Montreal's 15th Festival Son et Image
I love hi-fi shows. I like the crowds -- these are my
people crowding the halls, listening to demos, obsessing over details. Sometimes I get
recognized by the demonstrators and pulled up front, but I really dig wandering into a
room and listening to what other people have brought to audition with. I usually end up
going home with whole lists of records and CDs to seek out.
Like everybody else, I enjoy hearing the big blockbuster
systems, but I think the real action's in the hotel rooms. That's where you see the
new stuff and get to hear real-world systems. At least, you do if the exhibitor is
intelligent. Some folks shoot themselves in the foot by playing huge speakers in the
cramped little rooms; the savvy ones play mid-sized or smaller systems and spend hours
sweating placement and room tuning.
The Montreal Festival Son et Image is rapidly
becoming my favorite show. It's small enough to do in a single day, if you rush
frantically from room to room, but there's enough variety to spread over the whole
three-day run. It's not wildly expensive for exhibitors, so you get a chance to see a lot
of products that haven't established themselves -- yet. And it has a low-key, neighborly
vibe that has exhibitors helping each other and visiting each other's rooms checking out
the products and the sounds they make. It's fun.
This year, the show celebrated its 15th anniversary by
expanding to a third hotel for its featured workshops. But it retained that funky,
friendly vibe I've come to recognize as its signature. There were a few video-oriented
exhibits, but Festival Son et Image remains steadfastly a two-channel show.
This year I attempted to reduce the number of variables I
encountered as I tried to assess sound in room after room, so I burned a CD-R, which
allowed me to hear the same songs everywhere I went. The song I relied most heavily upon
was John Atkinson's recording of the men's chorus Cantus singing "Shenandoah"
from Let Your Voice Be Heard [Cantus Recording CTS1201], but I also used Tom Waits'
"Jersey Girl" from the disc Used Songs: (1973-1980) [Elektra/Rhino
R278351] to see what well-recorded rock sounded like, and the first movement from James
Horner's Iris [Sony Classical SK89806-2] to hear a full-scale orchestra. Since many
exhibitors attempted to pocket the disc when I wasn't looking, it must have sounded pretty
impressive to them, too.
 My first visit was to hear Sonus Faber's
newest model, the Cremona, a three-way, four-driver, 42.9"-tall floorstander that
resembles a slimmed-down Amati Homage and costs $7495/pair (all prices are US dollars
unless otherwise specified). Bill Peugh, Sumiko's man on the scene, had carefully
orchestrated a pre-show audition for Soundstage!'s Doug Schneider, Marc Mikelson,
and myself, but all he had in the room was a Wadia 861 CD Player, a Nagra PLP preamp, and
a pair of Nagra 861 tubed monoblocks -- and the Cremonas, of course. No chairs, no cables,
and no room treatment -- all were deep in show limbo. Marc and Doug moved on, but I hung
out in the room and we scrounged some cables from other exhibitors and set the room up
just to have something to listen to while we BS'ed.
What a mistake! We kept getting distracted by the music,
which simply would not be denied. I felt that "Shenandoah" was particularly
luscious and preternaturally focused between the Cremonas. Built of thin curved wood
strips ("lute design" SF calls it), the cabinets lack the 21-layer lacquer
finish of the Amatis -- a thinner matte finish is not only a lot less expensive to apply,
but may let you hear more of the "wood" sound, if what I've learned of luthery
applies to speaker building.
The Cremonas boast Scan-Speak's nifty ring tweeter, which
claims extraordinary dispersion characteristics. Two Scan-Speak 6.5"
impregnated-paper woofers and a 5" impregnated-paper midrange driver completed the
driver complement. The Cremona was certainly one of the sweetest, most natural-sounding
speakers I heard in Montreal. I'm going to attempt to get a pair for review.
 I was also knocked out by
Gershman Acoustic's new $1799/pair floorstanding two-way Chameleon loudspeaker. The
cabinet is triangular in cross-section (the 8" woofer and 1" soft-dome tweeter
are mounted on the flat side facing the listener, natch). I could hear the room bloom --
what there was of it -- on "Shenandoah," and "Jersey Girl" had deep
bass and crisp, tuneful drums supporting Waits' growl. The Chameleons were powered by a
real-world system -- a Celeste integrated amplifier and Rega Planet CD player -- and they
sounded great in a small bedroom spread wide apart. I expect Gershman's going to sell a
lot of 'em.
MDG, a new company to me, had a full line of electronics on
display: two solid-state power amps, the ST-800 and ST-1000 (completely dual-mono down to
having two external power supplies); a sweet-looking solid-state preamp, the Allegrio; and
a pair of integrateds, the SS Allegrio Integro 80 and the Accolade Integro 80. All are
well-built and they all sounded superb: sweet, detailed and full of punch and power.
Driving a pair of Triangle Celius, the Allegrio and ST-1000 had pace and swing, not to
mention oodles of drop-dead bass. MDG doesn't have American distribution yet, but it
should -- the stuff is a joy to behold and behear and the prices are reasonable: $2000 CDN
for the preamp, $4200 CDN for the dual-mono ST-1000. (And only $2700 CDN for the Accolade
integrated!) Somebody pick this line up soon -- we 'Muricans need more stuff like
this.
I was impressed by the sound of the Triangle Celiuses (hmmmm,
are we developing a trend?) driven by Unison's little 80Wpc hybrid integrated, the Unico,
which features, of all things, an RF remote! The beautiful little Unico has Unison's
trademark luscious wood front panel and sexy Italian styling -- all for $1295. Mated to a
pair of Celiuses and driven by an Audio Analogue Maestro, the Unico gave
"Shenandoah" unbelievable layering and propulsive drive. I nearly melted into
the liquid soundstage of Iris, and Tom Waits seemed to be using a finer grade of
gravel in his throat than usual. I could have lived in the Unison room for the rest of the
weekend.
I'm glad I didn't, because I ran into EveAnna Manley
outside her room. I thought we'd lost EveAnna to pro audio, where it seems
everybody wants to incorporate her gear into their studios. But no, Manley Labs has
brought out a whole line of "fishy" products to keep its nifty little Stingray
integrateds company. EveAnna had fully differential 110Wpc Snapper monoblocks
($4250/pair), the Shrimp preamp ($1880), and the Steelhead phono stage ($7300), and they
all looked mighty tasty. "Always fresh, never frozen!" boasts Manley Labs. All
three are Mitch Margolis designs, and the Steelhead is a low output-impedance design that
sports a big ol' volume control on the front panel -- in case you want to directly drive a
power amp with it. By the way, Manley has dropped their champagne finish and gone back to
their classic anthracite livery.
My old friend Jacques Reindeau, formerly of Oracle, shared
EveAnna's room, showing off his new Maät loudspeakers ($6500/pair), a resistively vented
two-way design utilizing a huge Supravox 215 woofer and a Hi-Vi Research biodynamic
tweeter. The speaker boasts 94dB sensitivity and utilizes a 12dB/octave electrical
crossover, which, combined with the drivers' characteristics, represents a 24dB/octave
acoustic filter. The Maät has gorgeous sound that's not in the least "hi-fi." I
can't say that it won’t do those hi-fi things, such as soundstaging or pinpoint
imaging, but what it was doing was completely seductive -- and the speaker seemed
to reveal the emotional gestalt of performance after performance. This is the hardest
thing to do under show conditions and the Maät did it in spades. Keep your eye (ear?) out
for this one.
Another room that got to the gooey center of every song I
heard was Cary Audio, where Dennis Had was vertically bi-amping a pair of Monitor Audio
Gold Reference 60s ($4000/pair) with two stereo "Rocket 88s" (CAD-808:
$2500/each). The Rocket 88s offer a choice between Ultralinear operation (40Wpc) and
triode (20Wpc) and can be switched from one to the other on the fly: Dennis demonstrated
several different combinations, including Ultralinear for the woofers and triode for the
mids/tweeters, which was the cherries.
 Dennis was passing out a
flier touting vertical bi-amping, claiming that four channels were better for stereo than
two. What did you expect an amplifier manufacturer to claim? Still, I've done it for years
with certain loudspeakers and he's got a point. Two identical stereo amps do
frequently sound far better than a single one (or even two differently powered stereo
amps) when driving bi-wirable loudspeakers. You can look up Dennis' handout at the Cary website and see
whether or not you agree.
His results were certainly hard to argue with. The Monitor
GR-60s sounded precise and effortless in reproducing some disco-era Elton John when we
entered the room. Now that's not my favorite era for Elton, but as I listened I was drawn
into the sound and began to buy it totally on its own sonic terms. By the song's end, I
was actually disappointed that there wasn't more. The Elton disc illustrated Duke
Ellington's dictum that there are only two types of music -- the good stuff and everything
else.
I also loved Verity Audio's Fidelio ($7150/pair), or
at least how it sounded paired with Balanced Audio Technology's 150Wpc VK-300x integrated
amp ($3995, $4495 or $4995, depending on whether you opt for an upgrade parts kit and/or
the remote-control option) and VK-D5SE CD player ($5000). Geoff Poore was demoing with a
George Faber session he'd produced the week previously in Minneapolis, and it was tight.
You might not have heard Faber: He was signed to WEA by Lowell George a few weeks before
George's death and later he brought out a disc on PopeMusic just prior to Gene Pope's
folding the label. Let's hope the third time's the charm because you really ought
to hear this session.
The Fidelio/BAT combo had slam, pace and swing and, as I
discovered with "Shenandoah," an ability to float an image in the room that you
could have photographed. Great stuff!
Fidelio's room paired the speakers up with a Nagra system
(PLP, 861s, and the r-to-r digital recorder) and the system was incredibly transparent,
even at low volume. It also exhibited just about the broadest dynamic range I heard at the
show.
Lest you think that tubes dominated the show, there was
some superb solid-state sound as well. Linn's room with the Komris ($40,000/pair), Klimax
Solos ($19,000/pair), AVI 5103 ($8495), and Sondek CD12 ($12,000) was an oasis of
musicality and classy understatement. I'm not sure whether I sank deeper into the chair
cushions or the musicality, but that room was the most relaxing, un-fatiguing, downright
comfortable place I perched in over the whole weekend. I was so mellow I forgot to ask 'em
to play my disc. (And Linn's $2995 Classik Movie system was probably the coolest new
product at the show.)
 Simaudio's Moon Eclipse CD player
($5295), P-5 preamp ($3995), and giganto Rock mono amps ($29,995/pair) made Dynaudio's
Contour 3.0 speakers ($5995/pair) really sing. The Contour 3.0 is a big speaker
that's not too big for normal-sized rooms. It looked fantastic in an exotic veneer, and it
sounded authoritative and intensely musical with the Cantus track. But the Waits track --
whoah mama! -- that was deep, relaxed, tuneful, and completely engrossing. The
Contour 3.0 is like Clark Kent -- it looks modest enough, but when it's time for the
tights and cape, it's super.
I heard a lot that impressed me at this year's Festival Son
et Image, but in some ways I saved the best for last. On my way out of the Dorval after
the Show's official closing time, I stuck my head into Finnish loudspeaker company
Amphion's room. Fortunately Anssi Hyvonen was willing to play his $3250/pair Xenons for
me. I was groggy and couldn't remember who Amphion and Xenon were (Amphion, son of Zeus
and Antiope, built Thebes by the music of his lute). That was just fine with Anssi -- he
was too tired to remember, either.
The Xenons were strikingly handsome and they sounded
marvelous. The tweeter's located in a declivity (a wave guide, emphatically not a
horn). As a result, the speaker's dispersion pattern is hypercardioid, which means it
interacts with side walls and ceiling less than conventional designs do. The listener sits
inside the first reflection points, which goes a long way toward removing the room's sound
from the equation. Expect these speakers to be everywhere within five years --
they've got it all: good sound, good looks, and reasonable prices. We may all be building
to the sound of Amphion's lute at this rate.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
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