Taves 2017 Show Report By Cosmic Bandito: “Held at the Toronto Convention Center this is the fourth venue I’ve attended the TAVES show at. And the show arrangers have done a terrific job at making this the best venue yet for the show. Merging tech, art, and high-end audio into one show has been attempted several times before but never as successfully as with the current version of TAVES.
As a music lover, I concentrated on the audio part of the show. A combination of large listening rooms, booths and audio cabins ala High-End Munich turned out to work splendidly with better overall sound than at most standards hotel based shows.
With three full days to make the show rounds, I managed to visit all exhibits at least two times and the runners-up for the best sounding rooms had me coming back both 3 and 4 times.
To cut to the chase – the rooms that made my jaw drop, gave me goosebumps and a large grin were in no particular order:
Best value for money was Hegel’s room with a total system value of USD 3300. Bass was handled way better through the tiny Pylon speakers in this room than in most other rooms at the entire show. Yello’s Touch Yello sounded detailed, rich and engaging.
Angel City Audio teamed up with TriangleArt and TEO Cables for a spectacular sounding room. I always bring a metal recording to rooms to hear if the system is capable of handling it. Most high-end systems manage quite well when playing jazz, classical music, singer/songwriters etc. But I want a system to be as great as possible at serving all kinds of music. I can’t buy 10 different systems – I want ONE that can play it all. At this the ACA Seraphim Prime Extreme speakers, the TriangleArt Master Reference turntable and TEO speaker and interconnect cables excelled. Skogrand Cables supplied power cables. The crunchy guitar sounds filled the room with gut chilling raw power while all instruments were easily distinguishable, rich and lifelike.
Sonic Artistry – a Toronto based Canadian retailer, turned out to be true artists in making a great sound. Listening to how these guys had to set up the room at the last minute with screwball components due to shipping challenges made their accomplishment even more impressive. They KNOW how to make a system perform at it’s very best under all conditions. They served out a great variety of tunes that you most often never get to hear at audio shows and as such the room was a music oasis in a landscape of surrounding audiophile slickness. Standing out in the room was the Reed MUSE 1C turntable with its mesmerizing Reed Tangential tonearm, a tour de force of brilliant engineering.
Reed MUSE 1C turntable with Reed Tangential tonearm
House of HiFi was another great room located just next door to Sonic Artisty. With seasoned audio guru Grant Phillips at the helm this too is a local dealer and I often find that dealers are the most capable of setting up rooms. No wonder – that’s what they do for their customers at a regular basis. Both these rooms were supplied with products from the King of Audio in Canada – distributor Vince Scalzitti of Tri-Cell Enterprises. The Acapella LaCampanella MK II speakers gave detailed resolution throughout the frequency range. I only got to hear streaming in this room, but it was impressive listening to both Rammstein and Yello through this system.
Most notable trends:
The lack of reel-to-reel players at this show. Some rooms had them, but looking at how reel-to-reels are coming back in full force in the Global market it was very disappointing to see how few exhibitors had picked up on this in Canada. Luckily there was excellent TIDAL streaming in several rooms and more than a few spectacular turntables. Oracle, TriangleArt, REED and Transrotor all made home runs at TAVES this year with no real competition from the many contenders present.
Oracle Delphi MkVI Second Generation
TriangleArt Master Reference
Racks were prominently displayed with stunningly beautiful Massif Audio Design exotic wood products in several of the best sounding rooms at TAVES 2017. Trevor Doyle – the artisan building these racks, cable risers, LP stands and vinyl weights – has in a very short time become recognized for his work all over the World. Solid craftsmanship and reasonable pricing have quickly earned Massif Audio Design a place among the most craved for racks in audio.
Massif Audio Design mono block base
Massif Audio Design rack detail