The Toronto Audio Fest is Ontario’s new consumer electronics exhibition. It brings together over 300 brands of the best audio and video equipment from around the world. You can hear, touch and compare it in over 100 demo rooms ranging from 240 to 2400sq ft. on 9 floors.

This is the second year of the show, which aims to attract a high percentage of women and younger audiophiles. The show takes place over the weekend of the 18^th to 20^th of October 2019 at the Westin Toronto Airport Hotel. Admission is free but you do need to register online. This year they are celebrating 50 Years Of Woodstock.

50 Years Of Woodstock

There is plenty going on including a “Conversation With Mark Pinske”, a unique opportunity to meet and discuss with Frank Zappa’s Sound Engineer. Also live performances from Isabeau Corriveau and Anne Bisson plus seminars on everything from Active Loudspeakers to Turntable Calibration. There is a Personal Audio Zone and ‘Audio Teens’ an incentive to get teenagers into Hifi with a room run by teenagers, for teenagers.

Here’s a roundup of what some of the Toronto Audio Fest 2019 exhibitors are doing at the show.

ELAC

Andrew Jones, Vice President Of Engineering for Elac will be on hand every day at the Toronto Audio Fest. Andrew Jones has an impressive history in loudspeakers, having served as the chief speaker engineer at KEF, Infinity, Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (TAD), and Pioneer. In May, following the merger of Pioneer and Onkyo, Germany’s ELAC announced that Jones had not only joined the company as vice president of engineering but was already working on a new line of speakers.

Neat Acoustics

Neat, from North East England, is launching the Ministra bookshelf speaker, following on from their new Ekstra speaker. Featuring the same ribbon tweeter and bass/midrange drive units as the Ekstra, the Ministra is an extremely compact iso-baric model. Like the Ekstra, the drive units are mounted on a separate baffle attached to the main enclosure via a polyethylene membrane. The Ministra is a boundary design, intended for discreet closeto-wall placement. More information here.

Nordost

Throughout the show, Nordst sales representatives and product specialists, Bruno de Lorimier and Michael Taylor, will be performing live demonstrations and product comparisons, in the Balmoral room.

Hearken Audio

Hearken Audio will be in room 349 this year showing the Jean Nantais Ultimate Lenco turntable and a Steam Punk version of his Classic model. The Ultimate uses 30-60 year old woods and a new larger platter, poured from a special alloy.

The turntables will have a Miyajima Labs Suboten L on a Graham Phantom iii and a Reed 1x with a VDH Crimson Stradivarius. The Steampunk turntable will have a JMW Memorial arm with a VDH Frog. It will be paired with a Thoress and Miyajima preamp and Ocellia and Yamamoto 300b power amps plus a mix of Ocellia and Harmonix cables and Rethm Saadhana speakers.

Rotel Michi & Monitor Audio

Rotal are launching their Michi range of electronics at the show, featuring the P5 preamplifier, S5 stereo amp and M8 monoblocks. Prices start at $399USD for the pre. They will be showing with Monitor Audio, who will feature their Gold Series speakers in room 354.

Atelier Audio

The Montreal based dealer/distributor will show their entire catalogue throughout the Toronto AudioFest,  including several first in Canada, such as JMR Bliss Jubile, Aqua Acoustics Formula xHD Rev 2. Visit them in rooms  347 & 348.

For links and more info for this and many other Hifi Show around the world…have a look at our Hifi Diary!