RMAF 2013: Dupuy Acoustique

I really enjoyed hearing from Dupuy Acoustique at last year's RMAF, so I was delighted to see them in the Atrium again. This year I was treated to the Congas ($14,500), big brothers to the Bongo stand mounts ($5,500) I heard at last year's show. The upper module consists of a pair of Bongos; the lower module features two powered 10" woofers in a dipole configuration. The speakers sounded great, but it was clear that the folks from Dupuy Acoustique were most excited about their Ultimate Daisy Reflector ($7,995), which consists of three of their Daisy Reflectors stacked on top of each other, each one individually shaped and designed to be placed in between the speakers.

When I heard the term “Daisy Reflector” in the press release, I honestly expected some kind of Magic Metal Bowl, but no — this is a hefty shaped acoustic panel, and the results were clearly noticeable. Asked if I wanted to hear anything, I promptly spotted a CD of Count Basie’s *88 Basie Street* and knew we were in business. The sound was lively and very clean, and I was impressed by the results of the Daisy Reflector: it really make a hefty contribution (as far as I could tell) in terms of stabilizing the soundstage and broadening the sweet spot, allowing me to move to different spots in the room and not feel that my listening was compromised. Neat! I am admittedly intrigued by the possibilities of one of the smaller Reflectors (Standard $995, Mini $595) as a means of counteracting the flatscreen TV and large window that currently lurk between my speakers, wreaking havoc on my soundstage.

The source in the room was a Sony SCD XA 9000 ES. The preamp was a Conrad Johnson CAT series 2, and the amp was a 35-year-old Precision Fidelity tube amp with modded coupling caps. Speaker cables and interconnects were from Audio Sensibility.