All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

Montreal 2000 Post-Show Report
by Marc Mickelson

Part 2

Speaking of budget tubes, JoLida put together an impressive little system of its own around the JD-1000A integrated amp ($1699) and JD-603 CD player ($550). Speakers were from Audio Specialiste, the $2000-per-pair Crescendo, and cables were the Barracuda from Custom House ($150 per meter pair of interconnects and $280 per ten-foot pair of speaker cables). If it were possible to sit a bit further away from the speakers so they could develop more of a soundstage, I may have voted for this system to be one of our Standouts -- its tonality was on the money.

Specifics

During a brief stop at the Totem Acoustic room to see the company's Amber integrated amp, I was treated to some information on Totem's line of in-wall speakers (shown right) from head Totemite Vince Bruzzese. The speakers run $475 to $800 CDN per pair and are voiced to match Totem's other speakers. As a demonstration, Vince played one of the speakers at a time, and the dispersion was such that I couldn't tell that only one speaker was playing. I suspect Totem will sell a lot of these speakers to owners of their floorstanding and bookshelf models who want to move into home theater or want to the convenience of being able to place their speakers out of the way.

Americans Larry Galbo and Rod Honeycutt made the trip to Montreal with a number of the Plinius and Wilson Benesch products they distribute via their Atlanta-based Advanced Audio Technologies company. You will read some reviews of these products coming from us in the near future, including the Plinius 2100i integrated amp, which is, according to Larry and Rod, "essentially a Plinius 8150i integrated amp with slightly less power and no phono stage." The remote-controlled 2100i is priced at $1995.

Audience, makers of the Auric Illuminator CD-enhancement system that Doug Blackburn has written about, was displaying the Au24 Modular Array speaker system finished in gloss black and with gold anodized drivers for a very striking appearance. Each speaker is a series of either passive ($3500 each) or active ($6500 each) modules that connect to make up each tower. Each powered module has two 100-watt amplifiers that bolt to the back. The system on display in Montreal -- four active modules in each speaker -- cost a not insubstantial $52,000 per pair, and Richard Smith of Audience explained to me that the speakers would ideally have been taller yet by two modules so they would stretch from floor to ceiling. The sound, augmented as it was by a pair of Audience-modded Sunfire subwoofers, was big.

Audiomat is known to us and our readers for its $1900 Arpège integrated amp, which has earned a Reviewers' Choice nod and will be written about again in the very near future. In Montreal, Mutine, US and Canadian distributor of Audiomat products, was using the Audiomat Maestro 24/96 DAC ($5900) to make some fine sound through the very beautiful and unique Equation Gaya loudspeakers from Belgium ($19,900 per pair) that we showcased in our ShowStoppers! Series 1 section. The Maestro looks unassuming; it includes balanced and single-ended outputs.

The many fans of MartinLogan speakers crowded into Canadian distributor Plurison's room to hear the latest ML offerings. MartinLogan's Prodigy speakers ($15,000 CDN per pair) were driven by Sugden mono amplifiers ($11,000 CDN per pair) in a large room, which the speakers had no trouble filling. I stopped in early on Sunday, then came back again right before closing, and the same woman was spinning discs for the listeners arrayed in the room. I hope someone brought her a sandwich and something to drink at some point. These shows are hard work!

Blue Circle seems to have something new on display at every show. This year was no exception as the company unveiled their most powerful and versatile amplifiers to date. In addition to the new BC32 multichannel amp (configurable to five or six channels), they debuted the BC26 all solid-state, 200Wpc bruiser ($4600, shown below), which is fully balanced. This amp pounded out "Macho Man" and other more gentile tunes over Cliffhanger Audio's new Bliss floorstanding speakers ($6999), whose backward-firing ambience drivers are easy to miss. The pair of Bliss speakers in use even smelled new. Cliffhanger used the room next to this one to play their new $3699 Bulldog loudspeakers, which were first shown at CES 2000 in Las Vegas.

That's it from me. We were happy to see everyone -- industry people and readers alike -- in Montreal in Y2K. Let's do it again next year, eh?