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Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

The show was compromised on a fundamental level. The hotel promised its facelift would be finished in time, but a few weeks before the annual RMAF opened its doors at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, the builders admitted defeat. One half of the building was still being rebuilt, and the best the hotel could do by way of compensation was a tent! Worse still, the redesigned rooms that were available in one of the Tech Center’s towers, had now been built with fixed furniture and a large, intrusive, and noisy air conditioning duct running through one corner. This reduced the size and undermined the sound of many rooms.

As a consequence, RMAF’s organisers faced a three-way problem: they couldn’t cancel the show without essentially bankrupting themselves in paying cancellation fees to the Marriott hotel group, they couldn’t rehouse every manufacturer in the manner to which they were accustomed, and they couldn’t satisfy the demands of the showgoers who expected a complete show in a fully-built hotel. In fairness, the organisers made the best of a very bad job, in part through a lot of frantic last-minute work in order to keep all the plates spinning and the balls in the air. Nevertheless, at a time when many regional shows across America are vying for position to oust RMAF from its place of importance, this year’s show was vitally important to reassert the strength of the RMAF brand. Fortunately, visitor numbers were strong Friday and Saturday, but down on Sunday and the level of interest expressed by show-goers pleasantly surprised most exhibitors. The moaners will still moan, but RMAF prevails.

The show did exhibit a number of new-to-the-US products first seen at Munich, however, because many of these (such as the Spendor D9) already received coverage in the intervening months, we’ll not cover them here. RMAF also welcomed products back into the US (notably Wilson Benesch) but for similar reasons, we’ll pass on these products too. My colleague and Publisher Chris Martens will focus on the headphone world in the tent, and his roundup will also be published on hifiplus.com, while I took the 11 floors of the hotel.

There were several new product launches at the show, suggesting RMAF is more than just a regional event.

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

AURALiC’s new $3,799 POLARIS represents the full nature of today’s integrated amplifier. It’s true all-in-one, capable of playing line-level, and MM phono cartridge on its fully configurable analogue inputs alongside coaxial, toslink, AES/EBU, USB, and WiFi or Wired Ethernet streamed digital inputs. The Hypex-based amps deliver a healthy 120W per channel into eight ohms. 

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

We’re kind of breaking our own rules as soon as we made them here, but the $18,000 Brinkmann Nyquist DAC, was shown for the first time in the USA. The MQA-ready Nyquist proved to be one of the most exciting sounding digital devices at Munich in its prototype form, and RMAF proved this wasn’t a fluke, despite playing in a very small room.

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Bryston quietly announced its $3,995 BLP-1 mid year, but this was the first showing of the Canadian electronics brand’s first… turntable. Featuring a belt-drive Delrin platter, controlled by a PWM power supply and a titanium tonearm, RMAF was the first public outing for the product (playing through the company’s recent BP-2 MM phono preamp, PS-3 power supply, and TF-2 MC transformer), and shows great potential.

 


, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Hegel showed the $3,000 Röst all-in-one integrated design at last, and was also demonstrating its $5,000 Mohican CD player. Hegel shows its products fighting above their weight by partnering them with more exotic loudspeakers than you might expect from a $3,000 amp – this time it was the turn of $19,000 Sonus faber Amati loudspeakers. Despite the Röst being the product of tomorrow, everyone wanted to know about Mohican. “CD’s dead, but it’s still got some life in it!” I heard one person say as they walked out of the room.

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Supercapacitor power supplies were all the rage, with makers producing banks of capacitors to act as a smoothing power reserve for a range of lower-level products like preamps and even – in the case of Kronos – a turntable. Jeff Rowland made the neatest of all, with its new $8,200 PSU power supply with 24x 360F caacitors designed to act like a battery and visually and electronically match the company’s Aeris DAC and Corus preamplifier.

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Lejonklou might not be a name that rolls off the tongue instantly, but the company has been making quite a name for itself, especially among the Linn fraternity looking for a MM phono stage and separates amplifiers. At RMAF, the company announced its new $4,199 Boazu integrated amplifier. This small integrated line amp was playing through an LP12 on the new $599 NOKTable (reminiscent of AudioTech of old) and through JBL 3677s from the cinema. Impressive and up-beat!

 

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Naim Audio had only just officially announced its new Uniti line at the first hour of the show, but it had working samples of the 40W $2,995 Atom one-box player and $2,595 ARM-powered Core server on show and playing very successfully. Naim has radically revamped its entire streaming engine, allowing multiple fully synchronised streams even at DSD performance. It sounds pretty damn good too!

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

PS Audio had a room best described as ‘it’s not home, but it’s much!’ using an intricate complete PS Audio range of electronics and power products into a pair of giant $120,000 Scaena La Maitresse Ultimes. However, at the other end of the chain was the brand new $6,000  DirectStream Memory Player (DSP), an optical and file-reading nerve centre of the continually revamping PS Audio line.

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

Schiit Audio revolutionised headphone audio thanks to its high-quality yet affordable electronics. Now, it’s turning its attention to traditional audio equipment. The company announced three new products at extremely affordable prices; the $349, tube buffered active/passive Saga preamplifier and $699 balanced active/passive Freya preamplifier (both of which are expected to ship this month) and the Vidar stereo/mono solid-state 100W power amplifier expected to launch early in 2017 for $699.

This is the first in a multi-part look at what’s new at RMAF. And finally, a loudspeaker company making the ‘Mother of Burl’ horn (more on that next week) came up with the best room treatment we’ve ever tried:

, Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – Part One

After a few tries, I felt suitably treated to leave the room.

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