CAS 2019

[ryanosaur]

Whew! Hard night at the shop. Sorry I don’t have endless free time to drop this in a straight up Boom-Pow melee!

Next up is one of my favorites. I stopped here first because I thought it would be safe, what with it being my very first audio show and all. Regardless, Rick and I had conversed previously, and I was excited to have the chance to meet him and hear what Selah Audio was about. My first impression was solid, and I returned at the end of the day to hear if I was right. I was.
Rick said he designed this for the show. At first I was like... where’s the beef?!!! But it didn’t take long to hear the beef!

I present to you the 4-way Cali4!

I was impressed by the sound coming from this diminutive tower. Unassuming in stature, it proved to be big in sound. Clean, accurate, and easy to listen too. Going back for seconds was icing on the cake.
I found my note, and if I got it right, the drivers were crossed at 200, 800, and 4000Hz.
I hope to learn what he used after this weekend. It was nice!

Ok, you got me. It was one of my favorite rooms. This was one of the most natural sounding speakers in the show. Steep at $7k, sure. But compared to the travesty I posted before, you could build a 7channel system using this!



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[ryanosaur]

Two for one sale, here!

Wyred4Sound and Tidal (not the streaming service)
W4S TempuS Loudspeaker

Not much to say on this. I wasn’t turned off, but I didn’t find myself wondering why I didn’t come up with $6k to take them home.

On the other hand, the Tidal Contriva was pretty nice. At $60K... I hope so! Oh, and I think they had $30K monoblocks driving them.

In all, I found the Tidals to be quite pleasing to listen too. Were they worth a new ‘Vette? *shrugs
Best part, when walking past later in the day, a gentleman who was their main dealer here in the US said he would cut a deal on these if I wanted to take them home after the show... $20K off!!!


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[PENG]

I think that makes for a good question. Why are there no audio shows in Canada?

Are there barriers to temporarily importing so much audio gear from the USA? Or are there too many sensible Canadians and a distinct lack of audiophiles with more money than sense?

We do have huge auto show annually right in down town Toronto. To me, it is more to do with the population density, though it should't be much to ask for them to hold some events in near by area such as some where in Buffalo, even Chicago. Niagara would be nice too..

 

[shadyJ]

Wyred4Sound and Tidal (not the streaming service)
W4S TempuS Loudspeaker

Not much to say on this. I wasn’t turned off, but I didn’t find myself wondering why I didn’t come up with $6k to take them home.

If you take a close look at that response, it isn't really very good. Here it is in an easier to read orientation:

Note that the amplitude scale uses 10 dB tics. So the Y-scale has a 110 dB range! Almost any speaker could look like it has a flat response with a range like that but these still don't! And whats more, the X-axis was very stretched out, which also creates the illusion of a flatter response, but I have shortened it here so that it is a more reasonable size. I am assuming that these measurements were taken in room which accounts for how bad the low frequency response looks, but there is a 5 to 6 dB peak centered around 3 kHz that could make these speakers sound very edgy. I would think that is an audible problem. I am guessing that could be due to cone break up. Ribbon tweeters don't normally handle low treble ranges well and aren't suited to 2-way designs unless the woofer is able to be crossed over at a relatively high frequency (but they may not be using an actual ribbon tweeter and might be using something else like a planar or AMT tweeter and calling it a 'ribbon' which many manufacturers will do). So it could be that this design is crossing over those 8" woofers at a high frequency- and with a 2nd order slope- and that could be causing some heavy cone breakup in the 2 kHz to 4 kHz range. There is a lot of smoothing in that graph which can actually cover up the severity of the breakup artifacts, but it isn't masking it totally. The moral of the story is don't use 8" woofers with an actual ribbon tweeter.

 

[Pogre]

Whew! Hard night at the shop. Sorry I don’t have endless free time to drop this in a straight up Boom-Pow melee!

Next up is one of my favorites. I stopped here first because I thought it would be safe, what with it being my very first audio show and all. Regardless, Rick and I had conversed previously, and I was excited to have the chance to meet him and hear what Selah Audio was about. My first impression was solid, and I returned at the end of the day to hear if I was right. I was.
Rick said he designed this for the show. At first I was like... where’s the beef?!!! But it didn’t take long to hear the beef!

I present to you the 4-way Cali4!

I was impressed by the sound coming from this diminutive tower. Unassuming in stature, it proved to be big in sound. Clean, accurate, and easy to listen too. Going back for seconds was icing on the cake.
I found my note, and if I got it right, the drivers were crossed at 200, 800, and 4000Hz.
I hope to learn what he used after this weekend. It was nice!

Ok, you got me. It was one of my favorite rooms. This was one of the most natural sounding speakers in the show. Steep at $7k, sure. But compared to the travesty I posted before, you could build a 7channel system using this!



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Looks a little like the Ultra towers with the shape and bass drivers on the side like that.

 

[ryanosaur]

Looks a little like the Ultra towers with the shape and bass drivers on the side like that.

I thought that too! For the size of the tower, form followed function for sure. He had to do some shoehorning to keep it in such a manageable size.

 

[ryanosaur]

Next up:
PureAudioProject and Whammerdyne

The PureAudioProject Trio15 Classic is a new product from them. There wasn’t much information in the room for these, but they are based on their modular Trio15 open baffle speakers: as an “out-of-the-box” classic, non-modular design.
I will say that the bass on these, 29Hz extension on the low end, was really nice in that little room. Unfortunately the kids and highs sounded congested, constrained.

IIRC, this speaker is using a small full range driver by Voxativ... stay tuned!

On last note: the Whammerdyne stuff looked AWESOME! I’m still a long way from being able to spit electro-speak and discuss anything worthwhile when it comes to Amps... but they got me on looks! I Believe this is the DLM4+RAM.


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[ryanosaur]

One more room for now. This was one of my favorites. These cats clearly had it down for the full frontal assault: large boardroom, loud sound, great lights. Oh... and the speakers sounded sweet!
Aaudio Imports featuring the Wilson Benesch Act One Evolution and the WB Torus Infrasonic Generator.

This was a serious wow, spectacle aside. Yes there were some flaws, but in general this gear sounded the part. Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Little Wing sounded stunning, for example, while some male vocal that played next sounded a hair stuffy and constrained. Hard to say if that was the speaker or the recording... as they moved on, I noticed that less.

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[ryanosaur]

Another two real quick. Just back from 100+ laps at the pool and on my way to the lumber yard!

Martin Logan CLX ART and Balanced Force 212
I couldn’t get near enough to the sweet spot to really comment on these. The room was jammed up with people listening to the reels. But moving around the room gave the impression that these probably throw a pretty good size sweet spot as SQ was decent on the periphery.

Next, Audio Vision SF, a HiFi shop, brought Focal Sopras to the party.

These guys were very nicely set up, great sound in their room, and they were having fun doing it!


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[ryanosaur]

Gotta keep on pushing... getting toward the really good stuff. Toward, but first the rest of the mediocre. (Don’t misunderstand... these were still good... just not the full Wow.)

Margules Orpheus, 2.5-way, ($12k?)

By far the most intriguing in this group of speakers. Using some esoteric vinyl art music, while I was in the room, didn't really show them off in any way that I would write home about. A few good dynamic teases was about all I got in 10 minutes. *shrugs

Audio Note UK AN-E

Meh.

Ryan Speakers R620, 2.5-way, $3500/pr.

Not worst in show... I already gave that out! Most Uninspired Demo of Show!!! Dude was just playing a video of Mark Knopfler, Live. While I respect him as a musician, it would have been more enthralling watching a Blancmange set up instead.

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[ryanosaur]

And the last two before I get to the creamy top.

Sound Lab Majestic 645 e-stat

Joseph Audio Perspective2 Graphene, $15k

Both of these rooms sounded nice. No complaints. The Sound Lab E-stats did impress. Joseph Audio was tripping on vinyl and the rep couldn’t figure out how to switch from mono to stereo. That aside, Illinois Jacquet performing Harlem Nocturne was really natural sounding and worth the trouble.


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[ryanosaur]

Earlier, I showed the Pure Audio Project speakers and mentioned a company called Voxativ.

They were here, too, demoing a kit system... you choose one of two towers or a standmount pair, they come with the Absolute Box (am integrated amp, dac, with custom dsp, and WiFi/Bluetooth). Literally a plug and play system.

They were demoing the Hagen Standmount. All three speaker options, though, feature one of their full range drivers (some of which PAP used in their designs as well.)

A little on the bright side, but these guys were not ashamed to rock out. Overall very nice impact and wow factor coming from such a small package. I hung around for 3 or 4 cuts before moving along. Would’ve loved to hear one of the towers.

For anyone interested, check out the drivers on their website! Not for the faint of heart.


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[Swerd]

Interesting that you liked the Joseph Audio Perspective 2 speakers. I heard & liked them several years ago as the Perspectives, then priced at about $13,000 a pair. Now they have graphene coated magnesium alloy cone woofers and cost $15k .

I liked them a lot. As Jim Salk and Dennis Murphy were also at that show, I asked them to go hear them. They both liked them as well. And both pointed out that the Salk HT2TL performed at least as well at a significantly lower price. Jim said the Seas Excel W16 drivers in the Perspective cost a bit more than the larger Seas Excel W18 drivers in the HT2TL. But he wondered how they might model in a MLTL type cabinet. Both he and Dennis agreed the RAAL ribbon should sound better than the Seas Excel Millenium tweeter in the Perspective.

About a year or two later, Jim announced the Veracity ST. It used two Seas Excel W16s plus a RAAL ribbon tweet, arranged as an MTM, in a MLTL cabinet with the same footprint as the SongTower, but it had >95% of the performance of the HT2TL. I had always wanted the HT2TLs, but don't have the floor space they require. I bought my Veracity STs 3 years ago and love them. I paid less than one third of what the Perspective2 costs, and that included premium ropey cherry veneer and shipping .

Jim Salk provided this photo when they were new. Now the cherry has turned a nice warm red color.

 

[ryanosaur]

Busy. So much busy. But that’s a good thing.

Most interestingly useful-less speaker. What?!

These are huge. 4 10” woofers total, 2 each in the upper and lower cabinets, with the horn loaded mid and plasma tweeter.

Acapella Audio Arts Campanile 2, $66,500

These things need an enormous parlor. Something I don’t have in my back pocket!
In all, I enjoyed the sound with these, but on first visit was troubled that it wasn’t very loud... not like the memorex commercial, but in the sense that the demos didn’t go anywhere or do anything. There was no display of these having any dynamics whatsoever. In all, they just sounded sterile. There were hints of life here and there, but nothing reached out and grabbed me.
On second visit at the end of my day, I was drawn in n by Dire Straits Brothers In Arms. Well they had finally opened these up a bit and started showing them off. A great song, well recorded and produced, it was nice to have my earlier criticism checked slightly. But only slightly. The main thing I walked away thinking is they don’t deliver fully where it would count: that they couldn’t fill up that parlor they would need to be placed in. Perhaps some of there smaller brethren would handle a more intimate room?


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[Pogre]

My uncle worked for Dr. Alan Hill, a pioneer in plasma speaker tech years ago at Plasmatronics. I got to audition a pair right in his office and was completely blown away by the sound. I could walk up to the tweeter and blow it out like a candle. The sound would stop until it reignited again. The tech is so cool, but also pretty unwieldy (at least it was, you needed to have a tank of helium to feed them). I like seeing that it's not been abandoned. I think those plasma speakers were the best sounding speakers I've heard.

 

[ryanosaur]

My uncle worked for Dr. Alan Hall, a pioneer in plasma speaker tech years ago at Plasmatronics. I got to audition a pair right in his office and was completely blown away by the sound. I could walk up to the tweeter and blow it out like a candle. The sound would stop until it reignited again. The tech is so cool, but also pretty unwieldy (at least it was, you needed to have a tank of helium to feed them). I like seeing that it's not been abandoned. I think those plasma speakers were the best sounding speakers I've heard.

No tank of helium. One of the photos showed the back of the tweeter box with just wires going into it. In their literature they refer to it as an Ion Tweeter. I do remember as I was walking in and looking for a good place to sit, when i got down to the level of the tweeter there was a red light back in its horn. Not that it was much too see, but bummed that the photo didn't show. when I went to edit it, it was there. *shrugs

 

[ryanosaur]

3 more speakers to come... anybody who's been playing along knows that I've already mentioned 2 but haven't showed yet. Soon my friends, soon.

 

[slipperybidness]

My uncle worked for Dr. Alan Hill, a pioneer in plasma speaker tech years ago at Plasmatronics. I got to audition a pair right in his office and was completely blown away by the sound. I could walk up to the tweeter and blow it out like a candle. The sound would stop until it reignited again. The tech is so cool, but also pretty unwieldy (at least it was, you needed to have a tank of helium to feed them). I like seeing that it's not been abandoned. I think those plasma speakers were the best sounding speakers I've heard.

Hmmm.....and the plasma didn't have any UV filtering or shielding?

Plasma tends to emit UV radiation, that likely was not a very safe setup.

 

[Pogre]

Hmmm.....and the plasma didn't have any UV filtering or shielding?

Plasma tends to emit UV radiation, that likely was not a very safe setup.

Perhaps, but it was 20 years ago when I heard them. This is a pic of what the tweeter looked like.

Those speakers look a lot like the ones I heard and my memory of the tweeter is almost exactly what I saw. It does look like it would produce a lot of uv...

He didn't make very many of them, but they made a little splash in the audio world back in the day.

 

[panteragstk]

3 more speakers to come... anybody who's been playing along knows that I've already mentioned 2 but haven't showed yet. Soon my friends, soon.