Quote Originally Posted by poppachubby
Thanks for the compliment as I'm not too confident about "reviewing" as such. You would have loved the Dali's as I know you have a thing for small monitor style speakers. Keep an eye out for them as I'm sure they'll make a splash. They were noob's find.

As for the show, I suppose personal taste plays into it. The rooms I didn't enjoy had gear that did all it claimed to do, except entertain me.

There were a couple of instances where noob and I didn't agree fully. He enjoys "laid back" more than I do, but for the most part we would leave together in agreement.

The Marantz/Paradigm had the best vibe while still remaining true to all of the academic categories we judge in. Quite simply, you had to be there to hear it. I think there are quite a few Marantz fans on AR in terms of SACD, and certainly some Paradigm fans also.

We missed the Jolida room which was a big dissapointment. We stuck our heads in and he ran down the gear they were demo'ing. Looked amazing.
Shame you missed Jolida, I'm always interested to hear opinions on their gear (I may not own any tubes yet - but I want some in my 2nd or main system eventually - variety is king)..

I'm actually a fan of Marantz CD players... The last CD player I had before I switched completely to Music Servers was the CD5001... If I was a rabid classical lover, then I would have opted for the Marantz SA8001 instead of my DAC1...

One clarification though: I'm not a small monitor guy (other than on my PC)... 1) I do like deep bass (just not boomy and/or over-emphasised bass) & 2) Not an 'audiophile' reason - but I much prefer the look of a big pair of towers over monitors on a stand... Especially the old school 3ways with the 12 inch woofers!!!