Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2010 (Part 2)
For his report of the seventh annual (but my first) Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF), I thought I’d try a different approach. Instead of lots of words with a few pictures, this is a photo essay with lots of photos and few words. Because this is Vinylphile, most of the photos are related to vinyl playback.
As you can see by this photo of the marketplace, interest in vinyl is still very strong!
What follows is a roughly alphabetical photo tour of some of the stuff I saw, with my apologies to manufacturers I’ve neglected to mention.
Artemis Labs demonstrated their $7,800 SA-1 turntable with the Schröder Reference TA-1 tonearm and their own cartridge.
I spent quite a lot of time in the Aaudio Imports room, listening to Bergmann Audio’s new $54,400 Sleipner Reference air bearing turntable and arm (shown here with a Lyra Titan i cartridge).
In the Burmester room was their new 100 phono stage, which starts at $16,995.
Galibier Design had turntables in three rooms, from their entry-level Gavia-I ($8,750) to their top-of-the-line Stelvio-II ($27,500), shown here on an Adona rack.
Steve Dobbins was playing his new Kodo The Beat magnetic drive turntable ($24,000), coupling it with the Reed 3Q Laser Guided tonearm ($6,500) and the Allnic Puritas cartridge ($4,950).
Odyssey had their new $2,500 tube/bipolar Kismet phono stage on static display.
Oswalds Mill Audio were using their OMA Tourmaline turntable ($12,000) with tonearms from Thomas Schick and Schröder, and cartridges from Miyajima and Soundsmith.
Talking of new phono stages, Ron Sutherland was proudly showing off his latest phono stage, the $2,200 20/20.
TT Weights were playing their new Gem rim drive turntable ($6,500) and showing their $15,900 Black Onyx turntable. The latter was only on static display because it had only recently been finished, and wasn’t run in.
One of the last rooms I visited was Walker Audio’s, where the $57,000 Proscenium Black Diamond II was playing with an Air Tight PC-1 Supreme cartridge.
In the Doshi Audio room, an SME Model 20/2 turntable with a beautiful Koetsu cartridge provided the music, helped by Wilson Audio Sasha W/Ps and room treatments by Real Traps (I love the red colour of the Sashas!)
Merrill-Williams Audio’s $4,000 REAL 101 turntable.
Music Hall’s $875 MMF-5.1 turntable.
Onedof’s $150,000 turntable.
TW-Acustic’s Raven Black Night reference turntable on isolation bases from Silent Running Audio.
Twin Tri-Planars!
A pair of vinyl spinners from Simon Yorke.
Vinyl wasn’t the only source of analogue ear candy. J-Corder and United Home Audio (among others) were playing serious reel to reel rigs.
