Hello SECRETS readers! We will be bringing you coverage of the Audio Advice Live 2023 show to these pages as we ramble through the halls and rooms in Raleigh, North Carolina this weekend. This is the show’s second year and will be held at the Sheraton Hotel – Raleigh, NC from August 4th to the 6th.
The show promises to be larger than last year with more than 80 brands being represented along with several custom home theater demos as well. Just a taste of some of the brands on display include: Anthem, Bowers & Wilkins, Denon, ELAC, GoldenEar, JBL, JL Audio, JVC, KEF, Klipsch, Marantz, MartinLogan, McIntosh, Monitor Audio, NAD, Paradigm, Perlisten, Revel, Samsung, Sony, SVS, Technics, Trinnov, and many more.
If you can’t attend the show in person, be sure to check back on this page regularly as we will be updating it, along with our Facebook and Instagram feeds with show coverage as fast as we can. And if you are at the show and happen to see us there, be sure to say Hi!
In this video Focal Naim America’s Tom Graham walks us through this statement system that was set up in the show’s main entryway. It is a beast of a system that could not be missed!
The KEF Blade One Meta ($35K per pair). I’ve never had a chance to hear these speakers properly set up in the wild. But just playing as they were, in an open walkway area and supplemented by two KEF K92 subwoofers, the system sounded especially clean and “alive.” I now get what all the hubbub is about with these.
Fidelity Imports brought the heat to Audio Advice Live 2023 with the primo combination of the Perlisten S7t loudspeakers ($19,999 per pair), the Audia Flight FLS 10 Integrated amp ($12,999 base price); the Gold Note DS10 EVO streamer/DAC ($3,699) and the Michell Gyro SE turntable ($5,498 with tonearm). All situated on a beautiful audio stand from NEO High End. A great-sounding room that was constantly busy.
In this video, Perlisten’s Erik Wiederholtz walks us through the room.
Two generations of Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers on static display at Audio Advice Live 2023. The “competition blue” B&W Nautilus speakers and the recently released B&W 801 D4 in that stunning burl finish. While the Nautilus was a completely static display, a pair of 801 D4 were being demoed on another floor.
For Audio Advice Live 2023, our friends at DALI brought the beautiful new Epikore 11 loudspeakers ($60K per pair) powered by the NAD M33 integrated amp ($5,000). They provided a superb sense of clarity and a level of bass that literally shook the room.
Mo-Fi brought some fun stuff to Audio Advice 2023. Starting with their Andrew Jones designed SourcePoint 10 and 8 loudspeakers ($3,999 and $2,999 per pair respectively), the Hifirose RA180 integrated amp ($6,995), the Hifirose RS150B Network Streamer ($4,995), the Mo-Fi Master Phono phono preamp ($5,000), the Mo-Fi Master Deck turntable ($7,500), and the Nessie Vinylmaster II record cleaner ($3,195). The room sounded excellent as usual, and it was great to catch up with Mo-Fi’s Jon Derda and Ben Newhall along with the always smiling David Solomon, Qobuz impresario extraordinaire.
Sonus faber initially unveiled their newly reimagined Stradivari loudspeakers at an offsite hotel during the Munich High-End show so I was not able to cover that unveiling in person. So I must say it was nice of Sf to select Audio Advice Live 2023 for the speaker’s North American premiere. I have to confess that when I first saw the images of these speakers I wasn’t entirely bowled over by the look. But after seeing them in the flesh, I’ve done a complete 180 on them. They are properly stunning looking in person. Pictures don’t do them justice. And while Sonus faber’s Will Kline was rightly waxing poetically about the red finish of the Munich samples, I loved the depth of the gloss Wenge finish on these examples before me. It looked so deep and rich that I felt like I could practically dive into them! Sonically, they are very much in the Sonus faber mold of flattering any music that they play. I particularly dug them with some of the select jazz albums that Michael Fremer was demonstrating on them during my visit. They were being well driven by Pro-Ject, Rotel and MICHI gear. A most artful looking and sounding loudspeaker. Pricing will be $50K for the pair. Availability will begin after a month or so.
In this video, Sonus faber’s Will Kline takes us on a deep dive into the Sonus faber Stradivari G2 loudspeakers.
Samsung was featuring several displays of various types and sizes. The 77” S95C OLED, the 65” 65QN95C Neo QLED panel, and the 55” Serif designer display were all together in one room. All looked bright, colorful, and uniformly gorgeous with great viewing angles. The Serif display could automatically rotate to either vertical or horizontal orientation and digitally displaying famous paintings as if they were in a frame. They even had a cute little portable projector called the “Freestyle” that you could use just about anywhere. The show’s entryway had a 110” flat panel display called “The Wall” that just looked insane, even in bright light.
One of surprises at the show was found in the Cabasse room where they were featuring their new active Rialto bookshelf speaker system. These little white jewels use a 2-way concentric driver in front and rear-mounted woofer or subwoofer as they call it. Onboard Amplifier power (per speaker) is claimed at 300 watts RMS for the tweeter, 300 watts RMS for the midrange, and 450 watts RMS for the woofer. They feature app-based control with a built-in proprietary room correction system. The one master unit has an integrated round touchscreen volume control on its top side, akin to what Naim does with their Uniti Atom series of components. There is a digital connection that runs between both units to connect them as a working pair. You can stream to them directly, they feature HDMI ARC, Ethernet, analog RCA, USB, and optical digital inputs. All that is awesome, but for a fin shy of $4,000 for the pair how do they sound? Honestly, they sound impressive. Way bigger and more authoritative than they have any right to sound for their size. Being concentric drivers, something that Cabasse has a lot of experience with, the imaging was excellent. Really looking forward to get a set of these to review.
Popping back in to one of the larger “event” theater demos. This one, anchored by Storm Audio, Barco, and Focal was using DIRAC ART (Acoustic Room Treatment) in the theater’s processing and calibration. It was a 9.2.4 channel system with Focal Kanta No. 2 tower speakers ($10,998 per pair) for 8 of the bed channels, a Viva Utopia Color Evo Center channel speaker ($17,999 each), four 300 ICLCR 5 ceiling speakers ($1099 each) and 2 Focal SUB 1000F powered subwoofers ($2,100 each). The visuals were provided by a monstrous Barco projector using video processing by Lumigen, projected on to a huge Seymour Screen with content delivered by Kaleidescape. The picture on all the demo scenes was outstanding as you would expect at this caliber of theater. But what I noticed most was the sound. Intentionally sitting off to the right side the two main things I notices was, first, how solid and even the bass sounded at my seat. Second was how locked at center and even all the center channel dialogue and effects were. There was no sense of lobing or falling off of the sound from the center as far off to the right as my seat was. Impressive.
In another surprise found in this room sponsored by Fidelity Imports, was the amazingly good sound coming from the combination of the Diptyque DP107 speakers ($7,999 per pair) and the Audia Flight, Flight Three S integrated amp ($3,999). Now, I’ve heard these speakers at other shows and they’ve always sounded enjoyable. But in this particular instance they just gelled with this room really well and everyone who heard them agreed that they sounded exceptional in this space. With both precise imaging and a soundstage that extended well outside and behind the speakers, they were also producing a level of tight yet impactful bass that was frankly astonishing from a panel speaker of this size. Rounding out the system was the Michell Technodec turntable with T3 tonearm ($2,698), Goldring E3 cartridge ($189), the Gold Note DS-10 EVO Streamer/DAC ($3,699), the Gold Note PH-5 phono preamp ($999), and a NEO 3-shelf audio rack ($3,999).
In this video Fidelity Imports Managing Director, Steve Jain, takes us through this fantastic sounding room.
Sony demonstrated a neat 4 speaker plus subwoofer wireless home theater system that sounded properly immersive and would be perfect for apartment dwellers or small home theaters. The Sony HT-A9 wireless HT system ($1,998for the set) consists of 4 pearl grey canister shaped speakers. Each are self powered so they need to be plugged in, and they communicate with a small hub unit that connects to your TV via HDMI. Each speaker has a tweeter and two mid-bass drivers along with a pair of microphones that allow the system to calibrate itself to your environment. The system can decode all main surround formats including ATMOS and DTS:X and as it operates, it generates multiple phantom channels to help create the immersive effect. In our demo, the system was paired with the Sony SA-SW5 Wireless Subwoofer ($698 each) and the Sony BRAVIA XR A95L QD-OLED 4K TV ($2,798). For such a compact system the sonic results were impressive with the Top-Gun Maverick demo. The sound felt like a full enveloping bubble and the phantom center channel was impressively solid and convincing.
Besides the Nautilus and 801 D4 Signature static display on the ground floor, B&W had a couple of stereo rooms with speakers on active demonstration. One room had the 703 S3 towers ($6,000 per pair) and the 705 S3 standmounts ($3,400 per pair) powered by a Marantz Model 40n integrated amp ($2,500).
The other room had both the 801 D4 and 805 D4 Signature speakers that I had seen at the official unveiling at Masimo Consumer HQ in California. These bad boys were controlled and powered by a suite of Classé Delta gear.
B&W also had a compelling home theater setup in one of the ballrooms. They had a 9.4.6 system comprised of five B&W CT 7.3 loudspeakers ($2,100 each), four CT 7.4 loudspeakers ($1,400 each), four CT SW 15″ subwoofers ($1,700 each), and six CCM 7.5 in-ceiling speakers ($1,000 each). Everything was controlled and powered by the Marantz AV10 processor ($7,000), AMP10 multichannel amp ($7,000), and four B&W CDA-2HD custom install amplifiers. Visuals were provided by the SonyVW6000ES laser projector ($27,998). Another really impressive sounding installation.
Monitor audio chose Audio Advice Live 2023 for the North American premier of their new statement loudspeaker, the Hyphn ($95K for the pair). Initially available in three distinct colors, the Hyphn is certainly a bold design and incorporates several new technologies and different approaches to reproducing sound. The demos were well attended and certainly left an impression on people. Well-defined and transparent sound with a serious bass capacity were the Hyphn’s calling cards. I would really love to hear these speakers in a more familiar room, but what I did hear left me intrigued! Supporting equipment are a pair of the Mark Levinson ML-50 mono-block amplifiers, the No. 526 preamp, and a HiFiRose streamer.
Besides the new Hyphn loudspeaker, Monitor Audio was also introducing their new Custom Install home theater speaker line, the Cynergy. These new speakers and subs are THX Ultra certified and feature and octagonal shaped tweeter and midrange assembly that can be rotated 90-degrees to accommodate horizontal or vertical speaker placement. Monitor Audio had rigged up a 11.4.4 channel system with a Sony GTZ-380 Laser projector, a MadVR Envy Extreme Mk2 video processor, a Stewart Filmscreen 170-inch screen, a Kaleidescape video player and audio processing and amplification by the Trinnov Altitude 16/Amplitude 16 combination. It was quite impressive! Dynamic, intense, a very low noise floor, and all the “feels” you would expect from a top-notch HT system.
So this is a post where I’m going to need you to use your imagination a little bit because while it’s about SVS, it is not exactly about the room you see in this image. It is actually about the 5.2.2 channel SVS home theater room next door, that I was enjoying so much that I forgot to take photos of it! The room featured SVS’s Prime Pinnacle Towers, matching Center Channel, matching Bookshelf (surrounds), and a pair of Prime Elevation speakers for overhead. Two SB-3000 subs rounded out the package. A mid-line Marantz receiver was powering and controlling everything. Now there were several high-dollar home theater demos at Audio Advice Live 2023 which were great and awe-inspiring for sure. But for a small to medium sized room and $6,000 all in (minus display) this properly set up SVS system honestly provided me almost as much satisfaction with the same test material as many of those other demos at the show. No, I’m not saying they were exactly the same. But for the money and the room size, this was an overachieving little system that is easily scalable should your room size or needs change in the future. The value is undeniable. Sometimes less can be more.
Dropping in on the ELAC room there were a couple of interesting things to listen to. First were the ELAC Solano FS287 Floor-standing speakers ($2,000 each). For such modestly-sized speakers, they imaged far larger than I would have thought, and the level of bass that was coming out of them made everyone in the room do a double-take. The speakers are beautifully put together and made in Germany to boot. The speakers were being controlled and driven by the company’s very capable Alchemy series of electronics.
The second was the new ELAC Varro DS1000 Dual Reference 10” powered subwoofer ($2,499 each). With it’s dual 10” drivers with the distinctive hex-shaped surround and its powerful 1000 watt RMS BASH amplifier with app controlled Auto-EQ features, it certainly added additional bottom end when blended in with the speakers.
Richard Litofsky and Ryan Charpentier from MadVR Labs were properly representing at Audio Advice 2023 with their Envy Extreme Mk2 video processor ($16K). Several home theater demos at the show were using it in their presentations with great results. Our Video Editor Chris Eberle also recently reviewed the Envy Extreme Mk2 and came away mightily impressed. It’s definitely worth your time to consider if you have a higher-end home theater in your house.
JBL was well represented at Audio Advice Live 2023. One of their display areas was a full ballroom replete with all manner of goodness, most of which we have previously covered at AXPONA and Munich High-End. In fact, if you want to get our hot-off-the-digital-press review of the killer active JBL 4329P Studio Monitors, head over to our main website tout suite!
But back to the show, the thing that caught my attention was the JBL Synthesis SCL-2 in-wall speaker system display. Basically it was a simple 3.2 channel system (with two JBL HDI-1200P powered subwoofers) that anchored an enormous 146-inch Samsung “The Wall” commercial display ($220k if you’re wondering) with a gorgeous picture. On the “A Star Is Born” and “Sting Concert” demos that we’re playing courtesy of Kaleidescape, I heard some of the cleanest, most dynamic playback from the SCL-2 ($5,940 each) that I recall in recent memory. It all made for a superb music-first listening experience.
I’ve experienced Devialet speakers in stereo applications several times, but never before in the home theater installation that was at Audio Advice Live 2023. And when you sit back and think about it, it kind of makes sense to do this with them. Each Devialet Phantom I and II speaker is compact and fully active and has enough deep bass reach that no separate subwoofers were used in this demo. The setup was a 5.0.2 configuration ($10,420 for the full speaker package) with two overhead ATMOS channels. The whole shebang was controlled by a JBL Synthesis SDP-58 processor ($6,900). Projection was courtesy of the Epson LS800 UST projector ($3,500). The overall presentation on clips from Top Gun-Maverick and No Time to Die were impressive and convincing.
For those that want to go significantly less extreme, Devialet was showing off a static display of their new Dione soundbar. For $1,999 this very stylish and cycloptic bit of tech claims to deliver a 5.1.2 multichannel experience from all sources. It features a total of 17 drivers and an app based control with calibration system to help it sound its best. HDMI 2.1 with eARC, Bluetooth 5.0, Spotify Connect, Apple Airplay 2 and UPNP streaming capabilities are all along for the ride.
MartinLogan had a significant presence at Audio Advice Live 2023. This first room had a pair of the new Motion XT F200 loudspeakers ($5,500 per pair) powered by an Anthem STR integrated amp ($4,999). According to ML’s Andrew Lindsey, the speakers had just been set up as normal and they were not running ARC room correction. The F200s were imaging quite well in the space and generating an almost ridiculous amount of bass impact. Trust me, no one was complaining!
And speaking of MartinLogan, they obviously pulled out all the stops in one of the larger conference rooms. The company brought out their flagship Neolith speakers ($120K per pair) and paired them with electronics by Chord, Hifirose and a massive Burmester 909 mk5 stereo power amplifier ($80K). Cabling and power conditioning were courtesy of AudioQuest. Rounding out the equipment was a pair of MartinLogan BF212 subwoofers ($4,500 each) hanging out in the rear of the room. I’ve heard the Neoliths a handful of times at various shows, but they seemed to have been dialed in especially well here. Really nice sound to be had if you dig what big ML electrostatics bring to the table.
Klipsch also made a heck of an impression in another room with a full home theater made up of their Reference Premiere Series of speakers and subwoofers. The original Raiders of the Lost Ark never sounded so good!
I have to confess, the new GoldenEar T66 loudspeakers ($3,450 each) look really good in red and with the new grille cover. What’s even better is is that they sound as good as they look! A perfect color match with the Mark Levinson gear that they were paired with.
Our friends at Technics had a room full of all sorts of great sounding audio goodness. The little SU-GX70 Network Audio amplifier ($1,999.95) particularly got my attention while playing portions of Eric Clapton’s The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions through the Technics SB-C600-K bookshelf speakers ($1,099.95 per pair). The sound was excellent for such a compact little system.
Def Tech was rocking a 9.4.6 Channel system comprised of it’s new Dymension series of bipolar tower speakers, dedicated center channel speaker and brawny DN15 subwoofers. The whole thing was controlled and powered to impressive effect by a Denon AVR-A1H surround sound receiver. Projection was courtesy of the Sony VPL-XW6000ES 4K SXRD Laser projector. Another dynamite sounding system!
Another very impressive and effective home theater demonstration was put together by JVC and GoldenEar. In the video below, David Penrod from GoldenEar and Robert Budde from JVC walk me through their show setup. It was a truly top-shelf performance in both visuals and sound!
KEF and EPSON put together, what was a first in my experience attending shows like this, an immersive flight simulator system. Comprised of 3 EPSON short throw projectors running off a home PC with a mid-tier NVIDIA graphics card and a KEF 2.2 channel audio system. I’m not a gamer by any stretch, but even I thought is was very, very cool!
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