I'm sitting here in my hotel room in
Montreal and snow is blanketing the city -- the perfect conditions for reflecting on the
Festival Son & Image 2007, which ended a few hours ago. A trend we saw at CES has
continued in Montreal -- toward astronomically priced products, many of which will have a
hard time justifying their cost. We were happy to see and hear new Tenor Audio amps, for
instance, but their sharp increase in price seems gratuitous. Similar-looking Tenor Audio
monoblocks debuted shortly before the company ceased operations at $32,000/pair. The new
Tenor 350 monoblocks are $75,000/pair. Speakers that cost $20,000 per pair were
commonplace. In one instance, we thought that two pairs of speakers we were seeing seemed
to be priced reasonably at $2200 and $2700, but then we discovered that we left off a
zero, and the speakers didn't seem like such a good deal any longer. I write about many
expensive products, but they are ones I've qualified up front, cherry-picked for relevance
at the very least. I saw and heard many amps, preamps and speakers this weekend that I
simply couldn't say enough about to make a review possible.
Amidst all of this, the
complete Aurum Acoustics system, at $42,000, shines like a beacon of audio value and
common sense. This system is the real thing, and it takes away the chore of picking
components and hoping they sound good together. You won't see any audio reviewers write
"I bought the review sample" because they couldn't continue to ply their trade
with it, but for one music lover we met at the show, it was just the right purchase.
"You're the smartest man here," I told him. We hope to profile his system in the
"Config.Sys" column on SoundStage! sometime later this year.
That's all from me. I only hope my flight isn't cancelled
tomorrow morning. If so, maybe Derrick Moss of Aurum Acoustics and his system will be
stranded too. A little snow-day listening, anyone?
***
The crowds came today.
After a sedate Friday, we experienced packed rooms and
general congestion on Saturday. The line to get into the Festival would make the
organizers of other audio shows envious. It was four wide and stretched down a long
hallway. Say what you want about the apathy of the general population to high-end audio,
but the people of Quebec are still interested. And they had a lot to see and hear. Among
the finds today were a few closeout bins of $10 CDs that included a number of MA
Recordings and Analogue Productions releases. Little Hatch's Rock With Me Baby was
there, so I grabbed it. A friend of mine had recommended Goin' Back, an earlier
Little Hatch/Analogue Productions collaboration, and I loved it. I'm anxious to listen to
my new CD, but because of the crowds all over the Sheraton today, I'll wait until I'm home
to play it.
I'm also anxious to hear the cuts from my demo CD-R at home
again. I make one of these for every show I attend, using it to evaluate the systems I
hear. Overall I would say that the Sheraton Centre is an upgrade from the Festival's
previous hotels -- the Sheraton Four Points and Delta -- because the room-to-room
acoustics are better. But it is still a hotel, and show conditions -- including dirty
power and the constant din from so much music wafting through the halls all at once --
prevail. I've heard some impressive sound here so far, but nothing that seriously
challenges my system at home.
Still, the crowds seemed to love it.
***
Every time I come to Montreal
for the Festival Son & Image, it snows, and this stay was no
exception. Lucky for me the A/V part of the trip began on the flight from Phoenix to
Toronto. I flew Air Canada, which equips its Airbus 320 planes with a powerful system for
fighting in-flight boredom. On the back of every seat is a monitor that's connected to a
media server. Passengers can watch their choice of unedited movies -- I saw The Good
German -- or TV, and also play games. A USB connection seems to point toward
in-flight Internet access in the future. There's also an outlet to keep your laptop
powered for long flights if you'd rather work. Air Canada even provides headphones if need
them.
The surprising thing about this service is its cost:
nothing. When I got to my seat and saw the monitor, I reflexively looked for someplace to
swipe my credit card, and it took me a minute to discover that it wasn't there.
Personally, I would rather have food be optional, which seems to be the case on all of the
major carriers nowadays, and in-flight entertainment of the type that Air Canada provides
be free. While it snowed in Montreal, Air Canada made the first long leg of a day of
travel tolerable.
