Bienvenue to the 35th Edition of the Montreal Audiofest!
"I'm back, back in the saddle again"—actually, I'm back at the Montreal Audiofest, held March 22–24 at its usual grand locale, the Bonaventure Hotel.
Robert Schryer
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Leak Stereo 230 integrated amplifier
Sometimes I think expensive componentsI'll let you decide what constitutes expensiveshould come with a big red sticker on the box that reads "WARNING! This product will probably not meet your expectations!" That's because when you spend a lot of money on something, you expect that something to have no flaws and to sound nigh perfect. Why else would you have paid so much? As you gaze at it, touch it, and listen to it, it constantly reassures you that you made the right decision by picking it over all the other, less pricey candidates. It has to be unambiguously better than any component of its nature that has passed through your system, or else, what was the point in all that upgrading?
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Prior to this review, I had expectations about the product under review, the Leak Stereo 230 ($1695 with the walnut enclosure), based on, among other factors, price.
Moon by Simaudio Voice 22 loudspeaker
I'm picturing a gaggle of cigar-chomping Simaudio execs in an office discussing what to do about the fact that their high-end amplification lines have become so successful that their names have become synonymous with the company. "In the '90s, people thought our company was called Celeste," one floor-pacing exec says, speaking for everyone in the room. "Now they think we're called Moon! How do we fix this?" After much debate, a member shouts: "We add 'by Simaudio' at the end!" The execs hoot, holler, and slap the conference-room tableand thus is born Moon by Simaudio.
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A fictional account? Sure, but, as they say in the movies, it's based on a true story.
Montreal Audio Fest 2023: Final observations
Finally, it snowed during the weekend of the show, on Saturday, which was disappointing. It meant I wasn’t in an alternate 'verse of the multiverse after all and, consequently, I wasn’t the Alternate Rob with a half-million-dollar hi-fi waiting for him at home.
Gershman Acoustics, Eon Art, Oracle Audio, Reed, Cardas
Jacques Riendeau of Oracle Audio
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I was running out of time.
Audio Note
As usual, I found cellist and Audio Note UK music ambassador Vincent Bélanger hosting the Audio Note UK room, but this time, Vincent wasn't alone.
ArtistCloner
Our fearless reporter--left--waxing eloquent in his notebook.
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I have bumped into manufacturer Artist Cloner’s owner and designer, Sylvio Comtois, many times at audio shows. He strikes me as being a bit of a mad scientist. Not “crazy” mad but mad in the sense of being obsessed with a particular objective.
Totem, Yamaha, MoFi, AudioQuest
When I asked Totem's Vince Bruzzese, at last year's "static" launch of the new Bison series, what the impetus was to create the Bison range, he said it came down to wanting to create something special to mark the company's 35th birthday but also that of the Model 1, which came out in the year of the company's founding, 1987.
Sonic Artistry: Stenheim, darTZeel, Merging Technologies, Nordost, Seismion
Talk about a dream triad of fabulous gear from Switzerland: darTZeel, Stenheim, Merging Technologies. The first thing I said to myself when I saw this simple, sharp-looking spread in Toronto-based retailer Sonic Artistry's room was, "Damn, this is an attractive group!".
Hearken Room: Graham Audio, Lejonklou, Yeti, Jean Nantais, Aidas, Cardas, Graham Engineering
What did the Hearken and Art et Son rooms have in common? The Graham Audio LS8.1 speakers ($13,300), so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that I heard a similarly, though not identically, engaging intimacy in both systems' presentations, the kind that made me just want to relax in my seat and listen through whole albums.