CA Audio Show - Tannoy and Linn Room

I spent an enjoyable Saturday at the 2011 California Audio Show, hosted by Dagogo. Tracy and I met up at 8am at the local coffee shop, headed over around 8:30, and were in full swing with badges and program booklets by 9am sharp. Eight hours later, I stumbled out of the Crowne Plaza hotel, tired but excited about all the great gear I'd seen as well as some of the cool people I had either re-acquanited myself with or met for the first time.

The first room I'd like to mention was hosted by Steven Lester, who was making music through a Tannoy Definition DC-8 ($3600) "monitor" speakers sitting on Pangea stands which in turn rested on budget stone slabs to keep the whole kit steady on the hotel room carpet. All electronics were Linn Akurate, including the Akurate 2200 power amp ($5200) which in turn was being controlled by the Akurate Kontrol pre-amplifier ($6500).  Feeding the preamp was an Akurate DS ($6990), which is a digital music server and DAC all in one box. A Qnap NAS drive was linked digitally into the Akurate DS, and a iPad running Plugplayer provided the user interface for track selection. Cabling was mostly mid-level MIT. He also had Linn Akurate speakers hooked up, but I didn't hear them.

I thought the Tannoy/Linn room setup was well thought out, with the speakers located against the long wall to the left of the room entrance, and a handful of chairs facing them and located a foot or two away from the rear wall. Almost all other rooms were arranged with the speakers shooting down the long wall at the listener as you entered the room. I felt the Tannoy/Linn room arrangement allowed for enough spacing behind the speakers while letting them breathe to the left and right. In any case, the Tannoy Definition DC8's demonstrated surprising bass extension which was well articulated, controlled and tuneful. On one electronic music track, the deep synthesizer notes moved quickly and powerfully along. One other track featured a male singer whose voice was deep and the system captured its texture and power very well. To these ears, the system sounded overall smooth and surprisingly punchy considering the size of the speakers (though they do have an 8" woofer cone). I felt good PRAT as my foot naturally bounced along to a few tracks. The high frequencies were nicely extended as far as I could tell. Overall it was a fun and enjoyable room!

I also had the pleasure to meet Jason Victor Serinus while listening to music in this room, and we adjourned to the hallway for a brief but interesting chat about this and that audio. What a nice guy.