I remember running into Stereophile's Michael Fremer while walking across the courtyard of Las Vegas's Alexis Park Hotel in 1999. We had a very brief discussion about the attendance of the high-end part of the Consumer Electronics Show that we were attending, speculating as to why the turnout was so light. 'This is scary' was his comment, and reluctantly I had to agree. Cost, apathy, the invasiveness of home theatre and fickle nature of audiophiles formed the basis of our reasoning. Sadly, a recent visit by @udiophilia.com to Toronto's Home Entertainment Show 2001 garnered a similar reaction.

From the superb sound in the rooms, it would seem the bright lights of high end continue to turn out spectacularly good equipment. Yet, the audiophile fold, either as spectators or exhibitors, did not turn out the vote. With only 35 rooms on three floors, this was the most sparsely populated show I have attended (the already anemic '99 show had twice the number of rooms, with 39 rooms offering two channel audio products). What a shame, for downtown's Holiday Inn on King was by far the best hotel in which this show has been staged. Access was easy and floors and walls were sturdy; this made for very enjoyable listening experiences.

We arrived at the start of the show - 1:00 p.m. on Friday. In Montreal, London, and Vegas, many audio exhibitors are still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Not so, here. Everything was up and running, with the exception of the delivery of the press passes. Shirley Trotter, the hard-working organizer, got things smoothed out quite quickly, though. With badges finally on, we made our way to the tenth floor.

The first stop was the room dedicated to newcomer fab audio. Standing shoulder to shoulder were the fruits of Jim Fabian and Michael Thompson's labour: the gleaming Model 1 loudspeaker in gloss piano black (CDN$8499.00) and the Stonehenge loudspeaker (CDN$3500.00). They feature custom drivers of excellent quality along with superb cabinetry. Both models are 95dB efficient and were being driven to fulsome levels by an EAR 859 single ended amp or Halo single ended, 8 watt monoblocks. Thompson had recently tweaked a Sonic Frontiers DAC and this was connected to a Nakamichi transport. Dance of the Tumblers from the Reference Recordings' Tutti sampler sounded delightful. Bass was strong and very well defined with lots of air surrounding the instruments. These qualities were found in varying degrees on both models. At just CDN$3500.00, the Stonehenge would seem a steal. It is so difficult to design and manufacture new gear and Jim and Michael are to be congratulated for producing fascinating speakers. How 'bout a review pair, fellas?

On to a dealer's room - Alternative Audio, based in Dundas, Ontario, is a forty-five minute drive from the city. Proprietor Mike Oddie is a true gent and one of the more eloquent audiophiles I know. He represents excellent equipment and had a couple of outstanding lines on show. Hovland produces exquisite tube amplifiers and preamps. Oddie had the Hovland Sapphire amplifier (US$8500.00) front and center, gleaming in glorious silver. It drove a pair of Meadowlark Blue Herons (CDN$14000.00) to beautiful highs, mids and lows. Regular readers of @udiophilia.com will know of our respect for Meadowlark speakers. The Blue Herons differ from the standard Herons by their upgraded drivers, including a plasma tweeter. Add the Hovland HP100 preamp (CDN$7850.00) to the mix and you get outstanding high-end sound.

I would guess that Toronto has more quality dealers for the size of the city than any others. It is a shame, then, why some of the finer dealers do not support their own city's show. The Montreal audio show does not seem to have this problem, with many Toronto dealers heading down the snowy 401 highway in March. The Montreal show is held at the superb Delta Hotel - we can report that the Holiday Inn on King is very nearly as good. And speaking of the Montreal show, it was good to see that show's organizer extraordinaire, Marie Christine Prin, enjoying some good Toronto sound. Other Toronto dealer exhibitors included Audio Excellence, Toronto Home of Audiophile and Brack Electronics.

Brack brought out some big guns for the show. Other than an amazing television (Loewe), our eyes and ears were drawn to the B&W 803 loudspeakers (CDN$7000.00) and a phalanx of Levinson electronics. They included the No. 380S preamplifier (CDN$10000.00), the No. 37 transport (CDN$12000.00), a No. 360 Digital Audio Processor (CDN$12000.00) and the 250 watt 436 mono amplifiers (CDN$22000.00 for the pair). Listening to blues through this system defined high fidelity. Clear and powerful was the sound, but was it the room, setup, warm-up or something else that robbed this system of some of the musical essence that singer was trying to convey?

Sauntering along, we found ourselves in the company of the irascible Matt Brazeau. Brazeau has been a fixture in the Toronto high-end scene for many years. After a recent break from the audio world, he was back and looking as fit as a fiddle. Great to see you back, Matt. Hamilton's Globe Audio Marketing, which distributes Audio Aero, was the beneficiary of Matt's expertise. On hand was the super-looking Capitole CD player (CDN$9000.00) playing through ProAc Future Point Five loudspeakers. I love ProAc gear and the designs of Stewart Tyler. It must be said, though, that these are not your father's ProAcs. The sound was not reminiscent of what I consider the ProAc spirit, but they were only heard for the briefest of moments. They are, however, very intriguing. Jim Griffin, of Montreal's Griffin Audio, who was sharing the room with Globe, is a canny distributor. I am sure this new direction of angled boxes and ribbon tweeters he represents will turn out to be gold. Behind all this new fangled gear, was a static display of the magnificent Audio Aero 40 watt, single ended monoblocks. Priced at CDN$30000.00, they are too rich for my blood, but they looked so good.

Christopher and I both admit to being slightly under whelmed when faced with the seven foot tall, Nearfield Acoustics' Pipedreams. Again, there may have been any number of extenuating circumstances, but attached to the Tenor Audio 75 w integrated monoblocks (CDN$29000.00) , the 50K US Pipedreams sounded flat and unmusical. Considering the huge stamp of approval from hp and his The Absolute Sound magazine, we must have caught them on a bad day!

When picking up the huge show catalogue from the Las Vegas CES office, two free hands are a definite asset. The Montreal and London, UK shows also provide lengthy and detailed prospectuses. In sad contrast, the Toronto show's booklet was a mere 12 pages, including front and back cover. The advertising within is minimal, a problem I can well understand in this day and age of advertisement dollar drought. All of which adds up to a real shame. For the first time since attending this show, I can say that it looked and felt really good. Shirley Trotter and her team can be proud of what they accomplished. I hope that attendance by a rejuvenated audiophile audience can be lured back into the fold when the show returns to Toronto in 2003.