This year’s annual AK Fest, sponsored by audiokarma.org, was held on May 1-2 at the Sheraton in Novi, MI, just outside of Detroit. It just seems to get bigger and better every year, now spread across three floors of the hotel with several large listening rooms in addition to the typical hotel guest rooms as well as a much more spacious swap room. Great music, fantastic equipment and good people were in abundance. Allow me to apologize in advance if I did not give your room the full measure due… there was just too much too see. (Click here for Flickr picture gallery)
Size Does Not Always Matter
For me, some of the most impressive and best sounding equipment was also of the most diminutive. Granted, this may be due to the confined size of the guest rooms which perhaps favor the smaller and more appropriately sized speakers for such an environment. Two standouts in the “you’ve got to be hiding some other speakers in here” realm were to be found in the Arte Forma and Superior Sight & Sound rooms.
Arte Forma was playing the little Tizo speakers powered by the Menuetto integrated amp, both from Serbian-based Dayens. The sound was incredibly big, spacious and full bodied for such miniscule drivers and modest amplification. No, they are not going to plumb the depths without a sub, but I could see how they could be very satisfying on their own in a small room or apartment setting, especially at the asking price of $600 for the speakers. The amp offered equal value but the price escapes me.
Superior Sight & Sound (a local dealer) had two rooms, one with floor-standing Dali speakers and Bel Canto electronics, but it was the other room with the Dali Mentor Menuets and Rega electronics that really caught my ear. Incredibly fast, incisive and detailed electrostatic-like sound with remarkable extension for the tiny midrange/bass driver in this stand-mounted two-way. I was privy to some very unusual, minimalist electronic compositions that really flexed the muscle of these little speakers.
Though a bit larger than those above, the superb Carbon 7 speakers were on hand in the Fritz Audio room. Bumping up to somewhat bigger drivers definitely has its benefits as could be heard in this room. Great dynamics driven by what I believe are Korato electronics and a battery-powered Oppo BDP 83SE player modified by Michigan-based ASi-Tek (shout out for a home team… perhaps the Detroit economy can recover with the help of high-end audio).
Madisound had several of their speaker kits on display which I have heard at previous AK Fests, including the outstanding Fostex BK-16 folded horn (wish I had bought a pair when they were first released as the price has gone up significantly since then, but still represent a great value). What caught my attention this year were the Zaph Audio ZA5 MTM at just $310 a pair for all six drivers, crossovers and accessories (u-build the cabs).
Speakers were not the only tiny wonders at AKFest. Wadia, another Michigan company, was in two rooms with Dynaudio speakers. The smaller setup featured their 151 PowerDAC Mini that combines a DAC with 25 watts (8 ohm) per channel of digital amplification. With no analog inputs, the signal stays digital right up to the PWM amplifier stage. Would love to have this on my desktop.
Jolida’s FX10 is also perfect tabletop unit that was put to good use at the show, though with a somewhat different approach and at less than half the price ($450, albeit lacking the DAC and digital technology of the Wadia). They had other amps on the rack, but it was the FX-10 driving a pair of MBL speakers from a vintage reel-to-reel source (yes, it is the little FX10 and not the amp on top in action).
AK Member Rooms
The AK member rooms are always enjoyable for their uniqueness and DIY endeavors. One my favorites and best sounding rooms overall, member or professional, was Kegger’s where he was showcasing his tube amps and Cosmo’s utterly fantastic big horns and bass bins. Beautiful looking and beautiful sounding speakers with an active crossover, different tube amps on the top and bottom (including a compactron-based design... see this link for the audiokarma compactron build thread) and bass drivers from Lambda/Acoustic Elegance, which could be found in several excellent designs at the show.
I also spent a little time with Dgwojo and his Altec Lansing speakers (604s?), DIY preamp, active crossover and Ideal Innovations Elite 80+ tube amps, which I’ve never heard or heard of before. They seem like a decent value at $700 starting price each. Punker X was sharing the room, streaming music from a computer via several different FM tuners, including the new micro-sized McIntosh HD radio receiver... just kidding, it's one of TunerX's tweaked Sony XDR-F1HD units. www.radioxtuners.com Wouldn’t have believed it could sound that good, but it does… very enjoyable. He offers several levels of mods for this tuner (yet another tiny wonder).
Unfortunately I didn’t spend a lot of time in the member rooms, just brief visits. Perhaps next year. Here are several others (hopefully I got the AK member names correct):
Squidward
Retro
Cdfac & Army
RayW
Justrideit
More Elbow Room
On the second floor, several of the hotel’s large meeting rooms were transformed into listening rooms. Jim Salk and Frank Van Alstine are no strangers to AK Fest and brought with them a wide range of their speakers and components to create several systems dueling for attention in this joint room. Of special note were the gorgeous new Salk SoundScape speakers dominating one end of the room.
But I was most intrigued by Salk and AVA’s third roommate, iRule, for something unrelated to sound quality yet with profound implications for how you access and control you r system or systems (iruleathome.com). This software-based universal remote control application turns any iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a completely configurable remote. And with a little bit of hardware, you can use it to control any IR or RS232 device in your home via WiFi.
Audio Dimensions, a local Detroit-area dealer, had a much more restrained setup featuring the new Magnepan MG1.7 speakers with the new Audio Research DSi200 integrated amp and CD5 disc spinner. I was lucky enough to get in there first thing Saturday morning and had the room and sweet spot all to myself. A bit strange that they were laid out on the long wall of this large narrow meeting room, which forced listening very close to the speakers if in the front row. I moved to the second row and thought they sounded much better, which I found to be the case in a lot of the rooms (but then I’m more of a farfield listener anyway). A committed Maggie-head, I love the coherence of my 1.6s but have worried the 3-way 1.7 would give up some of this. Such was not the case and I found they created an absolutely wonderful, palpable presence of the performers as I ran through some of my favorite tracks. A great way to start the day.
Other exhibitors in the big rooms:
Local audio and applicance dealer Big George’s gets my vote for most comfortable room with their rows of comfy listening chairs. The Focal speakers and Cambridge or Micromega (depending on system) electronics sound good, too.
Modwright combined with Bamberg Audio speakers and Soundstring cables for very impressive performance. I never realized just how huge those Modwright amps are… the pictures are deceiving.
Classic Audio, yet another Michigan-based company, returned again this year with their huge speakers power by Atma-Sphere monoblocks and preamp, with Esoteric (digital) or Kuzma/Triplanar/Air Tight (analog) front ends. I was enjoying some DSOTM on vinyl, though it was overpowering the room a bit and rattling the ceiling light diffusers.
The Southeastern Michigan Audio Club (SMAC) also had one of the large rooms to which brought together equipment from a number of its members, including my personal 3Pi speakers. Some details on the room can be found at the SMAC forum at audiokarma.org.
Music in this room switched back and forth between the two systems and various components were swapped in and out throughout the weekend. Unfortunately I never stayed put long enough to get a good listen... kind of dumb since I had some speakers in there.
What The ????
Then there were a couple of rooms that make you scratch your head. Kyomi Audio, another dealer in one of the large rooms, had the cephalopodic Vivid Audio Giya speakers on display along with a CAT amplification, Esoteric digital sources and a Brinkman turntable. I couldn’t help thinking they look a bit like the Diva from “The Fifth Element.” Of course, a system such as this deserves the equally over-the-top Stealth Cables, monstrous looking though remarkably light given the vacuum-sealed helium dielectric design (no joke).
Another big and unusual looking speaker design was in the Bogdan Audio Creations room, created by stacking up many layers of MDF slices to create an intricate interior with sand-filled baffles. I asked if he used a CNC to make the layers, but no, he cuts them all by hand using a jigsaw! Not sure I care for the red velvet inside the port, but they did sound good, in particular the second day after ditching the Sansui integrated and instead using an Arte Forma integrated tube amp.
Netherlands-based Yara Designs also had some very unusual looking speaker designs that were great sounding with BAT electronics. Now there are some shapes that should reduce internal standing waves.
So Much Music, So Little Time
Tom Evans Audio Design had their electronics and new Model One speakers. I've always been curious about Ted Jordan drivers given their reputation and following, so it was a treat to hear them in the TEAD speakers. The Jordan is running full range without a crossover and the woofer is low-passed with just a high-quality inductor. I always worry that a full-ranger is going sacrifice a bit on top-end extension, clarity and "sparkle" (experienced this with a Fostex design I've used), but these were great from top to bottom. Perhaps more impressive are those unassuming black boxes on the floor. From what I understand, there's some serious tube technology going on inside. Gotta say I don't need to show off the tubes with a lot of jewelry when things sound as good as they did in that room.
Superb music on the cheap was the order of the day in the Grant Fidelity room. I was really tempted to take home one of the little DAC-09 they had for sale at special show pricing, but I restrained myself (no such luck in the swap room, however).
Combining a DAC (both SPDIF and USB), preamp functions (tube or solid state), headphone amp, tube buffer… I’m sure I could have found some use for this unit. They were also using the cool wood-clad Opera-Consonance PC Wireless Digital Box 1.0 to stream music across the room from a laptop. On the analog front, though not playing while I was in the room, the Opera-Consonance LP 6.1 Turntable and T988 tonearm looks like a sweet setup for $1,325.
There are so many great systems on display at AKFest it’s hard to spend a lot of time listening to every one of them. Here are some of the others:
Tyler Acoustics never fails to impress with their big speakers, this year featuring the Decade D1 driven by Jolida electronics.
Nates Audio had some great sounding, high-value speakers on display powered by AVA electronics.
Marantz was showing off their Reference components with Paradigm Reference speakers.
McIntosh had their wares set up in two separate rooms, one focused on two-channel audio along with some of their classic units on display…
… while the other McIntosh room focused on home theater and the very cool MXA60 integrated table-top system.
David Michael Audio perennially features the fantastic Harbeth speakes this year with a bevy of electronics from Luxman, Rogue, and Bel Canto with a Meridian Sooloos music server.
Audio Space room was all a-glow. The egg-like speakers are RTM Smooth Loudspeakers with cabinets made from cast iron. Each weights about 20 lbs.! Subs are located in the stands underneath. Usher speakers were also in rotation in this room.
AudioTwo featuring Spendor speakers.
Parker Audio had their Heil-based speakers.
Audio Note… my what big crossovers you have!
Those are not amps on the floor next to the speakers, but the crossover boxes.
Swap Room
No trip to AKFest is complete without a spin through the Swap Room to check out the used equipment and vinyl for sale. Located in one of the meeting rooms on the first floor provided plenty of room to spread out and show off your wares. It also allowed for easier demoing of the equipment and albums on sale. Music constantly filled the air… as would be expected.
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