The Dayton Wright Hommage
A Best of Show Room Without doubt.
Audio Key Reviews - March 31 2023
Written by K. E. Heartsong
The Lemay Audio room sported some of the most beautiful equipment at the show and, no doubt, some of the most expensive as well. I also found Francois Lemay, the proprietor and founder, a kind and gracious gentleman, with a fabulous aesthetic.
The Lemay system was composed of the Baetis Reference X4 Streamer, Tenor Audio Line 1 Preamplifier, Tenor Audio 175S 20th Anniversary Stereo Amplifier, the iFi Audio Diablo (of all things from a price perspective!), and the Dayton Wright Hommage 7 Electrostatic Speakers. The system, in total, was well above $400k and on its way to $500k!
The descriptors that came to me first with regard to the Lemay Audio system were natural, beautiful, articulate, and incredibly immersive. One had but to enter the room to not want to leave it. The various descriptive statements that followed were incredible depth of soundstage, a delicious and almost edible tone, timbre, and texture that helped to establish a reach out and touch palpability. No doubt, the Baetis Reference X4 streamer brought, as I have come to know these past weeks, via its little brother the Baetis Revolution X4 (currently under review at AKRMedia), its mix of exceptionally well resolved, refined, and natural streams to the system, perhaps, despite the iFi Diablo (at one 17th its price!), which provided unbounded music.
A Best of Show room without doubt
The Lemay Audio Room
MONTREAL AUDIO FEST 2023
Robert Schryer | Mar 31, 2023
Lemay Audio: Dayton Wright, Tenor Audio, Baetis Audio, iFi Audio, Inakustik, Silversmith, Modulum Audio
Quebec-based Lemay Audio was one of my best sounds of the show. At its dizzying price, it should be. If its price makes your eyes glaze over at first glance, all is not lost. I’ll get to that.
First, here are the links in the playback chain: a pair of Dayton-Wright Hommage 7 speakers (introductory price $38,000/pair, $43,000/pair after that); a Tenor Audio Line 1 preamp ($200,000); a 250Wpc Tenor Audio 20th Anniversary Edition 175S amplifier ($150,000); the Baetis Audio reference 4 music server / Roon endpoint ($15,000); an iFi Audio Diablo DAC ($1350); a bevy of audio cables by Inakustik and Silversmith and antivibration products and stands by Modulum Audio.
Across a selection of mostly classical music streamed from Tidal or the Baetis’s hard drive, the system delivered a smorgasbord of ear- and heart-pleasing ingredients—tactility, touch, natural warmth, exquisite timbres—but even more impressive to me were the global aspects: a spectacularly mapped out soundstage. Its transparency. The high-resolution focus on the instruments. The impression of hearing everything, and I mean everything: every echo, every instrument, every minute, resonant vibration coming off the stroked strings of a violin.
If I were to name the system’s greatest attribute, I would say it was its absolutely seamless picture. The music unfurled as in real life, uninterrupted by the signal-altering degradations usually caused by electronics.
I don’t want to diminish the contributions of the expensive Tenor gear in that setup. Those products sound amazing, but for most of us, they’re beyond aspirational. (If you’ve got the budget, go listen.) But that’s not true of the rest of the system. A huge contributor to the seamlessness I heard was the speakers: Those Dayton Wright Hommage 7 electrostats. They’re hardly inexpensive, but they are aspirational—within reach for many. So is the Baetis server.
And what about the iFi Diablo? What’s a $1300 DAC doing in a system with a $350,000 amplification chain? Is Mr Lemay of Lemay Audio crazy for including it?
Crazy like a fox. I said it in last year’s report, and I’ll say it again: The iFi Diablo is a giant killer. I’ll say the same thing, even at $43,000/pair about the Dayton-Wright Hommage 7.
Montreal Audio Fest 2023 Coverage By Rick Becker
Best Rooms at The Salon Audio Montréal Audiofest Show 2023
Room 1216 Lemay Audio.
This finally brings me around to my selection of the Best Rooms at the show this year. Since all rooms are not created equal at the Hotel Bonaventure, I am compelled to list a number of rooms that were standouts either for sound quality or some other obscure reason that impressed me and sticks in my mind weeks after the show is over. My list included five rooms that were really top-tier for any show, anywhere. And a second list of ten came in just a step behind them, some of whom have been among the Best Rooms in the past. I decided to keep the bar high this year while acknowledging that there was a lot of great gear in many rooms beyond the five mentioned here. The top five were all expensive systems. When money becomes a factor, you need to cherry pick among the highest value products available and tweak your system and your room to the max. But it can be done.
While this room wasn't quite as good as their presentation last year with the larger version of this speaker, the small room held them back. Nonetheless, it was still outstanding.
Last year Lemay had one of the most spectacular rooms I've ever heard, so I was eagerly anticipating this year's presentation with a scaled-down version of their previous speaker. While the speaker was scaled down (relatively speaking), the presentation felt hemmed in by the smaller room. It was still outstanding.
As before, a Baetis Audio server linked to an iFi Diablo DAC that Francois had hot-rodded with an external power supply and a special DC cable. Amplification was by the magnificent (and expensive) Tenor. And Modulum stands and footers were used throughout.
The Hommage speaker shown last year stood 185 cm and featured 9 vintage electrostatic cells from Dayton Wright that date back to 1970 and the introduction of the IMAX cinema theater. The Hommage 7 shown here (43,000$), standing 140 cm, uses only seven of the electrostatic cells in a handsome, room-friendly design. In each speaker only one cell is run full-range (40Hz to 18kHz) to achieve pinpoint imaging, while the other cells run up to only 2500Hz. A Mundorf bi-polar super-tweeter adds a great sense of air and physical space, running from 16kHz to 35kHz.
The Tenor pre and stereo power amps were the heavy end of the system, coming in at 200k$ and 150k$, respectively. The Baetis Audio Reference 4 server with Roon was 15k$. The secret sauce in the system was the iFi Audio Diablo at a mere 1350$, though the external power supply and DC cable would add to that price. The Modulum Audio rack (1950$) and vibration pods under all the components showed the attention given to quelling micro-vibrations.
Another high-value item in the rig was the Silversmith Audio Fidelium speaker cable (1000$, 25 cm). Usually, the gold ribbon speaker cables stand out when loosely draped between the amp and speaker, but Jeffrey Smith devised a special cable riser to keep them taut and vertically oriented. They work fine either way. I've tried the speaker cable in my system and they are excellent performers as well as very high-value cables.
François Lemay responds to M. Rick Becker
Dear Rick
One of the 5 best rooms out of 100 is fantastic. How can I thank you more for taking time to sit down and give attentive ear to our best work so far. Yes I am a small company, yes we have built on an excellent foundation of Dayton Wright brilliant work but no, very good isn't enough , only excellent reproduction tools is acceptable for me. The Hommage innovative design proves that with experience, humility and good insight we can attain a level that competes with the best. Budget size and pools of engineers are no guarantee for pure musicality.
On behalf of all my little team of passionate seekers, accept my greatest appreciation for your great work. You have started following my work with Tenor and Lamhorn in 2001 and never missed a step of what became Lemay Audio. From all the reviews you wrote about this evolution, I must conclude that you are our most faithful fan.
Merci
Francois Lemay