The Audiophile's Hi-Fi Show: The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF)

Bare with me while I go through a little background/history and opining about Hi-Fi shows before I get to the nitty gritty of this entry . . .


Over the past 20 years, I have been to MANY consumer electronics shows. Most of these are trade shows (i.e. the large and very well known CES held every January in Las Vegas) with very broad coverage for everything from Cell Phones to HiFi gear plus audiophile side shows (literally... separate Hi-Fi only shows held at different locations which makes for a major PITA of going from venue to venie to see everything). They are also focused on the trade as well and its generally not easy for the audiophile consumer to get into these shows. As well, CES is very large and very crowded.. it can be hard to get time to listen or talk to the people you want to. The expense of CES as well, means you also have multiple Hi-Fi vendors sharing the expensive show suites, not to mention the cost of exhibiting at CES means certain manufacturers do not even show up. Basically, this means any serious audiophile needs to wade through a lot of people, hotels, vendors etc etc just to get to hear/see what you want.

Next up was the venerable Primedia Home Entertainment Shows which have floated around the country for some 10 to 15 years in various major cities (mainly NY, LA, and SanFran). Since this show was put on by a magazines specialty magazine group (Stereophile and Home Theater magazines mainly) in rather expensive show venues, this meant a somewhat ho-hum mix of Hi-End Hi-Fi and Home Theater stuff mixed together in one show. These shows were even MORE epensive to exhibit at that CES as well, so this often meant even more vendors sharing (smaller) show suites (generally a emptied hotel room) and even less of the smaller Hi-End manufacturers being able to afford to show. I found these ("Stereophile") shows to be a rather mixed bag... the small sized big city hotel rooms (often the only thing that many Hi-End manufacturers could afford) made for crowded and often to noisy listening situations. The only good point was the big city location was often home to a good number of us Audio-Geeks. It will be interesting to see if these shows will continues as the magazines associated with this show have been sold off and no longer are owned by Primedia and it is not quite yet known if their new owner plans on sponsoring shows like this.

This brings us to a really nice guy. A retired small businessman and a former customer of mine Al Steifel (who is also part owner of a small HiFi company called Red Rock Audio) who is the driving force behind the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest - a show put on by audiophiles for audiophiles every October since 2004. The venue is the lovely Denver Colorado Marriott Tech Center from Friday October 10th to Saturday October 12th. Al and his team (wife Marjorie and the good folks from the Colorado Audio Society) have put together a first class show here in a venue that is eminently affordable to just about all Hi End Audio Manufactures. Rooms are nicely spaced out, very reasonable in size (compared to smaller big city hotel rooms), the staff in the hotel is friendly and quite helpful . . . all things which make this show a joy for vendors to go and show off their wares. Denver is a easy city to get (fly or drive) too, lodging is not expensive (unlike NYC or Vegas), making this Hi-Fi ONLY show a joy for Audiophiles to go to. With less vendors per room... you get a better idea of what each vendors product is about and how they would like to set-up and use it. Rooms are less crowded too (along with the general pace of the show) which mean you often get ample time to listen to the gear AND also talk with the manufacturer. In its fourth year, the show continues to grow (though its not of a size that make it hard to go and see most all of the exhibitors) and has quickly earned the reputation in the trade as one of the premiere Hi-End Hi-Fi shows. Its modest exhibit costs also means you will see some more of the interesting/smaller companies doing some of the most creative work in Hi-End Audio.

I do understand things are tough right now and folks are concerned and preoccupied about many other things these days, but this is a great opportunity to get away for a few days (for not allow of money) and check out some very cool Hi-Fi gear made by some pretty amazing folks. I'm sure you'll have a great time, meat some awesome people, plus you can come up to Room 1007 in the Marriott Tech Center and visit with me and my buddy Bobby Palkovic of Merlin Music Systems. We will be playing the Merlin Music Systems VSM-MXe speaker system using Joule-Electra LAP-150MK2 preamp and VZN-100 OTL amps, Cardas Audio cables, and my Audio Aero Prestige CD Player as the front end. Come to the show and join us for a listen to some greet Hi-Fi gear. I look forward to seeing you there!!!

New Rega Elicit Integrated Amp

Rega has launched an all out effort to make the best integrated amp they can and the result will be available in just a few weeks (October '08) here in the USA. Named after an old Rega favorite integrated, the new Rega Elicit 80W/ch integrated amp has many great features, including a all discrete signal path, nine individual power supplies, polypropylene caps used in critical signal areas, Wolfson digital control stepped attenuators, plug in optional MM & MC phono cards, large toroidal power transformers, high quiescent bias in the output stage, relay signal switching and the list goes on. The Rega grape vine tells me this is one really nice sounding unit and at $2,995 USA retail price is going to be an exceptional value. Lots more details can be found on the Elicit on Rega's website so we urge you to jump to the Rega Elicit Web Page for all the details. Otherwise check out some of the sweet pics of the new integrated amp shown below. Remember, click on any of the pics to view much their much larger versions!

Colored Plinth Rega P3 Turntables Return!

Colored plinth Rega P3's are back and will be available soon in the USA (November time frame we have been told)! The table will come with smooth painted plinths with no power switches on them... instead the tables will come with the TT-PSU which will be used to turn the table on and select the motor speed. As a result the price for the Color Plinth P3-24 turntables are going to be $1,295 retail... that may sound pricey, but that includes the extra cost for the color plinth option (a base black P3-24 is $895 retail and the color option on the old P3-2000 tables was $50 more) and the $375 retail TT-PSU unit. In the end you get a pretty sweet looking set-up that sounds pretty darn good to boot. We've already pre-ordered a white unit for demo use here... its going to be pretty sharp! If you want one soon, I suggest contacting use now and we will make sure we get you your color choice at of the first batch that arrives here in the states.



As always, if interested, give me a call or e-mail and we will work up a nice package price for you with your choice of any number of nice cartridges from Rega, Benz, Clearaudio or Dynavector installed on any Rega table. Given the wide range of color choices and that we do not sell many of these, please note we will not be stocking color plinth P3-24's. We will specially order you color choice in from the distributor... generally the turnaround (once they are available) will be one week before we have your color choice in and ready to ship.

New Joule-Electra Preamp In The Works!

I had a nice chat with Jud Barber of Joule-Electra yesterday about preamps. Jud mentioned that he is working on a ball-out version of the current LA-150MK2 line stage preamp. After experimenting with many different tube line stage topologies over the years, Jud could not find anything that he felt sounded better than the basic design which he has been using and refining for many years. With some urging from customers and friends in the trade, he is seeing what can be done to offer a better preamp based on the current design using various exotic parts, wiring, etc. Based on some prototypes built so far, he feels that will be able to offer some significant improvements over what the LA-150MK2 offers. Unfortunately that will come at a price that will be significantly greater than the LA-150MK2... Jud tells me approximately twice as much (i.e. around $10K retail) the way things are looking. The new preamp (which probably will be called the LA-150 Speical Edition) will hopefully debut in January 2009 at the Las Vegas CES trade show. PLEASE NOTE that this does not mean the current LA-150MK2 will be discontinued... its performance is still (we feel) exceptional for a $5,00o line stage preamp and it will remain in production for many more years.

Speaking of the LA-150MK2 Line Stage, we are still offering with Joule-Electra, our $4,100 VERY special sale on (US only) LA-150MK2 Line Stage Preamps. Less than a hand full of the excess stock sale units remain and after that we return to our normal pricing on LA-150MK2 Line Stage preamps.

Welcome - A Introduction

OK, here we go! Welcome to Rich’s HiFi Blog… Some of you may already know me and are wondering what the heck I’m up to now, but for those of you who are here for the first time, let me introduce myself and what this “blog” is all about. I am Rich Brkich, Owner (chief cook and bottle washer - the big galoot in the pic at right) of Signature Sound. Signature Sound is a fairly small HiFi shop that I have been running out of my home (on a full time basis) for over 10 years. Basically, I sell what is known as really fancy HiFi gear to a small segment of the general public (generally called audiophiles) that are, well, a wee bit enthusiastic about the reproduction of music in the home! I keep my shop small (and home based) so I can better cater to this market and its unusual needs. So, while I do sell what is essentially “consumer electronics”, the stuff I sell caters to market whose performance requirements are generally not met by the kind of gear you find in your local Best Buy or Circuit City store. For example: I do not sell TV’s (of any kind); I do not install or sell car stereo gear; I do not sell or install multi-room music/lighting systems; I do not build or sell home theater systems; I do not sell receivers; I do not repair 10 year old CD players or 20 year old receivers. So you must now be thinking, “What the heck does this guy sell then?!?!?!?”

The answer is, really cool, often hand crafted, beautifully designed, really great sounding stereo gear. What is “stereo gear”? Equipment that does a really good job at playing back good old 2 channels LPs (yes, those old black vinyl spinny things) and CDs too to the best fidelity possible. We are talking about turntables, CD players, amplifiers, preamps, tuners, integrated amps, speakers, cables, power conditioning gear - all designed to get the best off what is recorded on you favorite LP or CD. This stuff ranges from items that are a few hundred dollars each to items that can cost more than a new car (on the extreme end of the spectrum). The typical audiophile can have more than $10,000 (yes, ten grand!) invested in their HiFi system (this does not happen overnight…. you are talking about a cumulative investment over a number years). That does not mean you need a second mortgage to get a good HiFi rig. With some good guidance from your friendly dealer (i.e. me), a very nice sounding system can be put together for a just over a thousand dollars. Then if you like to make things better, you can always gradually trade-up/upgrade over they years. Sometimes the latest digital technology is used and sometimes old fashioned solid state and vacuum tube technology is used…. its NOT about using the latest technology, but using the technology that delivers the BEST in sound reproduction in service of the music. So, sometimes the gear is very old school (like the cool looking Ars Sonum Filarmonia vacuum tube integrated amp shown above) and sometimes gear is the latest technology can offer (like high resolution audio files recorded on a Blu-Ray disc). These systems are generally dedicated to music reproduction and often you won’t find a TV set or DVD player connected to it and if possible, that video stuff is not even in the same room.

OK, now that I have given you a brief introduction about what we do and what we sell here, let me give you a little more background on who I am and what this blog will be used for. I am a former Aerospace Engineer and long time audio/HiFi nut. My dad was a mechanic and audiophile as well and I got this passion from him. I went to my first HiFi show when I was about 12 years old and was reading HiFi Mag’s from about that age. This lead to a interest in electronics, vocational ed in electronics in high school during the late 70’s, then technical college in the early 80s (2 years tech degree in Electronics Technology from SI Ward Tech College at the University of Hartford) , and then onto engineering college for a few more years (Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Hartford College of Engineering). I worked for GE Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin) around 8 years doing Systems and Project Engineering on test equipment for military combat systems. It was fun work, but my passion for HiFi lead to the founding of Signature Sound around 15 years ago as a part time business. When the defense biz wet through a downsizing in the mid 90’s. I took that opportunity to get work on my masters degree (in Engineering Management) and then take Signature Sound full time. So, as you probably can guess, we approach things a little differently here at Signature Sound. We work for you here and work hard to recommend what will work best for you and your system.

This blog is an attempt to better communicate whats happening at Signature Sound, make announcements about new products, pass along thoughts and listening impressions about various gear, and make the occasional rant or insight to this quirky hobby we call High-End Audio. In the past I have not been the greatest when it has come to keeping the website (http://www.sigsound.com/) up to date, but the blog software is easy to use and should make it much more easier to keep you folks (my customers I hope) interested in what we have to offer and up to date on what is happening.