RMAF 2017 Impressions

You tell people that they should get out of the hobby and now you tell the whole forum it shouldn't be talking about MQA. If you don't like the subject, please feel free to ignore it I, for one, find the topic interesting and frustrating. So, if I am more than happy to read perspectives from the people here. If I get bored of MQA, I will stop reading about it. But I certainly don't need you telling me what I should and shouldn't be talking about.

 

Absolutely. But, as the other guy who started this particular argument, I can go along with the point of view that some other thread might be a better place for it. I'm sure that Meridian will succeed in making it not go away, at least for a while.

As for what constitutes interest-in/hobby-of/whatever audio... I ignored that anyway. The length of a compressed file can be determined: the length of a hypothetical piece of string can't.

 

You sure do get your panties in a twist around here a lot. "Oh noes! Someone didn't like my Tekken Deep Impact Tweeter Arrays at RMAF! Better get on the forum and defend them." (bwow bwow)

@winders, this is all @AllanMarcus is saying. See: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/mqa.1635/. I know it's closed, but your will to discuss MQA is strong and you appear to be wearing your big-boy pants today so I'm sure you'll find a way. I don't speak for everyone, but I'd appreciate if the focus could return to healthy speculation of what's in Jude's backpack or, you know, actual RMAF impressions in this RMAF impressions thread.

 

No way! I might pause to slag it off in passing if someone mentions it. I'd much rather they didn't.

For just long enough to be caught with them down.

Jude's backpack it is then. Or t-shirts nearby. Etc.

 

And then there's the guy lurking in the background ready to take his lunch money.

 

Little does anyone know, there's a crew going through all the lockers before anyone else gets there, with Jude as the criminal mastermind.

 

Haha, actually I'm the guy in the yellow shirt in the background... just waiting for my opportunity...

 

My impressions

Exit Level Audio custom amp and MrSpeakers Ether E. Wonderful sound, but bass impact just a tad soft.


Me wearing the infamous $100k Utopia. Bling!

The Clears were right in between the Utopia and the Elears. The Clears where brighter than the Elears, but not as balanced and resolving as the Utopia. Looks like Focal is a major player now int he headphone market.

Right at the start I spent some time with the Shangra La. I wasn't overly impressed. I used the demo music on their player, and most sound a little distorted. Maybe it was bad music. Only one song sounded good to me (sorry, I do't recall which one).


Ahh, the McIntosh glow! Always fun.


It appears Tape is back and is the "best" way to reproduce music.

The next big thing might be the "tape stage" where the raw data from the tape is output to an external device. That way you can process the data with tubes, which inherently looks more audiophile.

The Vandersteen speaker room was wonderful, and Richard Vandersteen was there answering questions.



I used to like the MartinLogan electrostat sound, but now I find it a bit harsh and shouty. Still, these neoliths are impressive massive.


Now that's a turntable! ClearAudio No 50. I think this set up is close to $100k without tone arm and cartridge.


The Wu WA33 sounded very good, but man is it expensive. Very smooth sound. No harshness at all from the Utopia. I also compare my Utopia with a Abyss Phi, and I preferred the Utopia. The Abyss had better bass, but the Utopia was more balanced.



The new Harbeth's where very good. I think they were the M30.2 40th anniversary edition. $6500/pair. Piano was especially realistic, to me. Imaging was very nice.


The Schiit room sounded good, but maybe it's the speakers or the equipment, the room didn't have impact. I'm leaning toward the speakers as I heard the Salks in another room, and they just lacked impact.


now that it's been brought up, I did listen to both the floor sanding and stand mount versions of the Tekton's at RMAF. I was impress with the clarity, but something was off with the bass. Some sort of resonance between 100 and 200. I asked about that and Eric felt it was the room. We open the door and listened, then closed the door and listened, and it did change the resonance, so I am included to agree that the small room wasn't ideal for those speaker. Treatments where needed. I will say that for the money, they should incredible. The only other speaker that might compete at thet price level were the Zu Audio "Omen Dirty Weekend" speakers. They are only $1000/pair, but they only build a few hundred per quarter, and they sell out fast. I think they have a wait list. I made the mistake of listen to the MarinLogans before the Tektons, and the Tektons sounds a little congested compared to the MarinLogans, but the MLs are too shouty.

I though the Tektons and Zus sound better than the Salks. Different rooms, equipment and music, so take that with grain of salt.

Also, the Tektons were butt ugly compared to most other speakers (costing 10 times their price).


I also had a good talk with Sandy Gross and he demonstrated his new Triton speakers. I think the news ones are turned better, which less bass bloat, but since it has a built in subwoofer, you can have as much or as little bass as you want. At "only" $5k per pair, they are a pretty good deal for the less serious audiophile.

The Nola Boxer was a great, fun speaker. Maybe a little sibilant, but again, show conditions. For under $3k per pair, worth looking into if you are in the market for stand mounts at that price range.

I listened to the Adante floor standers by ELAC, and spoke with Andrew Jones. Another really nice guy. I have the Debut B6s in my living room for casual listening, and always wondered what Andrew would do with $5k speakers. The Adante is the result. I found them enjoyable, but polite. Sort of Andrew's house sound.

Legacy was demonstrating they DSP with their gigantic Valor speakers. The DSP room correction definitely made the speakers sound better, but that is to be expected.

VK Music has an interesting 300b amp kit on display from Elekit. Pricing ranged from $1100 to over 2K depended on options. I looked at the instruction manual, and it looked pretty easy to follow. It was the TU-8600.

My favorite speakers are from Raidho. Just amazing sound from such small speakers. They have a "low end" brand, ScanSonic, that is more affordable, but I haven't heard. If I win the lotto, I would probably get some towers from them.

The best sounding room, IMHO, was the Joseph Audio (Jeff Joseph was there; he's a really nice guy). I believe he was showing the Pearl3 speakers. Moderately large and gorgeous. at prior shows I really liked the Pulsars from them. I also was introduced to the "tape stage" at this room. More audiophile fun.

 

I totally understand where @AllanMarcus is coming from. From his original post above, you can see that he was just trying to be nice and accidentally started a broader discussion about MQA. I think that's an important and interesting conversation to have, but it isn't related to RMAF. As @zonto pointed out, the original MQA thread is closed. But there was a recent thread [link to MQA Op-Ed Thread] that had some good discussion (thread still open). Perhaps that would be a more appropriate venue for folks who want to continue that conversation.

 

@AllanMarcus i'd enjoy the voucher if no one has taken you up on it yet.

 

My line of discussion isn't about MQA itself — it's about whether the recording you purchased was accurately described. You said that you purchased a "FLAC 24-bit 192kHz MQA" recording. Is that exactly how the vendor described it? Because the MQA part of it doesn't make sense. 24/192 is the source material that would be input into an MQA encoder. It isn't MQA until it comes out of the encoder, and the output file wouldn't be 24/192.

 

Yes. Copied and pasted. My guess is that it started at a flac with that resolution, than was MQA encoded back to a FLAC.

I would suggest you research on the web about how this works as I think there is a ton of information out there.

 

Oh, I also listened to the new PSB ANC headphones and spoke with Paul Barton. I love that one can chat with all these great names in our hobby at these events. At any rate, the headphones where pretty crapping passive, sounded good active, and did ANC very well.

 

I was pursuing a small point and I'll make this my last post for this discussion. I have in fact already read quite a bit about MQA (as an engineer I'm curious about how it works technically).

I presume this is the recording you purchased: https://www.onkyomusic.com/#/US/artist/grateful-dead/release/go-to-heaven-6252543
I think it is really confusing for Onkyo Music to describe it as "FLAC 24-bit 192kHz MQA". At first glance, one would think you'll receive FLAC 24-bit 192kHz files. Am I correct that what you actually got were 16/44 FLAC files?

 

According to VLC the underlying FLAC file is 24bit/48kHz. I assume it "unfolds" to 24/192.

So yes, we all see the potential for confusion. no need for further comment. Please complain to Onkyo.

 

Wait. The amp comes pre-built for $2k-ish? I thought it was a DIY amp and unbuilt, with all the upgrades, was $2k-ish

 

Did anyone have a chance to listen to the Headamp Gilmore Lite MK2?

 

@AllanMarcus Thank you for including some speaker evaluations as well as headphone, very much appreciated!

If it's possible, what headphone would sound similar to Joseph Audio's signature or the new Harbeth 30.2? Lots of raves about the JA Pulsars but I won't be able to demo those (or the Harbeths) and with your 'phones as a reference I would find it really valuable.

 

Yikes, I would have no idea how to answer that. How speakers sounds is so dependent on placement, room acoustics, and equipment chain. Maybe Darrin from @Out Of Your Head could measure those speakers and come up with a profile and a recommendation.