INTRODUCTION

Great to be back at Toronto Audiofest! As this is my third audio show, I want to try something a bit different for my review. Rather than covering each room, I will focus on specific components, starting with speakers and headphones, then turntables, and then electronics.

Why this approach? “Hear” me out lol. The combination of gear in each room is not necessarily borne out of optimization. In other words, they are not always the “best possible” combination of components. Rather, they can be different product lines sold by the same dealer or by the same brand.

In the context of an audio show, it makes perfect sense for Sonus Faber speakers to be powered by McIntosh amps as they are both owned by the same company. But in real life, just because I buy Sonus Faber speakers doesn’t mean I haaavvvveeee to buy McIntosh amps and vice versa. Sure, there are advantages to sticking with one brand such as confidence that all components will be compatible or unified aesthetics as you would get with a complete Nagra system. However, I prefer to mix and match.

So with that said, my first Audiofest review focused on speakers that produce the best BASS, my second focused on those that stirred my emotions, and my third will focus on building my “dream system.”

Before I get to the audio gear, a couple of quick pics. I started my last review with a pic of a classic Breguet. This time, something a bit more exotic, an MB&F Horological Machine courtesy of Adrian from Audio Excellence! This watch features his classic speedometer-style display on the side of the case and a dial showing the movement with spinning, and I mean spinning rotor.

It was great to chat about the state of hi-fi with an industry icon like Adrian, who got an Achievement Award at last year’s TAF.

Also great to run into famed cellist Vincent Belanger again.

LOUDSPEAKERS

A well-known YouTuber, Jay’s Audio Lab, made a very interesting point about speakers that I wanted to put to the test. To paraphrase, he prefers tall speakers because they can project sound to a higher level and this is more in line with listening to live music up on a stage while you are sitting in the front row in the pit in front of the orchestra. In other words, the music is coming from “above” you. I think he is on to something here.

Conversely, that may be why all my favourite speakers so far have been shorter in height with big bass drivers down low. For example, the Acora VRC (so far my absolute favourite) has two 12” drivers per speaker that rumble the ground similar to the dance clubs I used to visit or even like the subs I had in my car. By contrast, the Audio-Nec Evo 3 that I heard at Montreal Audiofest 2024 has one 12” woofer at the base and a second one about 6’ high, throwing bass from a height that I am not used to.

Of course, the Acora VRC and high-end speakers like that aren’t designed to “compete” with PA type systems that you would find in dance clubs or rock concerts and are much more dynamic in range, aesthetically pleasing, artistically crafted etc. etc. It would be silly to directly compare a 550lb. granite piece of beauty and all its engineering to a black square that gets thrown around on stage lol.

My point was more about the fact that the way you are used to listening to music can be a factor in which speaker is right for you. The bottom line is that we don’t just have a taste in genres of music, we also develop a taste in the way we listen to or experience music (as an aside, I recently had a conversation about how to get newer generations who grew up listening to music on Apple earbuds into high-end audio but I digress).

So with all that said, let’s start with Acora! No VRC this year but we were treated to the SRB and accompanying BedRock bass module.

The SRB is constructed of 2cm solid slabs of Black Granite/Quartzite and features a beryllium tweeter.

The BedRock features a 12” rear firing woofer that plays all the way down to 18HZ!

Some samples of their incredible sound from two different cameras

I also got a sneak peek of prototypes of Acora’s upcoming new speaker line made in marble. Sorry no pics of these.

Next over to Focal to see their new powered speaker, the Diva Utopia! The active bassreflex speaker has built in Naim electronics with Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology that surpasses CD standards at 192kHz/24bits, can be controlled via the Focal & Naim app, a remote control, and voice assistants such as Google Assistant and Siri. The package comes in at under $60k.

A bit bolder in style than the classic Focal offerings with its felt OEKO-TEX skin and red accents on the tweeter

A quick sound demo

As I mentioned in my Montreal Audiofest Review, the Magico S3 is the best of all speakers that I have heard at projecting sound around the room. Another listen confirms this.

That having been said, to my ear the Audivector QR 7 SE was very close to that Magico sound.

Especially with Nordost on the line

I was more interested in Audiovector’s Trapeze Reimagined, a modern take on their classic 1979 design.   The Trapeze features a proprietary 12-inch high-power mid/bass driver with an 8” internal isobaric driver behind it. They lived up to my expectations and sounded great! In fact, I spent quite a bit of time in this room listening to a few songs through them.

I will be adding a sound video soon (exceeded my daily limit)

I keep hearing amazing things about Elac but had never heard them so I made it a point not to miss them at this show. Glad I did as they are another brand that lived up to/exceeded expectations!

The Concentro S 503 Bookshelf Speakers can be optimized for your room by using three exchangeable Directivity Control Rings (DCRs) to adjust midrange directivity. Per their website, the rings range from more Direct (often preferred for nearfield) to more Diffuse (often preferred for farther listening positions). They sounded amazing and it is hard to believe so much sound is coming out of such a small speaker. I think they were $12k.

Sound check video

Imagine pairing the Elac with this SVS sub that was on display lol

As much as I liked the Elac, the EPOS ES-14N could still be the champ of bookshelf speakers. As you may recall from my review of last year’s show, I had a squirrel moment where their powerful bass drew me into the room to hear the tail end of Hey Now. This year I made a dedicated stop to listen to Hey Now from start to finish and again compare them against other speakers in the line such as the ES-7N, which recently won an award for best speaker in the 1500-2500 British Pound price range.

ES-14N vid

ES-7N vid

As well as against the Fyne Vintage. Again, the ES-14 was the best! I can listen to Hey Now on repeat on them all day. And our testing seemed to have a similar effect of attracting other show goers as they were pouring into the room.

Fyne vid

We even managed to snag my favourite audio YouTuber, Audiophile Junkie! Great to see you again.

Speaking of vintage, I love JBL, both in look and sound. My pictures don’t do justice to the glossy black finish of the L100

I love the look of the Mission as well (I didn’t get to hear them though)

I heard the Stein Bobby M horn speaker with HighLine Bobby Bass Extension at Montreal Audiofest but it was standing room only so I didn’t get the best position. This time I got the sweet spot and they sounded even better! For even more bass, you can add a second Extension on top of the horn!

(I will be adding a video of this one as well)

Up till now I have mainly been talking about “short” speakers but remember the hypothesis about tall ones so let’s look at some of those, like the Kroma Atelier Irya from their reference line brought to us by our good friends at Bliss Acoustics. Similar to the Audio-Nec, it features two 10-inch drivers, one at the top and one at the bottom (there are also even bigger versions with two 12’s and two 15’s) and is ported in the rear to give a frequency response of 19Hz- 27kHz. They sounded as great as you would expect. The listeners next to me felt it was the best in show.

Kroma Atelier sound vid

Great to have the rep fly in from Spain.

I covered the Børresen Acoustics X6 in more detail in my Montreal Audiofest review so here is another quick look and another sound sample.

Quick X6 vid

The Børresen Acoustics C1 was on static display

Unfortunately my pic of the Von Schweikert Audio Ultra 55 came out blurry (apologies) but that shouldn’t take away from their amazing sound. They were playing jazz music through reel-to-reel and while this is not my usual type of music, I can certainly appreciate the sound. So clean.

Solid sound out of the Dali Rubikore as well.

Dali sound vid

I have heard the KEF Blade before but this was by far the best experience of them. I should have taken a closer look at the amp setup. 

The last speakers that I listened to were the Coherent M18 FC31J with 18” field coil woofer! Pretty good way to end my listening sessions though next time I would want to hear them with digital media and my type of music (as opposed to jazz on vinyl).

Now for a few static shots, Harbeth

Kharma

IMHO the Gold Audio KB2 were the best looking speakers of the show. They remind me of old photography equipment

Corby’s Audio

Charisma Capresse bookshelf speakers

Spendor

Bricasti

Pure Fidelity

EARVANA

New this year, EARVANA fest featuring a huge array of headphones located in the hotel next door to the main show.  I missed the $75k reference Sennheiser HE1 headphones last year and I wasn’t going to make that same mistake again. Actually, this is more of a “system” with tube amp included and is claimed to have “the lowest distortion ever measured in a sound reproduction system.”

I listened to a few tracks including my reference Lil Wayne, Five Tiger Generals, and the theme from Bladerunner. All produced fantastic bass with the promised 0 distortion.

I was super impressed with the Focal Utopia headphones with Naim Uniti Atom headphone amp last year and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do a head-to-head comparison against the HE1.

I dare say I preferred the Focals! They are definitely more “aggressive” than the HE1, which may not be entirely surprising as solid state amps can produce more bass than tube amps. In either case, I LOVE the way the Lil Wayne track sounds through the Focal so I think these are better suited to the type of music I listen to.

In terms of headphone amps, the Auris Audio Headonia 300 was super impressive. It features “impedance matching” and “maintains perfect impedance matching, guaranteeing an authentic, distortion-free sound reproduction across the entire frequency spectrum” (per their website).  It costs about $15,000 and was paired with headphones that cost about a tenth of that yet the sound was easily matching/surpassing some of the other reference headphones I listened to.

I did a head-to-head comparison of Audeze’s flagship LCD5 planar and CRBN2 electro-static headphones. I preferred the electro-static but perhaps these are not the best options for my type of music. Great playlist though.

Last but not least, the Auribus Acoustics Sierra. Perhaps it is a bit unfair to compare $899 headphones to $75k and $8K headphones but they held their own! Certainly great bang for the buck.

I didn’t have a chance to listen to the SPL

A shot of the room

TURNTABLES

When it comes to audio equipment, I believe turntables are the most aesthetically pleasing and the Nagra Reference is among the top as you may recall from my shirt and modulometer hat at MAF 2024.

I was glad to see it again in the Bliss Acoustics room

As well as the awesome new Nagra Streamer

It was also great to see Rene Laflamme again. Thanks for autographing my copy of your Audiophile Speaker Setup CD

Also great to meet a fellow CAMmer. Thanks for the kind words!

My pictures absolutely don’t do justice to the Jean Nantais Reference Lenco, what a beauty! And sounds great too.

Also visually stunning, the Audio Note TT-3

I love turntables with visible spinning gyro like Transrotor and the Michell Gyro SE

More fantastic turntables… Kuzma Stabi S

Stable 33.33

Pretty sure this is a Pro-Ject Metallica edition

Musical Fidelity MX8TT

Vertere MG-1 Magic Groove

Regardless of which turntable you choose, I suggest a Seismion Reactio 2 active vibration isolator. In fact, the new Thorens Reference turntables has one built in! It uses extremely sensitive piezoelectric sensors to detect even the smallest vibrations from both the equipment above it and the surface below. Then an all-analog electronic control circuit generates the required compensation forces.

AMPLIFIERS

Among the more interesting amplifiers at the show, the new Marantz Model 10 Integrated Amp. It has a newly designed “dual-mono symmetrical amplifier topology” and Marantz claims it is their most powerful amp ever.

New Marazntz CD player

More from Marantz

I have always liked Accuphase

Audio Note is so beautiful

Fezz Audio

Tektron and Alnic

Naim

Unison Research Simply 845

Sennasound

CONCLUSION

So first my answer to the question about speaker height. Yes, I do prefer shorter, smaller speakers. I like their “punchiness” if that makes sense.

In terms of a dream system using components that I saw at the show, well I can’t narrow it down to one so I created Gold, Silver, and Bronze versions.

Gold System

• Acora SRB with Bedrock
• Gryphon Amp
• Nagra Reference Turntable

Silver System

• Audiovector Trapeze Reimagined
• Accuphase amps
• Jean Nantais Reference Lenco
• Seismion Reactio 2

Bronze System

• EPOS ES-14N
• Marantz Model 10 Integrated Amp
• Michell Gyro SE
• Nagra streamer
• Focal Utopia headphones/Naim Uniti Atom headphone amp

Oh yes, I would be happy with one of those systems.

RL