2019 CAS Report by Richard Austen, Part 2

Room 5218 Marchand Electronics / Bernhagen-Porter / Bricasti Design / A.R.T.

This was one of the more intriguing rooms at CAS for me because I liked the interesting take on the various recordings I played.  Bernhagen-Porter are the Surnames of the lead designers of these $50,000 loudspeakers.  Yes that is a lot of money for a speaker with no name recognition in the industry.  Both men are aware of this but believe they will have a market for their speakers with more exposure.  The speakers are Battleships with outstanding bass depth and a midband that is both revealing and yet free of sibilance or stridency.  I think they’re onto something and I asked a few fellow writers on our staff to give them a listen.  I am told that they are working on smaller less expensive speakers.  I liked the fact that the sound here had more contrast between recordings and was largely free of a one note sameness that was evidence in some other rooms.

Room 5224 Exogal / Ryan Speakers / WyWires / Qobuz

This room sounded quite nice and nicer still when you factor in the relative budget pricing.  The $4,000 Ryan speakers made this one of the best budget rooms at the show.  Solid bass, well integrated sound and nice punch when required.

Room 5105 Wyred 4 Sound

Wyred 4 Sound was showing off their new, I believe prototype, $6,000/pair speakers which I feel have a lot of promise for the dollar.  Offering up tremendous bass depth and drive.  It’s difficult to get both microdynamic nuance and subtlety along with massive macrodynamic power and this system leans more to the latter for me.  But when you factor in the price compared to many of the other rooms – you have to tip your cap.