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Aurum Acoustics (from
Newfoundland) was back with
the final version of its astonish-
ing tri-amplified loudspeaker (it
comes with its own amps, four
of which are single-ended tube
units). Now that the system
(including the manifestly
excellent CD player/pre-
amplifier) is entering
production, our inter-
est in doing an in-depth
review has definitely
perked up.
Aurum is not the
only high end company
situated well outside
metropolitan centres.
From Mascouche (a
medium-sized town just
far enough from Mon-
treal to qualify as more
than just a suburb) came the
Revelation Mistral S-5 (its pic-
ture is on page 25). It caught my
attention because, like the Reference 3a
speakers in our Omega reference system, it
is a two-piece speaker: a smaller two-way
unit sitting on a massive subwoofer. When
I heard it, driven by Exposure electronics,
it had a simply huge sound.
From closer to us came an amplifier and
a pair of small speakers, under the name of
Merikaudio. The company is in Longueuil,
which in case you don’t know is the Mon-
treal suburb where UHF is located. The
amplifier is not yet in its final form, and the
matching preamp is
still on the draw-
ing board, but
they may bear
watching.
One of the nicer rooms
belonged to a Canadian com-
pany not that well known even
in its home country, LaHave. Its
Wedge speaker is on page 28. It’s
pleasant musicality kept me in
the room for a while on the third
day.
The amplifier at bottom left
caught my eye too, because I
had noticed it in an ad in our
last issue. It’s the Audio Space,
and it’s next to the JAS Odin
loudspeaker. Yes, the speakers
have ceramic woofers. The price:
C$7800. I must say that the demo
I heard was worth sitting down and
listening to for a bit.
I’ve often heard the huge wooden Edgarhorn, shown at
left, at CES. I had never been very happy with it, but it actu-
ally sounded quite good this time, with natural tonal balance,
though (as is often the case with very large woofers) little in
the way of a real stereo image. Dr. Bruce Edgar was there, and
as you’ll see from the next report Albert was impressed with
neither the speaker nor Dr. Edgar.
In Vegas I had heard an oversized “bookshelf” speaker
called the Escalante Fremont. This time I heard a smaller
model, the Pinyon (above right). It looks rather conventional
until you look closely at the metal-clad enclosure and the
ring radiator tweeter. Like the Fremont, it sounded truly
excellent.
Also sounding rather interesting was the Mirage OMD28.
The new OMD series replaces the OM series, which replaced
the M series. The $10K speaker has carbon fibre woofers and
midrange, and a dome tweeter facing upward into a diffuser.
Seeing how the company was rather disappointed with our
review of one of its speakers in our last issue (see Feedback in
this issue), I refrained from suggesting a review.
Regional show though this might be it does manage to pull
in a few high end celebrities. VTL’s Luke Manley was here last
year. This year William Andrea of Mimetism was here (his
integrated amplifier got a warm review in our pages in issue
No. 74), and so was David Berning (you can see him on page
26). Berning had
brought his newest
preamplifier. His
monoblock power
amps, alas, were
not quite done
yet, though he
had prototypes in
unfinished form.
Also present
was Linn’s Martin
McCue, who was
show ing some
products that will
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 23