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| Good mix of ages. Mostly guys, as expected. |
Audiophiles in Vancouver know that there are a few pretty good-sized stores with decent sound rooms locally. I suspect the largest one is HiFi Centre just outside Chinatown. Not the nicest/safest locale in Vancouver and close to some of the open drug use in the city so you'll probably need to be buzzed in if coming for a visit. This location opened in 2015 and I had an article on that.
Back in 2015 and 2016, there used to be the Vancouver Audio Show (here and here) run by the Chester Group. Unfortunately since then, the closest audio show to us would be the Pacific Audio Fest with the most recent show in 2024. Supposedly, the next one is coming up January 15-17, 2027 at a new venue near Seattle; could be an interesting visit although being in January, there might be some weather considerations for those driving in.
[Also let's not forget current trade tensions, immature renaming of a lake, and basically an incompetent, classless and embarrassing (unethical and convicted felon also come to mind) president and enablers have tainted Canadians wanting to spend money in the USA. How pathetic and exhausting. I hope things get better by January.]
And so without a local audio show, it's good for a larger dealer like HiFi Centre to run their own mini-show "Audio Festival" like this one on September 19.
As you can see in the pictures above, this was a good turnout! If I'm not mistaken, I believe there were 6 main rooms with representatives talking about their gear, plus an open area with huge speakers. By the time I got there around 2:00PM (opened at 10:00AM to 5:00PM) there was basically a 10-15 minute line-up for each of the rooms.
Word on the street is that this was the busiest event of this kind they've had over the years with >700 visitors this single-day. That's great! They've probably captured a good chunk of the more "serious" audiophiles in town.
Let's show some pictures and talk about the rooms I visited starting with this:
Speakers are the new Focal Scala Eutopia EVO M - 3-way US$25k each, introduced in July and available since August 2026. Note the middle tweeter with reddish-tinged grille. It's their new "PRISM" (Photon-Refined Intelligent Structured Membrane) inverted-dome driver which is made of a multi-layer composite. Historically, Focal has been primarily using beryllium for the last couple decades.
Electronics is a stack of Naim.
Demo music used:
SOHN - "Tremors" from Tremors (DR5, 2014)Rhye - "Come In Closer" from Home (DR7, 2021)Jeff Russo & The Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra - "Bemidji, MN" (from Fargo: Season 1 soundtrack main theme, DR10, 2014)Sophie Zelmani - "Sing and Dance" (DR9, 2002)
Sounded pretty good to me despite some rather low DR content. Smooth mids and highs, probably the least boomy bass I heard at the mini-show. Given the opportunity without all the crowds, I'd probably want to spend a little more time listening to these Focal speakers.
I didn't ask specifically but I assume these are the "Nautilus 30th Anniversary (1993-2023)" in luxury car McLaren Papaya Orange color. Typically, the Nautilus goes for $US110k/pair and with the luxury paint job, it's ~US$125k/pair.
As you can see, each driver is powered by its own amplifier, hence the four 2-channel Classé Delta Stereo amplifiers. At the bottom of the left rack (shown above) are the external crossover boxes.
Music heard:
Christine and the Queens - "Paradis Perdus" (from Christine And The Queens, DR5, 2015, also available in multichannel/Atmos streaming)Neil Young - "Old Man" (Live at Massey Hall 1971, DR10)
I ran into a friend so left this room a little early after the above songs. After 33 years, and presumably with the same basic driver design using aluminum, the Nautilus I think still sounds very good. Not too harsh/bright with female vocals and the live Neil Young track had good timbral balance, doing a good job casting the live venue. Bass extension was good but not very deep; hard to estimate this with unfamiliar music of course, but I think the Christine and the Queens track had more low and sub-bass than the system could muster.
Next, let's check out these B&W 803 D5 speakers (not bad, about US$35k/pair) powered by Rotel/Michi electronics.
Like McIntosh amps, and the Classé system with the Nautilus above, the Michi S5 amp (~US$9.5k) also has a cool VU meter. As you can see, the B&W 800 design has that iconic spherical midrange driver aluminum "head". There's a diamond dome tweeter, said to have break break-up frequency up around 70kHz (vs. beryllium somewhere between 30-45kHz vs. aluminum 20-30kHz vs. silk dome 20-25kHz but wider irregularity rather than sharp metal "ringing").
Of all the rooms, I thought this one was a bit too boomy for my taste. While I was seated centrally, I was in the 2nd row which was a bit too close to the back wall though. Soundstage was good although I think the slight asymmetrical placement of the speakers and room treatments might have shifted the image off center.
Music heard:
a-ha - "Take On Me" (MTV Unplugged, DR7, 2017)Geoff Castellucci - "Big Bad John" (single, 2022)Kenichi Tsunoda Big Band - "Take Five" (Big Band Scale, 2015)Boris Blank - "Electrified" (DR10, 2014)
Good selection of various genres and the demo person warned audiophiles with sensitive ears that the Boris Blank track in particular might not be to their taste. 😉
Near the start of the demo, the AudioQuest rep came in and was quick to point out all their cables used in this system plus power conditioner. All of which added another obscene number of thousands of dollars to the system which I won't repeat here.
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| Wall of AudioQuest analogue cables; good selection and margins I'm sure. (You know what I think about audiophile cables - don't overthink this stuff.) |
The last closed-room demo I checked out was this one showing off the IsoAcoustics Gaia Neo footers using two pairs of KEF R3 Meta (~US$2500/pair) speakers screwed onto their matching floor stands (~US$800/pair) which makes for a physically taller, top-heavy unit:
As you can see in the picture, the plastic IsoAcoustics indicator sitting on the left blue speaker is lit showing that they're playing the song with the speakers on Gaia footers. Other than spikes vs. Gaia footers, everything else supposedly identical and the speakers themselves should sound the same.
Every 10 seconds or so the demo person would switch between the speakers on spikes vs. Gaia.
Music used:
Sting - "Fields of Gold" from Ten Summoner's Tales (DR11, 1993)Dominique Fils-Aimé - "Birds" from Nameless (DR9, 2018)SKÁLD - "Seven Nation Army" from Vikings Chant (DR7, 2018)Emilie-Claire Barlow - "These Boots Are Made For Walking" from The Beat Goes On (DR9, 2010)
Did the Gaia 'treated' speakers sound different? Yes, absolutely. Imaging clearly more focused, bass much less muddled. A wider soundstage with instruments separated rather than congested in the middle.
Footers can certainly have an impact primarily by changing the bass energy transmitted through the floor as discussed previously. I don't know how well the spiked speakers were leveled to the floor (hopefully not unstable). It's important to note that the demo room they used was small, there was strong bass reinforcement in this cavernous space, and I suspect the RT60 especially in the lower frequencies would be a bit higher than I would be happy with if this was my listening space. These factors I suspect exacerbated the difference.
Notice also that they're using spikes on the hard flooring which I would not recommend since they could scratch; IMO, only use spikes with carpet. On hard surfaces, I would use some kind of absorbent material (like rubber, foam, maybe sorbothane padding) which probably would have made differences in this demo much less pronounced.
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| New KEF LS Luxe (in Dusk Titanium). Looks nice. Designed by Ross Lovegrove like the Muons below. Powered, WiFi streaming capable. |
At the back of the store, they had a table with some headphones to try out. Looks like folks were having fun. I suspect with open driver designs, the talking in the common area would have affected the ability to accurately evaluate the sound.
I'm not enough of a headphone guy to confidently identify these things, but I see a pair of HiFiMan HE1000 Unveiled (US$2300) in use.
Here's the table of gear. We have some Chord electronics like the Hugo TT2 and an Eversolo (DMP-A6 streamer?) box.
Finally, these were up at the front near the entrance. The KEF Muon speakers initially released in 2007 for US$140k/pair and limited to 100 pairs. Made of 6mm thick aluminum shells, 7' tall, 115kg/speaker (253lbs!!!) these are monsters.
Like with most KEF speakers, there's the central Uni-Q coaxial driver. We can see the 10" lower midrange below, and then 4 x 10" bass/low frequency drivers flanking these at the front plus 2 more rear-facing 10" bass/low frequency drivers. Crossover frequencies listed as 120Hz, 300Hz, and 2.3kHz.
Looks like they have a couple of Burmester 216 power amps, Burmester 232 bottom right, top left looks like the Burmester 035 preamp, and Linn Klimax DSM 3 top right on the rack.
To be honest, it was really hard to get a read on the sound of these. Just too much ambient noise as folks talking around the display. Adele's "Hello" sounded good when I asked the show person to turn up the volume and Yosi Horikawa's "Bubbles" showed off the imaging quite well - but this should not be too difficult with most good speakers.Unfortunately, I had to leave a little early so I think I missed out on the YG Acoustics + CH Precision (see here), and the Sonus Faber Olympica G3 III (this one) rooms. If anyone was there to listen, would love to hear your thoughts on those.
On the impossibility of achieving accurate sonic impressions at shows.
All in all, it was really quite a good time checking out the stuff. It must be >3 years since I've visited HiFi Centre so doing special events like this I think is a great idea to draw folks back for a peek. It was free, and a good way for an audiophile to spend a couple of hours listening to some excellent systems. Socially, we audiophiles don't have many opportunities to gather, so this was a nice way to also run into friends and catch up.
Check out this place if you're in town...
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On the impossibility of achieving accurate sonic impressions at shows.
Imagine being the fellow above trying to seriously audition those KEF Muon speakers for his mansion. He's sitting in a room that's partially treated. The room probably looks nothing like what he has at home. If this is an audio show, it might be one of those larger conference rooms in a hotel (or worse in one of those small bedrooms, inappropriate for larger speakers).
If you mention to the audio company representatives that the sound seems a little strident, maybe harsh vocals or the soundstage not as wide as you've heard in other systems, they might be quick to remind you that the hardware hasn't "broken in" yet. This could be true I suppose if the speakers came straight from the factory and the transducers might need some time to loosen up. (But there's no evidence for "break in", certainly not for a typical recommendation like "100 to 200 hours" with electronics and wires despite what some in audiophilia want us to believe - presumably so the consumer doesn't return products that make no difference too quickly.)
On top of this, there is the matter of the noise floor. It doesn't help when folks are walking around, chatting in the rooms, etc.
I want to focus on this latter issue because that's I think what I notice most when attending audio shows. It was great to see all the folks gathering in the main area at HiFi Centre as shown in the very top photographs, but the chatter was loud with ambient noise level somewhere around 75dB SPL. Going into the rooms for a listen, while the doors did a fine job to drown out much of the noise, the level was still around 65dB SPL before any music played.
With that amount of noise in each of the rooms, the music volume they used typically was targeted to ~85dB SPL average with peaks around 95+dB. So the difference between average playback level (85dB) and ambient level in these rooms (let's be very generous and say 60dB) is only 25dB.
Compare this to a quiet domestic sound room with no appliance in the room, fan noise or HVAC disturbance, where ambient noise is maybe around 35dB SPL, playing our music closer to average 75dB. As you can imagine, this already gives us a 40dB spread compared to what I heard at the audio demos above.
[A friend sent me this paper: Behar, et al. "Noise Exposure and Hearing Loss in Classical Orchestra Musicians: A Five-Year Follow-Up" (2018) looking at noise exposure, an occupational hazard, in orchestras and acuity changes over 5 years. Be careful with excessive loudness for you classical musicians sitting in the brass, percussion/bass, woodwind sections of the orchestra!
A good reminder also for audiophiles not to listen too loud, especially with long-duration headphone listening and low-dynamic range music played loud! The 8-hour time-weighted average threshold for hearing loss as per NIOSH is 85dB SPL. Because intensity doubles every 3dB, at 88dB SPL the time window goes down to 4 hours.A good sound room with low noise floor can be beneficial by keeping the required listening level down.]
With the dB scale being logarithmic and 3dB representing a doubling of acoustic power/intensity, the difference between a 40dB (good home sound room) and 25dB (audio show) average dynamic range when it comes to the potential to hear nuances is substantial to say the least!
Just as in other audio shows like PAF or RMAF in years past, it's not unusual to be listening to a demo and hear an occasional anomaly here and there in the music, and not quite sure whether this was noise from outside the room, or whether it was some issue with the system playback (worse with vinyl when it comes to the possibility of random clicks, pops, surface noise, and various distortions).
For us home loudspeaker audiophiles, it's imperative to make sure to do what we can to control ambient noise. While there are many room factors (like reverb time, bass modes, etc.) to be mindful of, make sure that you're doing what you can to keep the room as quiet as possible so your music can arise out of that proverbial "black background". Nuances, satisfying dynamic range, clarity, and intelligibility are all tied to whether you can achieve that "sound of silence". This is no different than appreciating the ability for a good TV set and home theater room to provide better dynamic range contrast that can help with image realism (of course other elements like color tonal accuracy important just like frequency response accuracy and timing accuracy in audio). Hence, the discussions here and here over the years.
For me, achieving <35dB(A) SPL noise level is a must when it comes to having a great dedicated listening room, and as I discussed recently, a good listening room is a pre-requisite before jumping deeply into very expensive "high-end" gear. IMO, if one is planning to use higher priced gear, making sure to correlate this with the sound room quality it will live in is essential.
So while it's great to attend shows to check out the cool systems on display and hang out with friends, it's always wise to realize that whatever impressions we derive at these shows is at best a "screen" of the system's potential. It's great to be impressed by the "best of show" sounding rooms, putting those components at the top of the list to audition further, I would also caution that unless the sound is clearly very poor, attributable to the hardware rather than room or the music used (especially crappy vinyl demo playback), it's wise not to outright dismiss systems that didn't quite impress on first listen.
Furthermore, just like when shopping for a TV, one might be very impressed by the brightest, most contrasty, highest saturation image at BestBuy. We need to consider that while the systems that feature the most "flashy" music can catch our attention, those might not be the best all-around systems we'd enjoy in a multi-hour listening session in our rooms and with the music we love. In part that's why I also like reporting on what music was used in these demo rooms. Over time, you'll likely run into some of these same tunes so a bit of familiarity might be helpful for preparation at these shows.
Let's now end with some music...
Here's one of these demo tracks - SKÁLD and their take on "Seven Nation Army" (originally by The White Stripes) mentioned above in one of the rooms:
Next, some Phil Collins - "In The Air Tonight" from Face Value (DR14) - make sure to turn up the volume from 3:00 and experience the joy of dynamic range (classic compressed gated reverb drums):
I bring this track up because the new 2026 Steve Wilson TrueHD 7.1 multichannel/Atmos mix sounds great with good use of the center vocal channel and LFE. Turn it up to feel the music. 😊 Needless to say, it's a 3D perspective into the music which no 2-channel system would be able to reproduce fully (as discussed). And as with all things subjective, each of us will have to decide whether we enjoy this kind of immersion for ourselves.
Finally, while these days many demo recordings at audio shows are using electronica and modern compressed recordings, let's make sure we thrown some "classic" audiophile demo music in there once awhile to test the dynamics of good acoustic recordings! 😉
Here's one I think many audiophiles will enjoy. "March to the Scaffold" from Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique conducted by Varujan Kojian & Utah Symphony Orchestra (DR16, Reference Recording, 1982):
This was recorded back in 1982 using the Soundstream Digital System at 16-bits, 50kHz. Despite all the hand wringing about the ills of digital, misguided claims of vinyl sonic superiority, and hype around hi-res music, clearly when done well, "standard" 16-bit PCM at 44.1kHz CD samplerate will hold its own. Human hearing ability is not infinite after all.
Hope you're enjoying some great music, fellow audiophiles.
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