EN 
FR Robert Schryer
Robert Schryer is PMA’s editor-in-chief and believes that all you need is love… along with music and good gear. Such is his belief in the power of music and audio to bring harmony to the world that he has chosen to dedicate his life to advancing their collective cause.
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Prices listed in $CA. I won’t say that listening to music in an Acora Acoustics exhibit room is akin to having a religious experience inside a church, but it’s close. There’s often a sense of profundity that I feel when I listen to an Acora demo. I felt that sense of profundity again in Toronto, in…
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Prices listed in CA$ except where otherwise noted. For the 30th anniversary of the company’s Black Swan loudspeaker, Gershman Acoustics unveiled their Black Swan 30th Anniversary Edition, in a striking white finish ($90,000). Changes over the regular Black Swan include refinements to the drivers. The bass driver also weighs more, which, at 66lbs (30kg), requires…
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Prices listed in CA$. Throughout the years at audio shows, the Hearken Audio room has consistently offered me a peaceful interlude to everyday noise, but not just noise of the external kind, but the internal one that happens inside my head. Invariably, the Hearken room will be a wellspring of mellifluously-flowing, earthy, rich-toned sound that…
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Prices listed in US$. I’m going to get this out of the way: Every time I visit a On a Higher Note exhibit room, I turn into a sap. I get wishy-washy. I can’t help it. There’s something about the systems that proprietor Philip O’Hanlon is able to put together that allows those systems to…
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Prices listed in CA$. One of the demoes hosted by distributor Erikson Consumers was displaying something I hadn’t seen in any other demo at the show but that on first sight warmed the cockles of my heart in a place overrun with streaming: a dedicated CD player. This is no knock on streaming; I get…
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Prices listed are in CA$. This compact setup in one of Motet’s several rooms at the show surprised me. I didn’t expect it to sound this good. Fronting it was an Eversolo DMP-A6 Master Edition streamer ($2000) feeding FLAC files into a class-A, single-ended Audio Note M2 preamp ($9000) and a class-A, directly heated triode…
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Prices are listed in CA$. Moon by Simaudio’s new flagship series, the North Collection, will comprise six models in all, four of which will gradually be rolled out in the coming months, and two of which were released this month in time for the Toronto show. Powering a pair of 3-way, 90dB-sensitive Bowers & Wilkins…
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Prices listed in CA$. The Hegel room was showing off its Viking CD player ($6000), on static display when I visited, and 308Wpc, dual mono, DAC-equipped H600 integrated amplifier ($15,000). The source was FLAC files streamed from a laptop hard drive, while the speakers were Magnepan’s model 3.7i ($11,875/pair), which looked taller to me, and…
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Prices listed in CA$. Some systems sound so effortlessly musical, so capable of preserving the music’s essence and soul, that while listening to them I tell myself that I’d be happy living with such a system for a very long time. Accordingly, I tell myself that this is my type of system, this is the…
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Prices are listed in CA$. Since DALI released its $150,000/pair flagship Kore loudspeaker over a year ago, I’ve seen it consistently demoed with NAD electronics, to good effect. This match-up always delivered powerful sound, authentic tone, and a huge soundstage. At this show, the Kore was supplanted by the company’s latest model in the series,…
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I can’t imagine bigger audio news this year than that of Audio Research filing for something akin to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Fearing that such an iconic company – one I always took for granted as being indestructible – might possibly go under and disappear from the audio landscape was disheartening and unsettling to me.…
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Prices listed are in CA$. You might assume that my mood darkened when a bass beat began pounding through my hotel room wall from the adjacent room while I was trying to concentrate on my writing, but it was the opposite. My mood was lifted. Swayed by the music’s tribal pulsations and sense of immediacy,…
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Prices listed are in CA$. You want a simple-to-use system that sounds great, doesn’t clutter your room, and won’t break the bank? If you’re nodding yes, then the system being demoed in Le Studio du Son’s room just might be up your alley, especially if you don’t like big, heavy, inefficient amplification but do want…
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I’ll be covering so much cool stuff it’ll make you feel like you’re here, covering the show with me.
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In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic albums to have landed on the lit side of the Earth, Pro-Ject unveils a DSOTM turntable that doesn’t just echo the prism artwork—it is the art.