpability of a dynamic speaker. They served me well for years. (As did a pair of MBLs later on!)

I've enjoyed your show reporting and photos, thanks!

 

[snapsc]

Some of my own takeaways from the Florida Audio Expo:

Overall, this is a pretty nice venue...hopefully the show continues and can remain here for a while (more food options needed though)

It is pretty clear from the comments and the reviews posted so far that we don't all hear things the same way...nor do we prefer the same things...and that is OK....no judgement here

There was a lot of good sound...and it got me to wondering when I got back home, how would my system stack up...I fired it up this morning...it sounded good, good enough that nothing needs tweaked for the time being...which is why measuring is not always a good thing. I suspect that if I were to measure my systems response, I would find problems and feel compelled to fix them even though it sounds really good to me now and "fixing things" might very well damage the sound.

And finally, an observation from a buddy who attended with me who is very much into music but no so much into audio. I asked him if he had a favorite and what he would buy. He said "everything here sounds better than my system so I would buy that Sonus Faber Olympic Nova system that we heard because the speakers were so darn beautiful".

Different strokes for different folks...it is a hobby and therefore it should be about enjoyment and fun.

 

[MattHooper]

Different strokes for different folks...it is a hobby and therefore it should be about enjoyment and fun.

Yup.

When I go over to one of my reviewer pals house to listen to a new speaker we can converge very well in our description of what we are hearing. But we can diverge quite a bit as to whether we like the sound. He's had speakers that make him very happy which leave me completely cold and not wanting to listen very long.

 

[ENG]

Anything about the new NAD M33?

 

[snapsc]

Yep, more to come ------------

I'm looking forward to your observations from AJ's rooms....somehow I missed AJ this year even though this was one of the top rooms on my list of must hear rooms...darn...last year his mmw's blew me away...$1500 for monitors with the built in amplifiers and subwoofers that filled the room, imaged beautifully and had some slam... there wasn't anything that came close.

and his cta1 floor standers....stunning

 

[Sal1950]

Hi guys, Sorry for the tardy report. I didn't get to the show till Sun, then all day today Comcast was messin with my internet connection. In any case @Martin has done an excellent job of getting a lot a beautiful photos up for everyone and really lightened the load for me. I'm just going to answer some questions that have been asked, put up some pictures to talk about, etc.
The show was dominated by tubes and vinyl, some for the good, some for the not-so-good. Also snake oil products were everywhere, the ridiculous cables, floor lifters, magnets, etc; were rampant.
I was very disappointed that for whatever reason Harman had chosen not to attend the show. I was really hoping to hear something from the new JBL HDI line, specially the 1600 stand mounts but they were no where in sight. With all the wonderful HiFi being played it was unfortunate that Harman had no product from any of their lines there???
I remember someone talking about the very high volume levels they had experienced at many shows. I was happy to note that playback volume was very controlled throughout the show. I'm anal about my hearing as it has been so badly damaged already but at no time did I feel like reaching up to plug my ears or leave a room due to overaggressive use of the big knob.

Was there anything cool from AJ (Soundfield Audio)?

Yep, first a disclaimer, A J is a friend of mine so there's the distinct possibility of bias. LOL
I thought the sound in his room was excellent. They can be very hard to describe since his designs can be very chameleon like. Both the large and smaller floor standers he brought contained rear firing drivers that can be switched on or off, or set to various levels. These add an openness and air to the playback you can tune to your liking or the liveliness of your room. He also has a Logic 7 upsampler he sometimes uses to inject some ambience into the reproduction. Whatever the settings, the speakers never sounded any less than excellent IMO. His designs aren't cheap, but each one is hand crafted to order using the very best of components. If I remember correctly the smaller speaker seen here is a totally active design, while the larger was passive on top (Using TUBES none the less) with a active bass section. LOL Check out the signs on the speakers, A J never changes.

I want a "best in show" report @Sal1950 . Looking forward to your impressions of what stood out and what was a bust.

Not sure why my opinion carries any weight but I'll throw it out there. LOL I can already see I may put out something different that has already been said. Also to be fair a listener needs to spend a bit of time in a room, hear some material he's familiar with, etc. With only one day to hit 66 rooms, that was a impossible challenge.
Anyway I'll get right to the point, if you remember last year my BoS went to Paradigm but this year I found their room underwhelming. I felt their room was a bad choice with the speakers set up on the long wall and who knows if something went wrong with the ARC room tuning setup or the demo tracks I heard were sub optimum

So not to delay any longer, my "surprise" Best of Show was the Martin-Logan Impression ESL11A driven by McIntosh electronics, combined with their Balanced Force 210 subwoofer. I won't wax lyrical, (I don't have the talent anyway) but there was just something going on that made me say, "damn this rig sounds good" from the moment I walked in the room. I forget what the track was but there was one that was rockin pretty darn good so I walked up and checked the power meters on the Mac. I never saw it going any higher than 40watts into 4 ohms, I expected quite a bit more but they are rated at a surprising 91db?
Sorry for my dark photos, many rooms had very low lighting and I suck as a photographer.
At $11K for the 3 piece system, not bad in todays inflated world.

 

[RayDunzl]

Sal, you are showing signs of needing to have your hearing re-educated.

Did you not visit Room 101?

 

[Sal1950]

I really enjoyed the sound in the Joseph Audio room. They were playing some modern jazz big band stuff and I found the detail, speed, extended top end very engaging. I hung out here for a bit.

In the affordable world I liked what I heard at the SVS room. Local dealer Rick's Electronics Boutique out of St Petersburg had the Prime Pinnacle tower ($800.00 each) set up using the SB 3000 subwoofer ($1000). This $2600 combination created a system that played way above it's price point IMO. Anything I though it might be doing wrong was subtractive, I found it was a smooth, easy to listen to kit. Nice people to talk to.

Lots more tomorrow

 

[MattHooper]

I really enjoyed the sound in the Joseph Audio room. They were playing some modern jazz big band stuff and I found the detail, speed, extended top end very engaging. I hung out here for a bit.
View attachment 49656
View attachment 49657

Cool. I currently use those same Joseph Audio Perspective speakers in my system. I'd agree with your description! Also, they are very impressive when a track has deep bass. They can sound far larger than they look! I think Jeff Joseph knows what he's doing.

 

[amirm]

Yep, first a disclaimer, A J is a friend of mine so there's the distinct possibility of basis. LOL

Does he own any other clothes than those pairs of shorts??? That is all I ever seen him wear at these shows.....

 

[MattHooper]

Adding to the photo-heaviness of this thread: Here's a couple shots of my pair of the Joseph Perspectives.

 

[Wombat]

Very nice piece of furniture to boot.

P.S. What is that little cylindrical thingy near the base of the cabinet?

 

[Sal1950]

Adding to the photo-heaviness of this thread: Here's a couple shots of my pair of the Joseph Perspectives.

That's what I call "listening in the near field"

 

[MattHooper]

Very nice piece of furniture to boot.

I agree. The Joseph Speakers have among the best "fit and finish" I've seen for a speaker. At least among all the speakers I've owned.
(Though a weird thing happens in uploading images here. The color turns exaggerated and more read. Those speakers actually are more brown-toned than the photos suggest).

P.S. What is that little cylindrical thingy near the base of the cabinet?

The speakers sit on a set of outriggers that spread out and make them more stable and less tippy. So you are seeing the round top of corner outrigger spike. Most of the outrigger is sunk and hence invisible in to the shag rug. (Actually one of the aspects I like about the rug is that it almost completely hides the speaker cabling leading to the lower back of the speaker, for a clean look).

That room "was" our living room but it long ago became my dedicated 2 channel listening room. But back then it was switched 180 degrees with a listening sofa on the other side of the room, behind where the speakers are now. So speakers would go toward the bay window side of the room.
There was lots of room to play around with speaker positioning back then.

But 10 years ago I did an extensive reno of the room for a projection-based home theater. Since I needed a wall to put the screen on, I had to switch the sofa listening position to the bay window side. You can see a bit of the projection screen and black velvet surrounding behind the single speaker shot. So the room now does double-duty. There are black velvet-covered L/C/R speakers and surrounds, but I still used dedicated speakers for 2 channel, such as the Josephs set up in that picture.

This double-duty for the room put real restrictions on where I can place any 2 channel speakers especially because the right speaker ends up right at the (very wide) room opening. If I place it too far from the sofa it ends up impeding walking in to the room. So my listening distance flexibility is limited. Fortunately the reno was done with the input of an acoustician, lots of acoustic treatment hidden throughout, so it' a really good sounding room and thus far every speaker, large or small, that I've dropped near those positions have worked great! (I'm usually about a 7 1/2' listening distance from the speakers, with a pretty wide spread, it's very immersive!) All my amps and source equipment reside in another room (one rack for AV sources, the other my two-channel tube amps, turntable etc). I know tons of audiophiles love looking at every bit of equipment they paid for when listening to music, but I like as clean a look as I can manage in the listening room.

ETA: You can see the Left speaker is precariously close to a reflective tiled fire-place. I had a custom-made thick brown velvet curtain that hooks on to the fireplace (we don't use the fireplace) which covers up that reflective surface. It works great.