Day 1 of Rocky Mountain Audiofest was full of great sound, music servers, and DACs. Many manufacturers had traditional CD players in their equipment racks, but used a Mac as the main source. There are a few Weiss Minervas in use here at RMAF. One forward thinking manufacturer is Vinnie Rossi at Red Wine Audio. He really gets it. His two sources were a MacBook and a turntable. Vinnie's components are very nice and can run completely off battery power. I will certainly write detailed articles about everything, but for now here are a few photos from day 1.
McIntosh C500 Tube Preamp
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McIntosh C500 Tube Preamp
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McIntosh C500 Tube Preamp
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Genesis Advanced Technologies room. Windows PC running Foobar2k into a Weiss Minerva via FireWire.
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Genesis Advanced Technologies room. Windows PC running Foobar2k, cloe-up. The OS was stripped down to a bare minimum level.
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Weiss Minerva in action in the Genesis Room.
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Bryston Room. A pair of 28B SST monoblock amplifiers can power anything.
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Bryston BCD-1 and BDA-1
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Red Dragon Audio, Leviathan Signature amp
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Red Dragon Audio, Leviathan Signature amp logo
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Red Wine Audio Isabella
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Red Wine Audio Isabella close-up
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Red Wine Audio prototype phono stage in an Isabellina chassis (tough lighting for photography!)
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Red Wine Audio Signature 30.2 amp (again, tough lighting for photography!)
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Music Vault II from Soundscience
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Music Vault II details
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Music Vault II with SqueezeCenter
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Logitech Transporter and Lyngdorf CD-1
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Lyngdorf TDAI 2200 Digital Integrated amp
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Lyngdorf RoomPerfect sign
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Gordon Rankin's Wavelength Audio room
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TAD Loudspeakers and Bel Canto room
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Burmester room
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Burmester Classic Series
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Burmester Classic Series (again)
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Chris Connaker
Founder
Computer Audiophile
Chris, will you provide some info on the Wavelength room when you have a chance...what speakers? Also, what are the components next to and under the computer monitor on the middle rack?
Oh, and not to rush you, but please give some info and pics on the new VRS stuff.
How does the WL and VRS rooms compare in terms of sound quality?
Thanks in advance!
The Crimson USBDAC was being employed and was sitting on the shelf next to the elo touchscreen monitor. On the lower shelf was a balanced Crimson with Cobalt transformers -- but not being employed when I was in the room. The sound was great. The speakers were by Vaughn Loudspeakers.
Keeping it Time and Phase Accurate
Hey proth - I just missed you in the Wavelength room. I talked to Gordon for some time about everything under the sun and he mentioned that you had been in there.
I thought the sound was very good, but I would really like to put his whole system through its paces with many different kinds of music. Maybe at CES I'll spend more quality listening time there. It's quite astonishing that some manufacturers can get good sound in those terribly harsh listening room conditions.
Chris Connaker
Founder
Computer Audiophile
Guys,
Actually next to the Mac Mini/ELO Touch/LaCie was the Royal Preamplifier.
On the bottom shelf was the new Balanced Crimson using the 6H30 and transformer coupled with both XLR and RCA outputs.
The Amps were my Cardinal's in silver (Ag model), all the cables were Nirvana Audio SX and the speakers were the Vaughn Loudspeaker Signature Zinfandel's. These do NOT have a powered bass but many people asked where the power cable for the speakers were. Sorry only 12W's of pure bliss running the system.
Even John Atkinson commented when he was in the room. He asked twice if the 12" speakers were powered. I said no, only a lonely 300B SET amp driving the entire system.
We had over 80 24 bit albums ..... (Chris we need a new term for high res material). John Atkinson also loaded on my drive his test resolution tracks which he used at the show for his five presentations as well as his catalog of recordings. We played some of the Coral tracks which seem to blow down the walls of the room. They were really good as a spatial barometer.
Thanks too Chris, Pete and all the rest of you who stopped by it was a great time!
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
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Wavelength Audio
http://www.usbdacs.com/
http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/
http://www.guitar-engines.com/