It's late but I just got back to the room, well about 30 minutes ago, it took that long to get the hotel internet connection.
After dinner we prowled a little and found the Texas distributor for Polk in the room playing music. We sauntered in and sat down and enjoyed 2 hours of him spinning his fav rock folk and blues CDs. The Polks were something I wanted to hear since all the ads and hype. They just came out and only heard hear and Lone star audio fest so far. I heard them at 12:30PM when I first arrived, they were tight and constricted, poor dynamics, muffled. 8 hours later they were open and dynamic and alive. So weird!! That was fun. You know how we occasionally discuss high value speakers like GoldenEar or whatever, well the new polks are an incredible value for $4000. They had $25000 of AR electronics, but still, they stepped up to the challenge. Very musical and refined. I'd consider these. The tiny little crossovers were a bit scary though, but thats what you get for $4k. Compared to my Jantzen DIY parts it makes me wonder if I'll ever buy a commercial speaker again.
After that we sat in the lobby with the designer of Klipsch clone speaker maker Volti Audio. Soon the designer of Border Patrol joined us and we talked about audio and assorted minutia for 3 hours. That's the part I love the most about the audio shows - who you meet and the memories from after hours. Gary of Border Patrol has been in hifi biz for 30 years and has a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of technical insight into good sound. It was very funto listen to him.
I heard one song on D'Agostino /Wilson room, some sax tune so poorly recorded it was impossible to listen. Peter McGrath should give up doing the show demos. I'll try again tomorrow.
Tidal was good, slightly too etched for me with Tidal electronics, but the midrange detail is awesome with accuton drivers. Pass class A or Manley tubes would be a perfect match, imo.
Manley / Joseph room was interesting. They were playing the Manley Snappers, amps I used to own and loved. They had the unmistakable snappiness, and sounded excellent with the Jumbo Shrimp preamp. I'd auditioned the Shrimp many times and each time it was a dud. But the Jumbo seems to have the life and dynamics restored with an added gain stage to power the volume control.
Another room with Carnegie Speakers had Manley Mahis driven by their 300B preamp. Now that sounded gorgeous! Tiny little amps drove the tall arrays easily. As in AXPONA the Carnegies make a lot of good sound, full range, punchy and dynamic.
The Salk / Phil / AVA room had gritty and harsh unrefined tone and incoherent music. I assume it was the electronics, or poor quality power or whatever. Salk or Murphy should be able to hear how bad it was if they are audio designers. Disappointing considering all the hype on AC about these Salk flagship speakers. I think the Phils sounded more of a piece and musical with the rough signal than the Salks.
The Volti room was excellent, with clone Klipsch speakers driven by Border Patrol 300B PP amps. Great bass from a 300B amp, sounded similarly punchy in the Border Patrol's own room.
MBL bass modes were horrendous. But it was the most dynamic speaker by far. Tone was a little off this time. Confidence and refinement. Played some nice tracks when i was in there. No drum beat film scores this time.
Audience had two speakers and electronics. The 2+ is in production now, with 4 full range drivers and one passive radiator. Sounded big, natural. The tiny speakers against the way had a single 2.5" full range driver with a 4" passive radiator on the back of a 8" cube box. It played Charnett moffett solo bass and it was gigantic, accurate and full and rich. I thought it was the bigger speakers. These will sell soon for $1000/pair. Also 4+4 floorstander is coming in 5 months. The electronics are class D, and they sounded pretty good. They had the best tone of any full range driver I've heard, not quite as extended as a separate tweter, but natural and accurate up to that point. Sounded like a SET amp with a little roll off above 12-15kHz.
A DIYer from Florida drove up just to get some feedback and opinions from listeners for his speakers. They are not for sale. Was it called Soundfield? something like that. It was very interesting design. 12" BMS coax on top in dipole, 18" peavey woofer for lower midrange 50- 200, then a sealed sub under that. Great integration. Some issues with tone and phase between the drivers were revealled in my torture test Mile harmon mute track, but on regular upbeat modern jazz stuff that he was playing it did the job nicely. Super nice guy. I learned a lot from talking to him. The speakers had incredible tone density, tactile midrange and bass. Acoustic issues were minimal. All passive crossover. Tablet PC fed a tiny NuForce DAC/headpohone preamp which sounded pretty good.
Nothing at this show sounds as good as the Tannoy Definition T8 speakers with Linn DS player and amp that I heard at AXPONA atlanta. Still my best show experience ever.
I picked up my new used TT from a local audiophile. Looking forward to getting it home to see how it sounds. It's gonna be a tough drive home tomorrow after the late night, but worth it to talk to Gary Dew of Border Patrol Electronics.
http://www.borderpatrol.net/