Continuing our coverage of the Pacific Audio Fest.
Please keep in mind that at any show you are not listening to a speaker, amp, or whatever... but a system in a hotel room playing whatever music that is playing at the time. Whether something you like or don't, something well recorded or not. So yeah. Good or bad, okay or whatever. Many rooms we simply did not "get into" because what they were playing was not our thing. But then that is a show. Kudos to Qobuz though as some rooms were willing to let people hear whatever they wanted via the streaming service.
Audio-Thesis, Rosso Fiorentino, Norma Audio, Lumin, AudioQuest. Image below.
Mark Audio-Sota. Very affordable. Image below.
Bella Note, Doktor Seibel, Papafrank's Magic Garage. These are more or less prototypes, but still sounded quite promising. Images below.
Great Plains Audio. Sounded like original Altecs. Image below.
Elite AV Distribution, Furutech, Kuzma, L'Art du Son. Images below.
The whole kitchen sink... more or less.
Haniwa Audio. Images below.
Never really understood such a design from the point of aesthetics. More early Disneyland Tomorrowland.
Pure Audio Project, Pass Laboratories, Denafrips, VPI Industries. Images below.
Loved the sound here. Nice system. Beautiful speakers too.
Voxativ sounded better than we expected being people who are not into single-driver designs. Below.
Aurender had two rooms, first was the static display. Images below.
Here I am, checking it out.
Linear Tube Audio. Liked this a lot. Clean, and well done visually and sonically. Image below.
The Aurender active room. Must say that their new software is WAY better than the version we reviewed way back when. Big full-range sound. Image below.
Ansuz, Aavik, Børresen. Talk about articulate, detailed, sweet, dynamic, expressive... we really liked the room a lot! Images below.
Loved the large displays... clearly visible from the doorway!
Part Four is in the works.