Sonus Faber / McIntosh
View attachment 162017View attachment 162018
Pick your poison. Presented with the Sonus Faber Lumina III, The MA12000 and MA8900 integrated amps, MC1502 and MC462 power amps, CS22 and CS2 preamplifiers. Unfortunately, all of this was part of a not-running showcase. It was too late where I heard from
@renaudrenaud that I missed the real sound demo, with some McIntosh paired with SF Lilium, in the room nearby. So sad I lost my chance to give them a listen (but he did, so maybe if he could share any impressions whatsoever...
).
View attachment 162020
From left to right: SF Seraphino, Maxima Amator, Olympica Nova II, Nova III and Nova V. Gosh, these all look absolutely gorgeous. I wasn't familiar with higher-end products from this brand (nor that I could afford any) but I was literally sold to this standard of aesthetics. The level of craftsmanship, fits and finish is
absolutely stunning. What you've got is nothing but real wood, genuine leather and premium materials. The grilles are ones of the coolest I've seen in the entire industry: imagine a curtain made of leather strings. I could play with that all day long
. Still, I am kind of sure this is not acoustically transparent (but no grille really is) :
View attachment 162015
View attachment 162031
C8 Tube Preamplifier with Electa Amator III.
MBLView attachment 162032View attachment 162033
If I'm not mistaken, here is the priciest system of the show. What you look at are 65k€ speakers (Radialstrahler mbl 101 E MKII) with every separate costing at least ≅21 to 41k€ each. I do not remember which is which, but there is a list of the Reference Line here. We had a demo with first tracks from CD, then with LP. How it sounded? Interesting, I would say... and mostly impressive. Since the speakers are omnidirectional, it seemed to fill the entire room, helped by reflections from every wall. As such, I also felt like the imaging was kind of weird. I mean: not "bad", but very unusual. What impressed me was the ambient smoothness/lack of hardness for everything from 1Khz and above. Full-bodied vocals, but not realistic either, due to the omni dispersion. The low end was deep. Like: deeeeeep. Once at home, I checked some measurements and it appears that 101E does have a fairly balanced FR, up to a massive drop-off at 15Khz. All together I must confess I liked very much what I heard overall... until the next track which was played from LP. Peggy Lee's Fever came with a very audible noise floor and random crackle noises every few seconds. Great ! (I'm sarcastic, if you are wondering) Now, I am just thinking: during the entire Show, I heard marketing guys claiming either "we make digital gears sounding as good as analog". Or "we make analog gears sounding as clean as digital". Seriously, what's the point? Makes no sense to me.
Magico / WhateverView attachment 162039
I have not a lot to say about this room. Plenty of probably overpriced gears. I recognized Antipodes K50 (
$15000 Music Server
Transport) and Soulution Series 5
I-don't-know-what thing. You tell me the rest. Sorry, if I sound a touch jaded, but my interest went away when I was saying to the guy from Magico I was a bit disappointed by the unexciting design of the A5s (looking like generic boxes). He responded:
yes, but you may put the grilles on. Cool. Now, it just looks like nothing. I had a hard time when he seemed to justify that the 32 000€ one pair costs would be somewhat
affordable. Alright. Listening demo was 30 min later, we missed it at the end. I did not bother.
Bowers & Wilkins / Rotel Michi / MarantzView attachment 162053View attachment 162054View attachment 162055
Last demo of the show. Exceptional atmosphere, with the sunset hitting the massive bay window, through which we could see the mythical
Maison De La Radio. The new Diamond 800 series was demoed, with 805D4 bookshelves and top of the line 801D4 floorstanders. We listened the latter, feed by a pair of Rotel Michi M8 monoblocs and P5 DAC/Preamp. Marantz SACD 30N and PM-10 Integrated amp (which, BTW, uses four NC500 OEM bridged) were also there, but turned off. So, what about my impressions?
Not what I expected. My own experience with lower models such as 600s, 700s and CM series has been quite underwhelming. To me, B&Ws sound heavily colored and way too bright. Not fan at all, and this is backed up by just about any measurements available out there. So, what about the new 801D4s? Straight On-Axis : no problem ! Wut? I had to listened twice : No, it was not bright. One past the surprise, I had to focus on the rest with only one song (
Peggy Lee's Fever, again. A real audiophile gimmick...). Well, I'm not sure... first, I don't know what to think about the bass. I felt like it lacks quite a bit on density, especially for such big speakers, packed with double 10" woofers (looked like 12"). Then, I had a hard time trying to point out any strong or obvious abilities that were immediately noticeable with the Utopia Scala (both are priced the same, BTW). I was still thinking where the sound ended, and with it the entire Show, since it was 6pm already. I may have to look further with this speaker. Other room, my own songs with "proper" critical listening, maybe. Until then, I cannot consider it to be anything close to a flagship performer.
Two words about the Michi. First, the M8 has already been measured by Hi-Fi News as SOTA Class AB performer. But it uses two fans to cool it down. After the demo, I stuck my ear to one, and I wasn't able to hear any audible noise from the fans (though amps have been running all day). That is good. What is not is the screen. At this price (13 200€ pair), we should expect some OLED screen with 100% dark blacks and better viewing angles. Same remark goes for Anthem STR I saw earlier in the morning....
View attachment 162058
Diamond 805D4 (bookshelf), 804D4, 803D4 and 802D4.
View attachment 162059
A lonely B&W Nautilus. 706 S2 and Marantz PM7000N in the back.
Random #2...
View attachment 162056
The new Audio Research I50 integrated (in red). A massive 160S tube power amp, with gorgeous transparent VU Meters. Reference 6SE Preamp and PH9 phono stage beneath.
View attachment 162057
Canton Smart Reference 5 K (active wireless floorstanding) and Reference 9 K standmount.
View attachment 162060
Lost in this jungle, a pair of Genelec 8331A with GLM4 calibration.
View attachment 162061
AGD The Audion, Andante and Vivace. The Adante is a (15 595€) R2R DAC. Both gears around are monobloc amplifiers with "GanTube technology". I understand that it would be some Class D designs with tube buffer (?) Anyway, I cannot afford either at 7500 and 15k each...
View attachment 162062
Very cool chess player robot. Focal Chora 826-D and Naim Mu-So 2 behind.
... Well, that's all, folks.