Part 4 — Lower Level, Left (St. Laurent & Outremont Rooms) At The Montreal Audiofest 2026 Show
A deep dive into the Montreal Audiofest 2026, featuring early-morning impressions, high-end audio's latest innovations, audiophile solutions, and standout demonstrations.
Montreal Audiofest Show Report By Rick Becker

MK1  Audio Sensibility
Out in the hall, it was time for my semi-annual check-in with Steven Huang of Audio Sensibility, seen here with his wife, Jean. There were no new products this time, but Steven said business is rolling along well with his high-value cables, which he is still able to sell to U.S. customers at the sale prices on his website. Products from other manufacturers, he says, get hit with tariffs, so he doesn't recommend them to U.S. customers at this time.

M6  Altitudo Audio And Tri-Cell Enterprises
Leonid Yamborko of Altitudo Audio trucks all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to both the Toronto and Montreal shows. I've also seen his rooms at AXPONA. He's a hard-driving man, but I've always thought he has tried to fit too much gear into too small a room. Leonid went big at Montreal this year, taking the Montreal 6 room in conjunction with Tri-Cell Enterprises, a major Canadian distributor in Woodbridge, Ontario, near Toronto. The large room was spaciously laid out with a wall of gear driving two sets of speakers. It was not only an impressive display, but both systems were very good-sounding.

The racks at the far end of the room seemed to hold a little bit of everything from a lot of different manufacturers, but were wired for two separate systems.

I heard both the Zesto tube amp and the Burmester solid state amp driving speakers to very good effect.

Being a tube guy at heart, I preferred the Zesto stereo tube gear driving the black Elac Concentro 2.0 M speaker ($80k). Here's the list for that rig:

Elac Concentro 2.0 M 807 $80,000.00

Set of Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 10 jumpers $1,227.50

OEPHI Reference speaker cables 2,5m $7,000.00

Synergistic Research Carbon Performance Elevators set of 6 $1,040.00 x2 

HRS E1X 1921 $2,725.00 

Tri-Art B series equipment stand 5 shelves $2,111.00 x3 

Nordost power bar QRT Q base QB4 MK3 $1,679.99

Nordost Power bar QRT Q base QB8 MK3 $2,759.99

Power cords Nordost Valhalla 2 2.0m x2 

Cardas Nautilis Power strip $2,898.00

Cardas power cord Cardas clear power cord $1,376.00

MIT Matt premium 25mm $1,005.00 x5 

HRS NS-130 $145 x 3 units under streamer 

Zesto Athena DAC $22,000.00

Zesto BIA 200 with KT170 $23,000

Zesto Leto Ultra 2 $17,250.00

HRS DPX 094545 $535.00

HRS DPX  14545 $650.00

HRS DP2 09545 $410.00

CAD cables 10 x $530 each

CAD Ground control GC3.1 $8,300

CAD Ground control GC1.1 $3,400 x2 units 

Matrix Audio NT-1 $5,990.00

CD player Aesthetix Romulus Eclipse CD player / DAC $29,275.00

Matrix Audio SC-1 Reference Clock $7,990.00

OEPHI reference power cord 1.5m $5,600 x 3 

Oephi Acoustics Transendence power cord 2.0m $2,200.00

Nordost Feey 2 2.0m power cord $3,419.99

XLR Cables Oephi Reference XLR and RCA $7,600.00 x2 

Wireworld Platinum 10 XLR 1.0m $6,832.50 

Nordost QWave $539.99

Nordost QSine $389.99

Nordost QVibe $485.99

Nordost QKool $341.99

Digital balance XLR 1.0m Wireworld Platinum Starlight 8 $2,423

There were controls on the back of the Elac speaker to aim the tweeter/midrange configurations from straight ahead to either the left or right to adjust the soundstage to your room and preference. I've seen variations of this adjustment before, but not very often.

The system with the light colored, taller speaker had much in common with the Elac system, such as the HRS dampers and CAD Ground Controls. It is listed below:

Audiovector R10 Avantgarde Arreté Canadian Birdseye Maple $200,000.00

Set of Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 10 jumpers $1,227.50

Wireworld Gold Eclipse 10 speaker cables 8 feet $17,135.00 

Tri-Art bamboo cables stands 2x sets $105.0@ each

HRS M3X2 isolation board $6,275.00

Tri-Art B series equipment stand 5 shelves $2,111.00 x3 

Nordost power bar QRT Q base QB4 MK3 $1,679.99

Nordost Power bar QRT Q base QB8 MK3 $2,759.99

Power cords Nordost Valhalla 2 2.0m x2 

Cardas Nautilus Power strip $2,898.00

Cardas power cord Cardas clear power cord $1,376.00

MIT Matt premium 25mm $1,005.00 x5 

HRS NS-130 $145 x 3 units under streamer 

Burmester power amp 909 MK5 $133,,000.00

Burmester 077 preamplifier $105,000.00

HRS DPX 094545 $535.00

HRS DPX  14545 $650.00

HRS DPX 05545 $360.00

Audiobyte Suowr Vox Multibit DSD D/A converter $5,631.00

HRS DP2 09545 $410.00

CAD cables 10 x $530 each

CAD Ground control GC3.1 $8,300

CAD Ground control GC1.1 $3,400 x2 units 

Matrix Audio NT-1 $5,990.00

CD player Aesthetix Romulus Eclipse CD player / DAC $29,275.00

Matrix Audio SC-1 Reference Clock $7,990.00

Wire world Eclipse 7 Platinum 1.5m $4,306.75 x1 

Nordost Feey 2 2.0m power cord $3,419.99

XLR Cables Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 8 1.5m $3,181.25 each 

Wireworld Platinum 10 XLR 1.0m $6,832.50 

Nordost QWave $539.99

Nordost QSine $389.99

Nordost QVibe $485.99

Nordost QKool $341.99

Coax Cable 1.0m Audio Note 

It may be indulging Altitudo a bit to include so many specific prices, but a lot of these items never get mentioned in show reports, so I'm flying with it. I'd say the effort put into this room was a huge improvement over previous shows. He has duplicated the entire room back at his new showroom in Winnipeg, but it wouldn't surprise me if he has sold off a lot of it already.

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