Montreal Audiofest 2024

All prices listed are in Canadian dollars.

Another highlight of the Montreal Audiofest was the system in the Lemay Audio room, which included a pair of the company's electrostatic Dayton-Wright Hommage 9.3 loudspeakers ($68,000), a 175Wpc Tenor Audio 175S 20th Anniversary amplifier ($150,000), and a Grimm Audio MU2 server/streamer/DAC/preamp ($23,500). Peripheral products included cabling by Siversmith, Inakustik, and Network Acoustics (various prices) and an amp stand and two-shelf rack by Modulum Arkitek ($5700 and $4800, respectively). On static display were a Baetis Audio prodigy L2E server ($2500) and a iFi iDSD NEO 2 DAC ($1300), both of which received an honorable asterisk next to their listing on Lemay's price list for being musically unbeatable at their price.

I wish everyone could hear this system to grasp how much information lies in a recording and how creative, nuanced, continuous, and realistic it can sound, even on regular FLAC-file streams. High-res files? Pshaw. Listening to this system with regular 16/44.1 fare streamed from Tidal was a revelation, delivering, on live recordings, a keen sense that I was not only hearing every sound in high focus but also that the performance itself was unfolding in real time in front of my ears and eyes. Transcendent.