SAVE 97 report

I spent Friday afternoon there and enjoyed myself. If you tried to get into the 4th floor rooms after 4pm, you had to queue up as the organisers intelligently restricted the number of people that could enter.Those that went on Saturday and Sunday, good luck with the crowds.

Lets go straight into the my Favourites

Ensemble transport-DAC/Canary Audio tube amps/Ensemble Elysia speakers
supported by a digital lens and NBS cables

First off, I hope they weren't hiding a subwoofer somewhere :)
If they weren't this is one amazing 2-way bookshelf with plenty of useful bass around the 40Hz region. There was a variety of music played, but the depth and scale of a solo female vocal accompanied by a pipe organ in some cavernous church was breathtaking. If it is coloured, it is towards a very acceptable sweetness. With no loss of detail, it made everything played through it sound lovely (without sounding coloured -- in the sense that if you have bad recordings, they'll still sound bad).

The speakers list for $8000 with the stands going for $1180.

Goldmund/Fossell front end, CAT pre/power, Wilson Cubs
supported by Transparent Cable and large acoustic panels.

When I think of Wilsons, I think about the Law of Diminishing Returns. Hearing the Cubs after I heard the Ensemble Elysias, The cubs are much bigger standmounts than the Elysias, and they cost more too; $10,800 I think. I felt the cubs were colder and more analytical. Still, after more listening, I came to appreciate the neutrality of the Wilsons. If solid state was used, I wonder if the Cubs would sound too cold. The soundstage thrown by the Wilsons was wonderful, and there was a wealth of information, albeit delivered with a bit of coldness compared to the Elysias. Still, the cubs beat basically everything else :)

YBA CD integre/YBA integre DT/YBA Sonata
supported by their a/c filters, interconnects etc

YBA never fails to amaze with their well-balanced and music presentation. This is a budget high-end at its very best. Sure, the bass on offer from the bookshelf Sonata's couldn't equal that of its more expensive competitors, but as a whole, there was an impression of air and space; the way music was allowed to breathe was wonderful. And throughout this, the music stayed in focus.

SF transport-Audio Logic DAC, Transcendent OTL tube amp, Gallo speakers
supported by Nirvana cables, JPS bass flutes

The Gallos are sooo cute :) OK, the music was good too. I asked to listen to Lori Lieberman's 'Thousand Dreams', where using 2 mikes, they recorded the vocliast in the centre, a piano behind, and a male chorus to the right. The Gallo did a good job (this was a suboptimally small room). Obviously, if you want the soundstage thing, you need a bigger room, but the Gallos are definitely up to the task of giving you the soundstage (including beyond the left/right of the speakers).

CEC turntable, Cary Audio amps, Vienna Acoustics Mozart

Ok, this is the only floorstanding speaker in my 'favourties' list. And I've boldly proclaimed that floorstanders are better than standmounts, $ for $. Everything performed well, and the sound was inherently musical. One thing I noted was a large amount of cone excursion from the Mozart's woofers even though the volume was no where near loud. I suppose thats the way it was designed.

The Sony XA7ES (heheheh), XA50ES, Sony ES amps, and the SSM7 'floorstander with optional stands'
Near the end of the day, this Sony display, on the 3rd floor in a secluded corner, was deserted. Someone else and I had a field day listening to the Sony system, and the other chap was playing with the XA50ES's filter settings :) fun fun fun. The SSM7s costs only $2,410 list. It sounds pretty impressive even when powered only by a puny Sony ES integrated amp. Mary Black's 'Columbus' (Mission speakers are designed to make this song sound good :)) soared without hardening, and the bass was plentiful, of high quality, and realistic. The system has the smooth and refined Sony sound, but with plenty of 'groove' thanks to spot to timing and pace.

Other notes
Audio Suite was there, Patrick was there, with the President or somebody from Theta. I didn't stay to listen as I already knew how good the stuff sounds :).
Laser discs - Independence Day/Jurassic Park as usual. Though one enlightened room (I think the one showing the Marantz AC-3 system, was showing Star Trek - First Contact). Home theatre demos were more popular than hi-fi demos, which is good for me :)

Biggest Disappointment
No, I'm not naming specific names because it all depends on the room etc, but I would like to point out:

The inability of 'budget' hi-fi to scrape together anything that could compete with the High End

One would like to think that in terms of sound quality, the gap between budget hi-fi (or even mid-fi [which I consider my system to be]) and the high-end is constantly closing. Yet, the inability of the exhibitors of low/mid-fi products to scrape together something was a bit sad. The only hope was the Ms 10 Classics on Atacama SE24 stands with the KI-signature CD-17 and amp.