Hi, I'm new to the site but definitely not new to audio. I just had to post about my experience at the show.

I spent quite a while in the Audio Note room on Friday and Saturday. According to the guys working the room, the woofer is the hemp cone with a silver voice coil. I went in being a bit skeptical of Audio Note gear. Obviously high end audio equipment isn't cheap but Audio Note sells relatively 'simple' gear for quite a bit of money. Upon walking into the room I saw a very simple, moderately sized 97db sensitive 2-way speaker powered by 20watts of SET power. I really started to wonder if this room was even worth listening to. I left thoroughly blown away.

Whoever said the speakers don't have much response below 100hz is completely wrong. They played a bass 'rumble' track that was easily hitting down to the low 20's. It was literally making things accross the room rattle. You could feel the bass in your chest, something I can't say about any other system I heard. Of course, very few rooms played anything other than jazz and female vocals or at volume even close to the Audio Note system.

After that they put in a Neil Peart drum solo from the Rush 30 anniversary concert in Frankfurt. These stand mounted speaker were able to reproduce drums at mind boggling SPL levels. Someone at the back of the room - a good 15 feet from the speakers - had an SPL meter and it registered 95db. My friend who worked as a recording engineer said it was the highlight of the show for him to hear a drum kit reproduced so realistically at those volume levels. I have to agree. On some 'softer' material the system did seem a bit colored compared to other systems I heard but the Audio Notes were definitely one of my favorites from the show.

Also extremely impressive were the Salk Soundscape 10 loudspeakers. Not many people know of him but Jim Salk makes some AMAZING loudspeakers. Walking into the room and seeing the build quality and finish of the speakers was unreal. They were absolutely the most beautifully finished speakers I've ever seen. The scary thing is that they sound just as good as they look.

The RAAL tweeter is everything it's been hyped up to be. The was just an incredible amount of 'air' and depth to the sound these speakers produced. The sound was extremely clean, dynamic and the imaging was unbelieveable. Along with the Accuton ceramic midrange the whole room was filled with a wall of sound. It was quite literally impossible to discern that the speakers were the source of the sound, even when sitting well out of the sweet spot.

I think they were in the running for Best of Show for sound quality - up there with the Magico's - at a cost that won't require a second mortgage on your house. The only part I didn't like about the room was the source equipment. It was definitely the worst of any room at the show. He used a Squeezebox as a digital source which actually sounded alright but his CD player was simply awful cheap consumer-grade gear. I don't recall what exactly it was but it looked like he picked up at a garage sale for $3 after it had been sitting in a garage since 1993.