Publisher Profile

2012 TAVES Coverage

Sept 28-30, 2012

By: |

Totem

I give full credit to Totem for their impressive full sized wall-to-wall marketing posters, which also serve as acoustic room treatments supposedly. How could you not be distracted from the music when there is a wall sized model standing right in front of you dressed in a mini-skirt.

They also have the fanciest catalogue which resembles the latest issue of Vogue magazine. I certainly prefer pictures of fancy models over some nerdy research engineer. Never mind the details, I was ready to open my wallet after reading that catalogue. But for you hard core audiophiles, they have the Tribe III series on-wall speakers on display, which includes front speakers for $1,750 each, center channel for $2,500, and subwoofers for $1,750 each.

Totem at TAVES 2012

Vogue

Totem

Avatar Acoustics / Tri-Art Audio

Once again, Tri-Art Audio teamed up with Avatar Acoustics to showcase their equipment. As with all other Tri-Art/Avatar Acoustics room I have been into at the CES or FSI (Salon Son et Image), Darren Censullo and Steve Ginsberg always take care into making sure their rooms are nice sounding. I heard a musical sounding system which is highly resolving, yet without any hard edges to speak of. The setup can be listened to for ours without listener fatigue. Their system is once again one of my favourites at the show.

I like the sound so much that I invited Darren Censullo out for dinner that evening to pick his brains on AMR products and Rosso Fiorentino speakers.

Avatar at TAVES 2012

Tri-Art Turntable

Tri-Art Audio’s turntable which I saw six months earlier at the Montreal show, is now a finished product. It now comes with a bamboo platter, together with Tri-Art Audio’s own tonearm which is also made of bamboo. Unfortunately, it was on static display only so I didn’t get to listen to it for the second time. If I remember correctly, the table is modestly priced at below $3,000.

Also on display was a new line of entry level products called iFi, which includes an iCan headphone amp, an iDAC D-to-A converter, an iUSB which is a power product, and an iPhono phono stage which comes with both MM and MC inputs. Each piece is priced around the $500-$700 range.

iFi, iCan headphone amp, iDAC D-to-A converter, iUSB, iPhono phono stage

iFi, iCan headphone amp, iDAC D-to-A converter, iUSB, iPhono phono stage

iPhono with MM and MC input

iPhono with MM and MC input

avatar at TAVES 2012

McIntosh

McIntosh
As much as I’m a big fan of McIntosh equipment, and all my equipment at home are McIntosh’s, I can’t say I was too thrilled about the sound of the McIntosh room. Obviously, the problem was not with the electronics as I know how nice my equipment sounds at home, but the problem clearly lies with the size of the room and the amount of stuff which got jam packed into it (MC1.2kws, C50 Preamplifier, MCD1100 CD/SACD Player, XR100 & XR50 speakers) which somewhat muddied up the bass. Perhaps a simple MC275 and the XR50 bookshelf speakers would have left a better impression with visitors.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Popups Powered By : XYZScripts.com