A bold claim perhaps, but I think there are plenty of people that attended the Audio Show Deluxe over the weekend that can attest to the Boyer Room surely being the pinnacle of audio reproduction in 2024. This wasn't about 'flavour' or 'personal preference', just the ultimate in realistic and accurate audio reproduction. It took 'being in the room' to a whole new level.
I wanted to start a thread on this because it has opened some interesting talking points.
Firstly to say I have no vested interests or long-held opinions that I want to push here, I simply want to highlight some cold hard facts of what were in that system, that may (or may not) have led to it being the best audio system on earth. How much influence each aspect had on the sound, remains to be seen, but these are the main take-aways from my own observations:
- Big fat power supplies, especially at the digital end (as demonstrated by the huge separate supplies powering the WADAX server and DAC units - and incidentally, the most expensive bit of the system - sources first!!)
- Cables matter (there I said it - but sorry guys, this system used big expensive cables from start to finish. Shunyata cabling throughout including their £25k Omega speaker cables - ouch!)
- Power distribution matters (again, Shunyata kit used here including that big Everest tower - with a few more boxes besides)
- They used two different sets of speakers, but a very interesting talking point here was that the Kromer Atelier stand-mounts they were premiering (and which sounded nigh-on as good as the big floor-standers), were, as far as I could tell, by far the cheapest component in the entire chain when that system was hooked-up. In fact, the Shunyata cables plugged into them cost a grand more than they did - go figure).
- Valves reign king - sorry again folks, but the preamp and power amps were all-valve from front to back, including the power supplies. 845 output valves in the stunning (and massive) Engstrom ERIC encore Monos. As an aside, we all knew this really, but 70W is plenty in what was a massive room (into 89dB sensitivity speakers).
- One to boost the measurists here, the speaker drivers were made by Purifi.
- They had a turntable, but I'm not sure they used it all weekend. Would have loved to have heard it and no doubt digital was largely used for practical reasons, but in terms of sound quality, that debate is surely now put to bed.
Anyway, take a bow Boyer Audio.