Salon Son & Image: Montreal 2013
I attended my first SSI in Montreal at the end of March. This was the 27th year that Michel Plante staged the event at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Montreal. It was a really great event and made all the better because Michel made available a demonstration room, which wasn’t part of my original plans. I can’t afford a full fledged demonstration room more than once a year and I manage that with partners like Dolby, JVC, Oppo, DH Labs, Bryston and B&W. That’s the setup AIX Records had in Chicago at the AXPONA show held just 11 days earlier.
This year’s SSI show included an entire hall dedicated to headphones and headphone amplifiers. Visitors could cruise up and down the aisles of tables auditioning the various makes and models on display. There was also an interesting display of vintage equipment including a 1910, hand-cranked, acoustic Gramaphone…that still functioned! The sound was hardly HD but it was interesting to see just how far we’ve come over the past 100 years.
The headphone room at the Montreal SSI 2013 audio show.
My wife and I arrived late on Wednesday evening prior to the show. I went downstairs to see the room and start setting up some of the equipment and passed by the MBL room. They had signs asking that people in the area remain quiet because they were recording a cellist in their demonstration room. MBL routinely partners with Greg Beron of United Home Audio, a major advocate of analog tape and a provider of decks capable of playing reel to reel masters. I had a chance to experience the “duets” that the cellist played live against the recording in the room the following day and was underwhelmed. The sound of the live instrument left the tape in the dust. I asked the engineer if the recording was done with a single microphone and he confirmed that it was. In my own experience, it is impossible to capture the sense of depth using only a single mic and channel. But I applaud the effort.
My own room was just down the hall and featured Focal speakers in a 5.1 surround configuration. I played our latest BD sampler disc using my Oppo BDP-95 into a Bryston SP-3 via an HDMI connection. The quality of the DACs in the Bryston is astounding and it is without doubt the finest multichannel setup available…although the SP-3 will set you back about $8000. Bryston also supplied five 7B monoblocks. They were smooth and more than capable of handling the extreme dynamic range of my recordings. Having not used the Focals at any of my previous shows, I was very pleased with the sound they delivered. The high end was transparent and the low end just punchy enough. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure any room treatment and the sound suffered if the volume crept up. The sound of our demo in Chicago was much better.
AIX Records founder and Chief Engineer Dr. Mark Waldrep at his Montreal SSI room.
The show was very well attended and we had a constant stream of visitors throughout the weekend. Most were very impressed since they rarely get to experience HD-Audio in full surround. I think the favorite track came from the Steve March Tormé DVD project. When Bobby Rodriguez blows his trumpet during a solo, the sound was amazing.
The Montreal SSI show was very successful for AIX. I’ve decided to attend all of the shows that I possibly can because audiophiles deserve to experience something other than good quality 2.0 channel stereo playing the same collection of “audiophile” demonstration disc.