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There were a lot of great sounding systems at the show, there always are, but some rooms just hit you right. For me, it was the Dynaudio / Simaudio room. In this small room, Simaudio Moon W7M monoblocks ($16,000/pr, 500 watt@8 ohm) drove the small Dynaudio Confidence C1 ($6,500/pr or $7,000/pr in black lacquer, stands were an extra $450/pair and bolted to the bottom of the C1). The system front end was from Sim Audio's Moon line as well, The Andromeda CD player ($12,000) and P-8 Controller and Preamp ($11,500) completed the front end. A seriously priced system, no doubt, but the sound was commensurate. From the overplayed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole that greeted me when I entered, to Sarah McLachlan's "Eyes of an Angel," to a Bruce Coburn / Lucinda Williams piece (this guy is seriously nihilistic – nobody sell him a rocket launcher, please!), the system sounded relaxed and totally involving. It had an uncanny ability to paint unique perspectives for each recording. I could have stayed even longer, but the show was calling. With a new found respect for Sim Audio electronics and an even stronger desire to get a Dynaudio Confidence system in for review, I begrudgingly walked away.

With home theater demos thin on the ground, I'll devote the next batch of blogs to some of the more interesting two channel demos I heard at the show.

Rives Audio is repeating a demonstration that was a hit at last year's show in Los Angeles. Two rooms are set up with near identical systems. One room is completely untreated, the other uses a variety of acoustical treatment devices plus electronic equalization of the bass (using two Rives Sub-PARCs and extra amps to support the equalizers). The speakers in both rooms are Talon Thunderhawks ($25,000/pair), the amplifier the VAC Alpha Integrated ($10,000, an all-tube design with 100Wpc), and the CD player the Wadia 580i ($9450).

There isn't a lot of budget gear at HE2007, but then the show has always trumpeted itself as a high-end show. New York dealer Sound by Singer had five rooms filled with increasingly expensive gear, but the first room was at least relatively real world, with a price of approximately $6000. The speakers were the JM Focal Chorus 836V floorstanders at $3000/pair. The electronics were from Cambridge Audio (the 840A integrated amp and 840C CD player, at $1500 each). The sound was very clean and well balanced. My only reservation: from a front row, center seat the imaging was a little bloated. But it was a fine-sounding system, and the step up to the next system in Sound by Singer's progressively more expensive chain of rooms was over $30,000. But that system was anchored by the JM Focal Electra 1037Be ($10,995/pair), one of the best sounding speakers I've heard at the show.