RMAF 2012

Michael Lavorgna, editor of our sister site AudioStream.com, moderated a computer audio seminar on RMAF’s first day. Participants, from left to right: David Chesky (HDtracks.com), Andreas Koch (Playback Designs), Gordon Rankin (Wavelength Audio), Rob Robinson (Channel D Software), Mark Waldrep (AIX Records), Steve Silberman (AudioQuest), and Michael Lavorgna.

I noticed this sign hanging above the entrance to the Marriott Tech Center, home of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. “Save the Music”—a fine message, but sort of vague. What's it about? I wondered. Inside the hotel, near the elevators, I found a postcard with a picture of a pianist at a piano, both the musician and his instrument covered in what appeared to be thick black oil. (Oh no!) At the top of the postcard again were the words, “Save the Music.”

On the back of the postcard, I found a message from dCS, titled, “Saving the Music for 25 Years.” Audiophiles are familiar with dCS&—we know who the company is and what it does—but this postcard seemed addressed to those who may be new to the hi-fi world:

First of all, I’d like to point out that, though I probably should have, I did not take this picture. This picture was taken by VPI’s young Mathew Weisfeld, who is way cooler than me.

Now, the turntable is VPI’s Traveler, which I review in our November issue. What turntable, you ask? That turntable there&#151the one behind the girl in the red glasses. (The red glasses, she told me, weren’t hers, but instead belonged to Music Hall’s Leland Leard. But that’s another story.)

I walked into a highly compressed modern rock recording. Worse than that, the song itself was horrible, dreadful, unimaginative, bad. I mean, it really, really sucked.

I was tempted to blame it on the system:

I wanted to better understand what I was hearing in the PranaFidelity/Musical Concepts room, so I asked PranaFidelity’s Steven Norber to tell me about his design philosophy.

Norber said something very interesting: