T.H.E. Show Newport Is (sort of) Underway. It was nice to move around the show without the crowds today, but several of the rooms we still being setup and had yet to get sound by late afternoon. No biggie though, today was a Press day and the official start of the show is Friday. I spent a good amount of time in the Audio Element room featuring dCS, VTL, and Wilson Audio. John Quick from dCS was using Roon, the new application from the team behind Sooloos who recently spun off from Meridian and started Roon Labs. I played a number of tracks in this room including Day In, Day Out from Billie Holiday’s Songs For Distingue Lovers. Despite some weird angles in the room, the sound was really nice. I encourage members of the Computer Audiophile Community attending the show to stop by, say high to John from dCS, play with Roon a bit, and listen to this system.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Another room I enjoyed this afternoon featured Vienna Acoustics loudspeakers powered by Moon by Simaudio components. Simaudio showed its new 780D DAC / network player that should please all audiophiles seeking a component that supports 32/384 PCM and DSD256 via USB input. I had an opportunity to use the new Simaudio MiND iOS application for library browsing and track selection. It’s a major improvement over the previous version. If you have experience with older version of this app I recommend checking the improved version. Playback of Beck’s Sea Change album at 24/88.2 sounded really nice in this room. Sure there are some bass humps in the room but they have nothing to do with the quality of the playback gear and everything to do with the dimensions of the room. Song selection is key to hearing the best of each system at an audio show. Before wrapping up today at the show I stopped by the Boulder room featuring all Boulder electronics and Maestro Utopia loudspeakers form Focal. Rich Maez from Boulder had just finished moving the system from one wall to another in order to fight serious bass issues toward the back of the room. The new configuration sounded good, but Rich had some different room related issues to work through. There’s no free lunch. In the room was the new Boulder 2120 DAC featuring a really cool large LCD display. At first I thought the screen was too large and awkward, but after sitting in the room for a few minutes I couldn’t stop looking at it. I acquired the taste of this display and started to really like it. The final price for the DAC has yet to be set but expect it to be around $60,000.
So far I really like the show venue and can’t wait to get back to the action in the morning. Friday will be the first full day of the show and I look forward to seeing a good umber of CA reader in attendance. Let me know what you find and what you like. There’s plenty to see.
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