Last year, I only spent a few hours at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest at the end of the show. I was disappointed that I saw so little of the show. This year, I spent all day Saturday and part of Sunday at the show and I STILL didn’t see many rooms. With dozens of rooms on seven different floors, there was a lot to see.

I started Saturday by stopping by to see some friends and a speaker I have been looking forward to hearing: AV123 and their new Strata Mini. Their blackout room with directors chair seating stood out from most of the rest of the other small rooms that largely looked the same. The Strata Minis were playing through the Onix/Melody SP3 tube integrated amp sourced by the Onix CD-2 CD player. I took the suggested seat in the second row and ran through a couple of my demo tracks as well as a suggested track from Sean Parque. The Minis sounded very good - very clean and focused. They have one oddity: the proper listening position for correct imaging was about a foot higher than my seated position (I am about 6′ tall). The production version of the speaker will be ~3″ shorter, so this might improve (only two of the four drivers will be getting lower, so its hard to say what the impact will be). Within this elevated sweet spot, the speaker performed extremely well and I liked it even more when I revisited at the end of the show and it was on different amplification (Channel Islands VPC-2 and Emotiva MPS-1). The Mini’s $1595 price tag was the exception to the rule at this show as you’ll see (SP3 and CD-2 are $1k each, bringing the total to ~$3600).

The Strata Mini:

AV123 Static display items:

X-Sub, ERT, XCD-88, SP3, Ref1

Emotiva separates and R-DES

I briefly poked my head into the Cryoparts room, but since the host was busy discussing connectors with another visitor, I just snapped a picture and moved on (Eastern Electric components with Eminent Technology LFT-16 speakers). This was one of the less expensive setups with ~$1k in speakers, $1100 CD player, $1500 phono preamp and $1800 integrated amplifier.

Around the corner was one of the rooms containing speakers from Eben (the other is covered later). I thought these ribbon tweeter MTM speakers sounded quite good with its Chapter and Electrocompaniet electronics. The price, however, has jumped into the $7k range for the speakers and the electronics are $20k+ for the set. Did they sound very good? Yes, but the transition from a sub $4k setup to a nearly $30k setup set the tone for the show for me. “What do you get for several fold the price?” is a question I asked myself several times during the show and I will continue to bring up the system costs as we go.

Eben X-centric and Chapter/Electrocompaniet electronics:

One of the Audio Unlimited rooms was a combination of JMLabs and Pathos. It sounded nice, but wasn’t especially memorable for me. At ~$4500 for the Pathos Logos integrated amp and $7500 for the JM Labs Electra 1027 be, the system was in the middle of the spectrum for the show. The Electras were hooked up when I was in the room.

The GR Research/RAW Acoustics/Dodd Audio room was and interesting one this year. It started with the RAW Acoustics RA8 with sub and later had a yet-to-be-named speaker from GR Research (no sub on these - they have integrated amped 12″ woofers). Amps and pre-amp were Dodd Audio, transport was CEC and DAC was from ACK. I enjoyed the room more than I enjoyed the GR LS Alphas last year. Both speakers put out big sound with a wide listening area. My personal preference was for the unnamed GR Research speaker. The RA8 lists for $2500. The Dodd equipment isn’t listed on their website and I didn’t ask about prices, so I’m not certain the cost. I would estimate $5k+ range for all of the electronics (based on other Dodd products). There hasn’t been a price announced on the GR speakers that I have seen.

I got a brief listen to the RAW HT3 at the end of the show. These sounded quite good. Better than their small size and pricetag ($1300) would indicate.

It was good to see Danny Ritchie (GR) and Gary Dodd again, and to meet Al (RAW) for the first time. I think my hearing took a temporary hit when Danny cranked some Rob Zombie I put in.

RAW RA8 and Dodd electronics:

GR Research unnamed speaker

The ListenUp room was B&W and Classe components. It was one of the rooms that I didn’t hear my own material in, but I listened in to some Puddle of Mudd for a bit. It wasn’t good music to indicate the quality of the system other than playing loudly. I wasn’t too concerned about sticking around since they are a local retailer and I can stop by and hear this in their room. Another megabucks setup (~$20k speakers and $30k+ electronics)

I briefly popped into the room with Verity and Red Rock Audio setup, but there was a discussion going on between the host and another individual, so I didn’t really hear anything. Verity Sarastro ($30k) and Red Rocks Renaissance ($38k) make this into another big money system. Here’s a quick pic:

Next was the mbl America room, ranking very high on the megabucks scale with $150k+ of running equipment ($47k speakers, $56k amps, $19k preamp, etc) plus static displays. I listen a bit to someone else’s tracks for a bit and they sounded very good. It was very cool to watch the metal ribs twitch when it was cranking and to walk around the speakers as they played. The glossy equipment and unique design is certainly eye-catching, but I don’t know that I would place the room in the best of show.

Okay, that was what I saw of the second floor (ha - you thought you were halfway done). More to come…

Forward to page 2 of RMAF coverage

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