Taves 2016 what's your impressions?

Hi Moussa... sorry I missed your thread and started another on the same topic... perhaps Richard will merge the two threads.

To recap... I was impressed by the Atom build and fit and finish... couldn't audition the piece as there wasn't really the possibility for critical listening in the Plurison room.

I was blown away by the Totem Sky standmount speakers. Amazing sound from a tiny speaker. I would have bought them on the spot if I was in the market for such a product.

There were some other good sounds at the show, but nothing that really stopped me in my tracks. And I've never been a fan of the super expensive gear set up as a tech demo in rooms that are far to small to accommodate. I'm a Sales and Marketing  guy... I just don't see how those types of setups in isolation move product. I would do things so differently. Totem in this case being a notable exception... that room was built to move product. I was really impressed by them.

I thought there were some very good vinyl deals to be had as well.

ZHB, unfortunately the forum still doesn't allow thread merging like on the old format, so instead I have copied the text from your thread and pasted here for you:

Zipperheadbanjo posted:
I saw the Uniti Atom at the TAVES show this weekend just north of Toronto. Very impressive piece of hardware (gorgeous remote as well). The gear in the Plurison room (the Naim importer for Canada) was set up more like a showroom than a listening space, so while the Atom was hooked up to a really cool pair of small Focal floorstanders (not sure which model), doing any critical listening was not possible. I was very impressed with the build and fit and finish for sure.

The most impressive thing I heard at this show was the new Totem Sky... small standmount speakers that sounded incredibly good driven by a Naim Uniti. For $1800 Canadian per pair, I have to think they will sell a gazillion of these speakers.

Otherwise this show had the usual enormous multi 100 thousand dollar rigs shoehorned into tiny rooms, all of which tends to make me roll my eyes and my feet turn in the opposite direction.

I went hoping to find a vendor who was selling Quadraspire posts... currently my amp needs a little more vertical so that I can get my Burndy's up off the floor. Didn't find the posts, but did find an isolation device called a Nordost Sort Cone... these things are about 4 inches tall.... so picked them up figuring I would try them. Went home and put them under the head unit of my 300... disconnected... destressed... then reconnected my Burndy's which were now hanging gloriously free of any other cables and up off the floor. Turned my rig on and bam... what a difference. Now I'm trying to figure out if it's due to the Burndys being off the floor... or due to the isolation provided by the sort cones... or both, all while pondering the wisdom of bypassing the built in isolation (the little rubber feet of the 300 DR) of a very expensive amp for something that costs about $200. More hifi nonsense to ponder endlessly. But my Burndy's are off the floor so if nothing else I can feel good about that :-)

OMG... Just imagine what would happen if I could get my speaker cables up off the floor! (that will never never happen).

Zipperheadbanjo posted:

Hi Moussa... sorry I missed your thread and started another on the same topic... perhaps Richard will merge the two threads.

To recap... I was impressed by the Atom build and fit and finish... couldn't audition the piece as there wasn't really the possibility for critical listening in the Plurison room.

I was blown away by the Totem Sky standmount speakers. Amazing sound from a tiny speaker. I would have bought them on the spot if I was in the market for such a product.

There were some other good sounds at the show, but nothing that really stopped me in my tracks. And I've never been a fan of the super expensive gear set up as a tech demo in rooms that are far to small to accommodate. I'm a Sales and Marketing  guy... I just don't see how those types of setups in isolation move product. I would do things so differently. Totem in this case being a notable exception... that room was built to move product. I was really impressed by them.

I thought there were some very good vinyl deals to be had as well.

 

 

 

Agree Zipper the Totem Sky is just a fabulous speaker very musical and puts a big sound given its size. As for the Naim Atom, to me it was love at first sight, it looks gorgeous. It design and tje finish is one of the best in all the HiFi products I have seen since far. I can't say anything more than that as I was disappointed with the Plurison setup cramming  tons of products into a tiny room. Sure all products look nice but ome can't have a chmace of how they sound. Compare that to Totem room where they have almost 3 times the space and show two systems so it's great to get a feel of how their speakers sound. 

Richard Dane posted:

ZHB, unfortunately the forum still doesn't allow thread merging like on the old format, so instead I have copied the text from your thread and pasted here for you:

Zipperheadbanjo posted:
I saw the Uniti Atom at the TAVES show this weekend just north of Toronto. Very impressive piece of hardware (gorgeous remote as well). The gear in the Plurison room (the Naim importer for Canada) was set up more like a showroom than a listening space, so while the Atom was hooked up to a really cool pair of small Focal floorstanders (not sure which model), doing any critical listening was not possible. I was very impressed with the build and fit and finish for sure.

The most impressive thing I heard at this show was the new Totem Sky... small standmount speakers that sounded incredibly good driven by a Naim Uniti. For $1800 Canadian per pair, I have to think they will sell a gazillion of these speakers.

Otherwise this show had the usual enormous multi 100 thousand dollar rigs shoehorned into tiny rooms, all of which tends to make me roll my eyes and my feet turn in the opposite direction.

I went hoping to find a vendor who was selling Quadraspire posts... currently my amp needs a little more vertical so that I can get my Burndy's up off the floor. Didn't find the posts, but did find an isolation device called a Nordost Sort Cone... these things are about 4 inches tall.... so picked them up figuring I would try them. Went home and put them under the head unit of my 300... disconnected... destressed... then reconnected my Burndy's which were now hanging gloriously free of any other cables and up off the floor. Turned my rig on and bam... what a difference. Now I'm trying to figure out if it's due to the Burndys being off the floor... or due to the isolation provided by the sort cones... or both, all while pondering the wisdom of bypassing the built in isolation (the little rubber feet of the 300 DR) of a very expensive amp for something that costs about $200. More hifi nonsense to ponder endlessly. But my Burndy's are off the floor so if nothing else I can feel good about that :-)

OMG... Just imagine what would happen if I could get my speaker cables up off the floor! (that will never never happen).

You may want to try a combination of vibrapods and vibracones as well. They cost around $14 or $15 for each one (1 vibrapod and 1 cone) and they make a significant difference with my SN2 and HCDR. The best VFM tweak so far in my system. 

I went both Fri & Sun, I find it interesting to hear the evolution of some systems.  Sometimes what didn't sound great on Fri ends up being pretty decent on Sun.  As a whole, I thought the show wasn't too bad sounding (didn't have to pop Tylenol half way through the show, which I have had to do in the past).  Sure some of the rooms were too bright/fatiguing for me, but some of these rooms seemed to be a hit with some people on a local forums (so I guess we all hear different & it depends what our "reference" is at home which our brain has been "broken into").  In general, I wasn't too impressed with most of the biggest $ systems, but some of the other cheaper system weren't sounding too bad.

Best big $ room for me was Wynn Audio/Tidal,  I found this room far less fatiguing then most of the other big systems & the big JBL's were pretty impressive Sun as were Muraudio's (those two weren't great on Fri, especially Muraudio).  

A few of my favorite rooms were probably Audiovector, the big PMC's on Fri (not the new twenty5 series, they were thin/on the bright side on Sun), Simcoe Sound (Totem/Icon Audio) & there were another handful of what I considered pretty decent.

The new Totem Sky's impressed me as well.  I got all the details on the Atom (maybe Atom/Sky pairing in the second setup?), nice build quality, but still not 100% sold on the look.  The Atom currently looks good, but I think it may not age to gracefully.

Moussa posted:

Hi everyone,

I went over the weekend to the TAVES show in Toronto and I spent a good time listening to various systems at different levels. I know that it is very challenging for the exhibitors to set up a system and make it sound good given the limitation of time, room acoustics and ambient noise. Still, I was not impressed overall with the music as most of the rooms sounded harsh and kind of in your face. I missed the emotions and the engagement that I usually like in my modest system at home. I saw amps that are as big as my stove and cost six figure $$$ and thought... OMG who is willing to buy this stuff if it sounds this way, mediocre at best. I don't want to generalize but there were few rooms with small systems that did sound good.

Anyway, I came back home and listened to my trusted SN2/HCDR with Neat SX2 and the music was flowing again. I wonder if anyone here had a chance to go there and what your impressions are.

I was not impressed with allot of the big systems .

Its very easy to come home and listen to my naim system with  motive 2's   that has swing  which none of the systems i heard there had .

daren_p posted:

I went both Fri & Sun, I find it interesting to hear the evolution of some systems.  Sometimes what didn't sound great on Fri ends up being pretty decent on Sun.  As a whole, I thought the show wasn't too bad sounding (didn't have to pop Tylenol half way through the show, which I have had to do in the past).  Sure some of the rooms were too bright/fatiguing for me, but some of these rooms seemed to be a hit with some people on a local forums (so I guess we all hear different & it depends what our "reference" is at home which our brain has been "broken into").  In general, I wasn't too impressed with most of the biggest $ systems, but some of the other cheaper system weren't sounding too bad.

Best big $ room for me was Wynn Audio/Tidal,  I found this room far less fatiguing then most of the other big systems & the big JBL's were pretty impressive Sun as were Muraudio's (those two weren't great on Fri, especially Muraudio).  

A few of my favorite rooms were probably Audiovector, the big PMC's on Fri (not the new twenty5 series, they were thin/on the bright side on Sun), Simcoe Sound (Totem/Icon Audio) & there were another handful of what I considered pretty decent.

The new Totem Sky's impressed me as well.  I got all the details on the Atom (maybe Atom/Sky pairing in the second setup?), nice build quality, but still not 100% sold on the look.  The Atom currently looks good, but I think it may not age to gracefully.

 

 

The Tidal system sounded good among the big rooms especially with orchestral music. I also agree with you on the big PMC speakers If I remember correctly they were model IB2 SE, these speakers impressed me and I really haven't heard a similar speaker like this before. The string instruments sounded really spectacular so sharp amd pointy yet not fatiguing really impressive. I want to know more about their driver technology for sure. 

I was thinking the same thing about a possible Atom / Sky setup for my living room. 

Moussa posted:

daren_p posted:

I went both Fri & Sun, I find it interesting to hear the evolution of some systems.  Sometimes what didn't sound great on Fri ends up being pretty decent on Sun.  As a whole, I thought the show wasn't too bad sounding (didn't have to pop Tylenol half way through the show, which I have had to do in the past).  Sure some of the rooms were too bright/fatiguing for me, but some of these rooms seemed to be a hit with some people on a local forums (so I guess we all hear different & it depends what our "reference" is at home which our brain has been "broken into").  In general, I wasn't too impressed with most of the biggest $ systems, but some of the other cheaper system weren't sounding too bad.

Best big $ room for me was Wynn Audio/Tidal,  I found this room far less fatiguing then most of the other big systems & the big JBL's were pretty impressive Sun as were Muraudio's (those two weren't great on Fri, especially Muraudio).  

A few of my favorite rooms were probably Audiovector, the big PMC's on Fri (not the new twenty5 series, they were thin/on the bright side on Sun), Simcoe Sound (Totem/Icon Audio) & there were another handful of what I considered pretty decent.

The new Totem Sky's impressed me as well.  I got all the details on the Atom (maybe Atom/Sky pairing in the second setup?), nice build quality, but still not 100% sold on the look.  The Atom currently looks good, but I think it may not age to gracefully.

 

 

The Tidal system sounded good among the big rooms especially with orchestral music. I also agree with you on the big PMC speakers If I remember correctly they were model IB2 SE, these speakers impressed me and I really haven't heard a similar speaker like this before. The string instruments sounded really spectacular so sharp amd pointy yet not fatiguing really impressive. I want to know more about their driver technology for sure. 

Those look to be the ones, ~$31K with stands.  I would have thought they would be too much for the room they were playing in & the twenty5.26 would be more of an ideal setup.  Not sure if the 26's just weren't run in or was thinking that maybe partially a bad match with electronics.  Don't recall the brand but wondering if maybe it was a little thin/light (think they might have been class D), which is why the IB2 which I would have thought to overpower the room sounded good.  Seem to recall using the same brand on the Kef Blades last year & thought their sound was thin compared to other times I have heard them.

Zipperheadbanjo posted:

I was thinking the same thing about a possible Atom / Sky setup for my living room. 

I don't recall what they were using for amplification (non Naim) but they were using some sort of Naim source (possibly a 172 XS?).  I was impressed with how full they sounded vs the size of the room, very nice bass & I would say neutral to possibly slightly laid back.  Know Totem & Naim seem to be a fairly common pairing, so it has me thinking....

Curious if any other Naim owners heard the Audiovector speakers & if so, what model were they playing & what are your thoughts?  This was probably one of the most impressive brands for me, as I thought they were quite good in each price range.  I had never heard of the brand before, rather interesting concepts/design.  They were the Naim distributor in their home country for something like 20 years in the past so they were well aware of the Naim sound & was one of the number of brands their products were voiced on.  They don't currently have any CDN dealers for their higher end lines, but its a brand I would seriously consider if I swap speakers.