SoundStage! Global | SoundStageGlobal.com - Montreal Audio Fest 2018

Have You Seen?

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 25 March 2018

So many new speakers! Year 2018 was an anomaly, with more speaker introductions at Montreal Audio Fest than I’ve seen in recent memory. Let’s get to it with our third installment on loudspeakers -- all prices in Canadian dollars.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 24 March 2018

It’d be fun to view the penetration of analog into the Montreal Audio Fest and its prior years’ incarnations as a graph. It’d be a long, flat, straight line with a few small upticks through the early 2000s, then a gentle rise as the format slowly regained its popularity. Then, back in 2016, the curve reached the knee. The year 2017 found further acceleration toward the vertical. This year, ’tables were everywhere. Not necessarily actively playing, mind you, but it seemed that nearly every room had a record player holding down the street cred.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 24 March 2018

It’s never good enough in audio. It can always be better. That’s the prevailing sentiment among audiophiles. And that’s why we decorate our systems with cones, pucks, cool wires, and ancillary boxes, like magpies collecting shiny beads.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 24 March 2018

Oh sure, there were tons of new speakers at Montreal Audio Fest 2018. But they won’t so much as squeak without electronics to drive them. We couldn’t find nearly as many electronic product debuts, though there was enough to keep us busy. All prices in Canadian dollars.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 24 March 2018

It seemed like this year the Montreal Audio Fest had more than its usual quota of new speaker introductions. They were everywhere. Here’s a bunch more, with all prices in Canadian dollars unless indicated otherwise.

Details: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Montreal Audio Fest 2018; Created: 23 March 2018

A lousy sleep last night. I rolled into Montreal’s Hotel Bonaventure, which is home to the Montreal Audio Fest (MAF), at around 9 p.m., threw my bags in my room, and hustled to the bar. The lobby bar in the Hotel Bonaventure is a wonderful admixture of recently renovated white paint and neon tastefully clashing with ’70s Moonbase Alpha concrete.