DCAudioDIY.com

My picks

1. EMIA Electrostatics
2. Quad Z4
3. IMC Audio Forty-10

Notable mention: Gamut RS3i

For me every year my top pick is the Bricasti room. Without a doubt the most natural sounding room. I sat there at the end of the day Saturday listening to Mahler's third and it was mesmerizing. My second pick was the Legacy Valors. Very dynamic and smooth with good imaging. Third although lacking a bit in dynamic range and ultimate bass was the Salk speakers. They use the same SB Acoustics beryllium tweeter I use in the eggs and you could tell it in the smooth, extended highs.

LOL, I've read several different forum reviews and several emails from friends that went and including the 1st 2 posts here, I haven't seen the same names mentioned twice. We all listen for something different, apparently.

What I heard was some good music, extended my personal play list a bit

Both DejaVu Audio rooms were excellent (full disclaimer, I worked there a bit, a couple decades ago).
The Volti speakers sounded pretty good.

The Pure Audio Project/VPI room sounded good on Friday with the horns in place although they occasionally played some vinyl in mediocre condition which did somewhat distract from the sonics. The field coil version was nice but not as interesting IMHO.

The Devore room sounded REALLY good in the conventional speaker category.

One of the Daedalus roons also sounded very dynamic, detailed and powerful if a bit less nuanced and less harmonically rich than the Devore room.

Hollis Audio kit speakers sounded very good in a terrible room (echo chamber).

The Old Forge room had horns that really did not sound at all like horns. Since I like horns it did not overwhelm me but my wife liked them a lot.

The Cube Audio speakers sounded good. Coherant, vibrant, well balanced (the bass was suffering somewhat from a room node but not enough to ruin everything), detailed and fast.

The Fern & Roby room was direct, forceful and tuneful sounding in an attractive, small package but more of a lifestyle speaker and less an audiophile primary speaker system IMHO.


The Linear Tubes room sounded pretty good, the newely designed looks (Fern & Roby) of the LT components looks nice.

The Benchmark/Martin Logan system was absolutely horrible. Sterile grey, cold sound that just drove me from the room. If that is what low distortion sounds like, count me out.

Classic Audio Labspeakers Horn's sounded thin and irritating when I stopped by early on, they may have still been working on setup?

The Amphion system had a bass bump so noticable that it almost felt like it might compromise the structural integrity of their room.

The big VAC room also had an oddly disjointed bass presentation with a somewhat diffuse overall presentation. More eye than ear candy.

I found the rooms more enjoyable this year because I attended on Friday instead of Saturday. The vendors had not yet suffered from volume creep.

My reaction to a room often depends on the music being played. The first time I went into the room with what appeared to be Klipsch La Scalas, I really enjoyed it. Later in the day I went back and was not so impressed.

ray

_________________
Walt

Very true! When I heard the Pure Audio Project open baffles with horn with some jazz they sounded really good. Heard them a few more times with different materials being played and also with the field coil full rangers installed and they sounded pretty boring.

For the revelation at the show is EMIA electrostatics. For the first 5 mins or so, I did not find anything special but then it became clear. Music thru electrostatics is crystal clear with beautiful mid range. It is as if layers of smog were removed. Now, I understand all the fuss about Quad ESLs.

As an engineer and audiophile I was most impressed with the Cabasse Pearl. I couldn't imagine a single small speaker sounding so good (they didn't have a stereo pair hooked up). A frequency range from 14Hz-27,000Hz and can play loud (118dB) - get out of here. I consider myself to be an analog kind of guy, you know electrostatics, planars, horns (no box speakers except for subs) and I don't believe in dsp or converting analog to digital only to get back to analog - but I maybe wrong and I am definitely biased - but wow. The Pearls are new, just released October 2018 so I could not find any reviews, but the Cabasse Sphere at 100 times the cost was reviewed by Fremer a decade ago.

https://www.stereophile.com/standloudsp ... index.html

My glowing remarks aside, I would be hard pressed to buy the Pearl that contains everything amps, DACs, drivers, wireless, Bluetooth within that compact and beautiful looking sphere, unless there was a local distributor and service center. I can just imagine spending $3K and then something fails within 3 years (I don't know what the warranty is and having to ship it back to France is not my cup of tea). The Pearl comes with a classy round remote and plays AIFF, FLAC and other formats except my preferred WAV or DSD128/256.

My second favorite was the Hollis Audio Labs Monoliths. Great sound and nice kit.

My third favorite was the Apollo speakers in the Rollo Audio Consulting room.

Honorable mention goes to the Emic Labs - Stacked Quads ESLs.

With DCAudioDIY not having a room this year I was able to spend time in all the rooms though I was quickly driven out by many. Suggest that Gary provide sampler CDs to all the exhibitors as too many had lousy music (I know that's not his job but it is his show and he is the ringmaster).

Until next year, the games begin.