It may seem odd to end Stereophile's coverage of the 2008 FSI with a report on the opening-day keynote speech. However, Noel Lee, founder and CEO of Monster Cable, had said much that I wanted to mull over. Noel may be a ruthless businessman, but he is one of the smartest, most insightful business people I have known—I first formally interviewed him 20 years ago for Stereophile, but I have known him almost since the beginning of Monster Cable—and FSI getting him to give the Show's keynote speech was a large feather in Show President Michel Plante's hat.

Both the subject of audiophile cables in general and Monster Cable's marketing in particular have come in for some criticism in the mainstream press in recent months, so as Noel wheeled up to the daïs on his Segue scooter, I was wondering what the thrust of his remarks would be.

Noel started by reminiscing about Monster's early days. Monster Cable is the largest speciality cable manufacturer in the US, but 30 years ago, it was a one-man show. Audiophile and drummer Noel had been fired from the rock band he had given up a secure job as a mechanical engineer at Lawrence Livermore Lab to tour with, and was wondering what to do with his life.

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For me, the last day of a show like FSI is for checking up on rooms that I somehow missed (and that I heard people talking about), and re-visiting rooms that were particular favorites.

Rooms that I had missed, but was able to catch up on, included the Tenor Audio/Avalon/Audio Aero room, the Fidelity Audio/Nagra/Verity room (with Rene Laflamme playing the superb high-resolution version of his official FSI show recording), and the Ayre/Verity room: all offering great sound—and all in a price range that's expensive by almost any standard.

At a price substantially lower than these stellar offerings—although not quite entry-level—was the room featuring ProAc D Two speakers driven by the Leben CS600 integrated amplifier. This just seemed to me like a well-balanced system in every way: sound quality, with equipment that's not over-the-top in price but offers solid value, and has an elegant appearance. I was quite taken with the retro look of the Leben CS600 ($5000, EL34 tube-based, hand-built in Japan, with point-to-point wiring) which just oozes quality in a way that recalls the classic Marantz components.

John Atkinson opened Saturday afternoon's "Ask the Editors" session with a brief introduction in French—which got applause from the audience—but the rest of the session was conducted en anglais, and the quality of questions from the audience was easily up to best that I've experienced at such sessions at the Home Entertainment shows. The questions covered a wide range, dealing with topics such as the cost of producing LPs and SACDs, advances in loudspeaker technology, the sonic quality and pricing of cables, how to allocate resources in assembling a system, and discussion of what systems had particularly impressed us at the show. I think I can speak for John Atkinson, Wes Phillips and John Marks (as well as myself) in saying that we had a good time and were most impressed with the level of interest and dedication to good sound showed by the audiophiles participating in this event. Here's a picture of the Stereophile crew, taken just after the "Ask the Editors" session (from left to right): John Marks, yours truly, Wes Phillips, and John Atkinson.

The Montreal Sheraton Centre is a nice hotel, with hotel rooms that are reasonably well-suited to audio demonstrations, plenty of larger suites in which to set up more ambitious systems, friendly and efficient staff, fast elevators, and a great bar. The hotel's weak spot is the provision of places to eat. You can eat at the bar, which is all right as such things go, but there is no restaurant serving dinner, and there's a café serving breakfast that seems overpriced, and, judging by the "Complet" breakfast that I had on the first day, mediocre at best.* Fortunately, the Sheraton is in an area with a lot of restaurants within easy walking distance, and I found a place that served a better breakfast than the Sheraton at a lower price, in a charming atmosphere. I got good vibes just going into the Café Vasco da Gama, and I knew that I picked the right place when I got to the cash register. There in a large ice bucket, along with bottles of beer and some bottles of wine to be served by the glass, was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne. Now, that's class!

No, I did not indulge, but it was good to know that I could have.

* JA would like to say a word in defense of the Sheraton café's french onion soup, which was a meal in itself

On Saturday at noon, the John Atkinson trio (JA on bass, Bob Reina on piano, and Mark Flynn on drums) performed their own takes on some jazz standards, to the appreciation of a fairly substantial audience. (As usual, Saturday was the best attended day at FSI.) There were also two original items on their program: one of which was a tribute to Frank Sinatra, composed by Bob Reina. It's an interesting piece, with no actual quotes from any of the numbers that are associated with Sinatra, but somehow capturing the spirit of the songs in his repertoire. I think Ol' Blue-Eyes would have approved.

I wasn't familiar with Montreal-based Tenor Audio's amplifiers when I entered their room at FSI. But the sound of the new 350M hybrid monoblocks—tube front end, MOSFET output, 350W power, CDN$90,000/pair—with Avalon Eidolon speakers, an upsampling CD player from Audio Aero, all connected with Kubala-Sosna cables, was impressive. The sound of the JVC XRCD reissue of André Previn's Scheherazade was rich and expansive, but a little recessed. It was explained to me, however, that the speakers were still breaking in. Apparently a static discharge the previous day had caused a DC pulse to be sent to the Kharma speakers Tenor had first used in their room, destroying the midrange units. Ouch!

The next product to come from Tenor will be a hybrid line preamplifier. still to be named, with a projected price of CDN$45,000.

It was the dimpled appearance of the aluminum-coned drivers used by Elac's FS 249 loudspeaker that caught my attention. I had been impressed by this German company's engineering expertise when I had auditioned its speakers at other Shows, and the sound of the reflex-loaded FS 249s, driven by Hovland amplification, with Audience cables and power conditioning, was open, clean, and transparent. The FS 249 uses a ribbon tweeter, but was being demonstrated at FSI with an auxiliary supertweeter (the mushroom-shaped device atop each speaker). Sadly, my auditioning was interrupted by someone wanting to hear some power rock at sufficiently high a level that I felt it best to make a graceful exit from the room. Guess I must be getting old :-)

The are small amps, there are large amps, there are stereo amps, there are mono amps, and then there are Vladimir Lamm's ML3 Signature two-chassis monoblocks, demmed at FSI with Verity Lohengrin speakers, a Lamm L2 Reference preamplifier, LP2 phono preamp, NeoDio CD transport and DAC, and Kubala-Sosna cables, and Critical Mass Systems racks.

The ML3 Signature runs a single Russian GM70 directly heated output tube (introduced in 1948, the year I was born) with 1200V on the plate to give 28 watts into 8 ohms. The GM70 is driven by four paralleled 6N30P "Super Tubes," with a single 12AX7 as the input stage. The choke-smoothed power supply in a separate chassis uses four 12AX3 diode tubes as a bridge rectifier to derive the high-voltage rail for the output tube, with another two 12AX3 tubes supplying DC to the front-end tubes.

Listening to Louis Armstrong singing "Blues in the Night" from LP, I auditioned the amps with no negative feedback and just 1.2dB of negative feedback. You wouldn't have thought it would make a difference, but darned if switching in even this minimal amount of feedback—which, in theory, should make the amplifier perform better—didn't diminish the enormous sense of space on the recording.

Oh, the price? Each pair of ML3 References costs upwards of $130,000 and takes two weeks to manufacture.

The Sonogram combines a Peerless soft-dome tweeter with a Morel 2" dome midrange unit and and 8", American-sourced woofer that had been designed by Eli Gershman. The apparently conventional cabinet actually has a triangular-section inset running the height of the rear panel to break up internal standing waves.

Tosh Goka of Divergent Technologies always manages to assemble a good-sounding system at shows, and this year's FSI was no exception. The speakers were the Reference 3A Grand Veenas ($8000/pair, which seems very reasonable for the technology and the sound), with Antique Sound Labs electronics and EMM Lab CD/SACD player.

The warm-up phenomenon—where a system sounds better after it's been on for some time, the time being much longer than would be accounted for by anything in the measured performance—is well-known to audiophiles, and it often manifests itself at shows. This was the case with the system in the Avantgarde room: Avantgarde Duo Mezzo loudspeakers ($47,250/pair), Avantgarde One preamp ($37,500) and One power amp ($45,000), with Brinkmann analog and Audio Aero digital front ends. I heard the system early on the first day of the show, and although it didn't sound bad, it didn't sound as great as I'd heard Avantgarde speakers sounding. Could it be the room or perhaps the setup? Avantgarde Acoustics designer Matthias Ruff was on hand; between him and Jody Hickson of Globe Marketing, Avantgarde's new North American distributor, they should have been able to sort out the setup, but the sound was definitely disappointing, being on the dry side, a characteristic I don't associate with Avantgarde speakers.

I went back to listen late on the second day of the show, and it was quite a sonic transformation. The warmth I was expecting had returned, and, combined with the effortless dynamics, made for a much more relaxing listening experience. Jody told me that they hadn't changed the setup; it was just the electronics taking a long time to warm up sonically.

Red Wine Audio has been expanding their range of battery-powered audio electronics: they have the Isabella preamp, with optional built-in DAC; Signature 30.2 power amplifier, with optional volume control, and Signature 70.2 monoblock amplifiers. The system at FSI used Omega Super Hemp speakers, which use a driver that in the version demoed at the show was equipped with an Alnico magnet structure, and it sounded very nice indeed.

Attention Screen is the band that includes Stereophile's own Bob Reina on piano, Chris Jones on bass, Don Fiorino on various string instruments, and Mark Flynn on drums. (Their recent CD, Live at Merkin Hall, recorded by John Atkinson, is available from Stereophile.) They gave a concert at FSI, and although the attendance could have been better—publicity for the music events at the show was rather sparse—it was clear that those in the audience were enraptured with Attention Screen's intense, almost entirely improvisational brand of jazz.

At the "Ask the Editors" session on Saturday afternoon, Stereophile editor John Atkinson asked each of us on the panel—John Marks, Wes Phillips, and myself—what systems featuring low-priced equipment particularly impressed us at the show. There were actually several such systems that I could have named—but the one that first came to mind was the system based on the Rogue Cronus tube-based integrated amp ($1750, 55Wpc, includes a phono stage and headphone amplifier, with PSB Alpha B1 speakers ($279/pair). A nice, well-balanced sound, very easy on the ears. Mind you, they had an Oracle turntable as the front end, which might be classified as cheating, but, hey, it's an audio show.

Both examples of the Verity Sarastro IIs ($40,000/pair) that I heard at FSI sounded amazing. I say this with some surprise, since I was never entirely comfortable with the original Sarastro. Go figure, new and improved.

I went in to hear the Ayre K-XR preamp and M-XR monoblock power amplifiers and maybe catch a glimpse of the new dCS Puccini SACD player, but was immediately stopped by how darn good the system was sounding. A hot jazz organ combo was simply cooking and the Sarastro IIs had captured that Hammond growl with startling physicality.

I turned to Verity's John Quick and said, "I have got to get this disc!"*

"Quick smiled. "You can't. It's a Nagra master tape of Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Larry Goldings, and Bill Stewart, recorded at Montreux on a Nagra-D. He moved to reveal a Nagra-D playing a open-reel digital master.

Aw shucks.

* This is what audiophiles do when they hear a great system: They buy the record.

Emanuel Lafleur had a pair of his $8000/pair (estimated final price) stand-mounted two-way X1 monitors set up in the press room. Great for reaching the press, not so great for good sound, since the press room was dominated by a huge roundtable right where the sweet spot would have been. Nevertheless, the X2s sounded impressive enough that both John Marks and I were captivated.

Built by laminating cherry plywood, the cabinets are impressively dense and are quite lovely. The sound was balanced and detailed, but not fatiguing. The X2 had lots of body and a surprising amount of "jump." Lafleuraudio's website is under construction.

Interestingly, every room I visited that was set up by audio dealers Coup de Foudre and Son or Filtronique sounded superb. Part of it was that those dealer have pretty fancy lines—Wilson, VTL, Transparent, et al for Coup and Ayre, Audio Research, Wadia, Nagra, and Shunyata for Son—but it wasn't just that.

I think the dealers had a leg up on rooms put together by manufacturer alliances because they work with this stuff every day. They know which model speaker sings best with a line's power amp. They know the cables they are using and which one in a given line goes best with which component.

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