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Rock Mountain Audiofest -- 2012


Gilbert

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This was a great show, when I visited my 2nd. RMAF 2 yrs. ago, there were more rooms than I was able to visit, lots of vendors, lots of cool sounding gear and of course the odd-balls that made me wish I had a BS Buttom. I'd be inclined to go this year, but have too much work.

Excellent show.... enjoy.

http://audiofest.net/2012/index.php

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the Vittoras sounded great, certainly one of my favorites of the show. regretfully i only listened to the Verettas for a minute, as i was too eager to get to the Vittoras.

this was my first audiofest, and i was quite surprised at how underwhelmed i was at a lot of the equipment there. i don't browse hifi shops much, so my main objective was comparing what is currently available in speakers to my ancient klipschorns. i left very happy with my own speakers, especially considering that my system cost me roughly half of what the very lowest priced systems at the show would.

also surprising to me, was how bad the JBL Hartsfield reproductions sounded. perhaps one of the worst sounding speakers i heard. they sounded like 50 year old speakers that need to be recapped.

i'm off to install my new magic shiny tiny spheres and cable elevators now...

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If you are referring to the JBL Hartsfields in the Classic Audio room, those only look like JBL Hartsfields. The pair on the show had field coil compression drivers, woofers and Fostex T500 super tweeters. I thought those sounded good. What didn't you like about about?

Greg's Vittoras sounded better this time around. Apparently a lot of upgrades were made.

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Yes - and the passive SVS subwoofer display was awesome. I will try to post some pictures.

My favorites at the show are the Wilson Audio Alexias, the DEQX demo and the MBL 101Es.... wish I had the $$.

Attendance appeared low this year. This was my fourth show. Prices are ridiculous. Price to performance ratio is also ridiculous. DSD downloads at $50... No wonder this hobby is attracting virtually zero young people and dying....

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t may have been the track i heard on them, maybe the amps used, but they sounded exactly like my 62 khorn with the original crossover before i added Crites xovers, it sounded like all drivers were playing full range when they shouldn't have. like i said above, they sounded like 50 year old speakers. i may have been a bit harsh on them, but neither me nor my lady who was with me thought the sounded good. to be fair, we had also just come from the room two doors down with the near half-million dollar system. i forget what the setup was, but it sounded incredible. sorry for being vague, but i hit a lot of rooms in only a few hours, and don't dwell much on the details of some of the equipment i'll never afford.

i was also impressed with the Alexias, my GF loved the orange ones, they would go great in a 60's/70's mod listening room.

i wish more vendors were like the DEQX room, where you could clearly hear an improvement. if any of the cable manufacturers were doing A/B testing, i missed them.

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to be fair, we had also just come from the room two doors down with the near half-million dollar system. i forget what the setup was, but it sounded incredible.

That probably was the Audio Power Labs 833TNT Monoblocks at $175,000 per pair and the Leonardo Model 8 Ribbon Planar Speakers at $65,000 per pair. The Grand Illusion Loudspeaker Cable used was a modest $15,000 per set. Plus a few other niceties I am sure that setup was at least a quarter mil.

It sounded great and was presented very well. I may have even spotted one guy that looked like he could have afforded it.

This was my first show but I thought there were a lot of people and very well attended by manufacturers or resellers too. Guards at the elevators to keep from overcrowding.

I definately went away feeling I had heard "another level of sound quality".

I also left feeling good about my system. I think I am past the point of having to pay incredible sums of money for extremely deminished returns. But it is nice (I guess) to know how much more is out there and to have had the chance to have heard it.

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