2012 TAVES Coverage

RJH Audio

RJH Audio is a name I am unfamiliar with, and it is products such as these which makes audio show interesting. Distributed through Angie Lisi of American Sound of Canada, the RJH Reference one is priced at $7,500, featuring a single 12” Nirvana high efficiency full range driver rated at 95dB.

Driven by Quad Electronics, the sound is unique to its own and clearly suited for the lovers of single driver full range speakers. The RJH speakers sounded sweet, seductive, and most notably, coherent.

Bay Bloor Radio / Bose

TAVES stands for the Toronto Audio and Video Entertainment Show, but thankfully the high end audio part completely overshadowed the video part. Perhaps this is not what the organizers wanted, but for us audiophiles, last thing I want to see is for TAVES to turn into a giant show for Best Buy home theatre products.

Equally fortunate, is that the only Home Theatre demo at TAVES was a rather interesting one. BayBloor radio was giving short demonstration session of the Bose VideoWave II television system. If the gentleman hadn’t told me that everything I heard was coming from the Television alone, I would have sworn there had to be surround speakers hidden elsewhere.

The Bose Television houses 16 individual speaker drivers along the sides of the wall mount. Through digital signal processing which Bose calls “PhaseGuide” Technology, it has the rare ability to replicate the sound which resembles a full 5.1 multiple speaker system. Truly impressive, albeit at a hefty price of $6,500, which means you are paying approximately $5,000 for the PhaseGuide Technology because a similar sized TV will cost about $1500 at Best Buy with plenty leftover.

Audio Zone

Another room which I spent a fair bit of time in, is George Tordai’s Audio Zone room featuring his “Eliminator” horn loaded speaker. The Eliminator looked like a DIY version of an Acapella speakers, with a spherical horn and an exposed crossover unit. Priced at $8,995, it is a 3-way 102dB design with an Electro Voice DX-15 driver, an Orsis style horn with the Selenium D330 compression driver, and a Fostex super tweeter.

Charisma Audio

Charisma Audio is the Canadian distributor for a number of names, including Audio Exklusiv, Audio Space, Calyx Audio, Capriccio Continuo Speakers, EMT Cartridges, Well Tempered Labs, Vicoustic and Shangling, many of which were on display in the rather larger than usual room which they occupied.

Very nice tunes were coming from the system which consist of a Revox open reel tape deck, a Well Tempered Lab Versalex turntable with LTD tonearm ($4,975), a Shangling Reference CD 500 Tube CD Player ($6,000), a Calyx Audio’s Reference DAC, the Audio Exklusiv P7 Tube Preamp ($8,000), the P2 Phono Stage which I reviewed earlier this year ($7,599), the P14 Monoblock Amplifiers ($18,500), and a pair of Capriccio Continuo Submonitor speakers ($15,995).

If Bernard Li hadn’t told me that the Revox player wasn’t connected, I would not have believed that I was listening to digital. The sound was well balanced and pleasing to the ears.
I did not revisit the room on the next day, but I was told that Bernard had swapped out the Capriccio Continuo speakers for the Audio Exklusiv 3.1 Electrostatic panels which I have just finished reviewing. Watch for its publication shortly.

Seen but not heard, is a new power conditioning product from Germany which looks very impressive under the hood. The GigaWatt PC-3 SE EVO is priced at $7,800.

Off to the side of the room, was a very large display rack showcasing Vicoustic wall treatment panels. Modestly priced at approximately $100 per panel, they are designed to both reflect and absorb a certain segment of the frequency spectrum. Custom consultation is available through Bernard Li, whom I plan to consult next year when I build my dedicated audio room in the basement.