Rocky Mountain Audiofest 2008 was full of the usual and the very unusual audio components. Some very reasonably price and others priced more than the average American home. I guess for the affluent readers the components priced more than a home might be reasonably priced. It's all relative , I won't judge. There were more Wadia 170 iTransports on display than any other component. There was also a lot of external DACs on display and more wireless music distribution than I expected. In my opinion RMAF is a really fun show, in part because consumers are allowed to attend everything just like those in the industry. Whereas CES is an industry only show and it tends to be a little more pretentious. I met many consumers at the show who were extremely friendly and with whom I will probably keep in touch. If your looking for some new components that a local dealer does not carry I really encourage you to attend RMAF next year. You can listen to just about everything on earth over the course of a weekend and mingle with many like minded audiophiles. What's better than grabbing lunch and a cold beverage between listening to the VTL / Avalon system and the Boulder / Focal Grand Utopia system without a salesman in sight? No offense to the salesmen here at Computer Audiophile, but even they should no I'm talking about :-) Anyway, here are some components I found interesting or worthy of a photograph for the CA readers.

After three very successful days the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audiofest has come to an end. I've talked to many manufacturers, some by reader request, and others simply because they have something we are all interested in. I do have the best sound of the show winner and runner-up in my head. More in depth coverage of these systems is coming. Read more for additional information from the show.

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.

The show hasn't even started and I have some very good news. I just listened to the Bel Canto DAC3 play 24/96 tracks via USB in their native high resolution. Read more for a shot of Audio Midi Setup with the DAC connected to my MacBook Air.

I'm off to Denver to cover the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audiofest. I'll be blogging live from the show, updating the site via iPhone right from the suites. That is until my battery is gone. I'll also be posting frequent articles and photos of everything at RMAF 2008. Feel free to request anything you want me to cover and I'll see what I can do. Check out the RMAF 2008 website for a list of exhibitors and more details. In addition the Computer Audiophile RMAF 2008 Readers's Thread is now open. Those of you attending the show please share your experience with the rest of us. Read more for the links.