Quote Originally Posted by RGA View Post
Last day of the show I auditioned the Sonist room again and it was a massive step up although soundstage and imaging were off - vocal came from both the right and left side (likely due to the off positioning) and the voice is supposed to come from the left side - it was all over the place. Still everything else about them I liked and I recommended them a few times to people looking for sanely priced gear.

Another star room for me was Von Gaylord - Tremendous emotion and lush depth without boom. I wish I heard them earlier in the show but they had Diana Krall playing which is an automatic leave the room for me (as is pretentious music like Patricia Barber) It's unlistenable after awhile.

I do agree in part on Acoustic Zen - would like them to use a turntable - but for me I have the ability to project what a turntable would do. Ditto MBL. Some of the rooms with both CD and turntable or tape the turntable was about 200% better. Now add that 200% better to some of these rooms without the turntable and "imagine" what they could do.

Acoustic Zen and Von Gaylord used relatively inexpensive CD and managed to better the overall sound in more expensive rooms with turntables and with tape. Adding a turntable would be even a bigger spread better.

I heard a lot of rooms sound worse here than usual and I am not totally sure why that was. Some rooms sounded better but not as many.
Yes, you are probably correct in your pumping up the rating of digital based systems. Acoustic Zen could well have been special with a good analogue source. They were using an SET amp, if I remember correctly. I just have a hard time liking any digital system. The only time I was actually impressed with a digital sourced system was at the 2010 CAS: An AN E speaker pared with the fantastic Jinro integrated amp (unfortunately, about $30,000). Audio Space and Unison Research are making affordable SET amps. At the 2010 CAS, Audio Note had a room that allowed them to come close to ideal placement, but I suspect that the Jinro contributed much to the musical sound. The Sonist room was better last year when using a deHavilland SET amp. This year they were using a 40 watt triode amp. I was stunned at the sound of the KEF 50 with the Unison Research SET amp. Both my Chet and Billie Holiday vinyl records sounded better in the Audio/Vision Kef 50 room than they did via the $500,000 Magico system. Look out for both the Kef 50 and Unison Research. Both are affordable and great sounding.