I started my Saturday by going to the Eficion and Plinius room. The speakers were the Eficion F250 Air-Motion Transformer speakers driven by a Plinius SA103 power amplifier and an Exemplar Audio eXception SE Linestage. The source was an Oppo Digital UDP-205 4K Ultra HD Audiophile Blu-ray Disc Player with a Line Magnetic LM-502CA DAC.
Next was the Bricasti Design room featuring the Bricasti Design M21 Platinum DAC ($19k), Bricasti Design M1 Gold Limited Edition ($15k), Bricasti Design M5 ($2,400). Bricasti Design M28 monoblocks ($30,000/pair), and a Bricasti Design M15 stereo amplifier ($18,000). The speakers were the Tidal Piano Diacera G2 speakers ($40,000). They used the Bricasti Design Cables.
The PureAudioProject / Pass Laboratories / Exogal room featured the PureAudioProject Quintet10 Stellar and Quintet10 Modular Wall of Sound Open Baffle Speakers driven by the Pass Laboratories INT-60 integrated solid-state amplifier ($9,000) and an Exogal Comet DAC ($3,000).
The PureAudioProject / Whammerdyne Heavy Industries room was one of the best I heard at the show. It featured the PureAudioProject Trio15 Horn1 and Trio15 Voxativ Field Coil Modular Open Baffle Speakers driven by a Whammerdyne 2A3 SE model DAA3+ RAM ($6,900) and a Whammerdyne 2A3 SE model Ultimate “Truth” ($13,000). They also used an Exogal Comet DAC ($3,000), a Wyred 4 Sound modified Sonos Connect ($900), and an MSB Technologies “Analog” DAC ($6,000).
I have never heard a bad room from Joseph Audio, and this one was no exception. The speakers were the Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers ($7,700/pair) driven by a Bel Canto Design Black EX Integrated amplifier ($15,000). The cables were the Cardas Audio Beyond XL power cables, Cardas Audio Clear Beyond speaker cables, and the Cardas Audio Clear Network cables.
