THE Show Newport 2012 • TABlog

by Marc Mickelson | June 3, 2012

Last fall when I visited Aaudio Imports near Denver, Colorado, to meet Carlos Candeias, the head of Balanced Music Concept -- BMC for short -- and hear a full system of his electronics, I was anticipating a typical dog-and-pony show: a formal, nearly scripted presentation on BMC and Carlos's design ideals. What I ended up with was a casual "hang," whereby Carlos, who's well versed in many different areas, and I simply chatted for hours on topics that, when pieced together, formed an effective picture of BMC and its reasons for doing things the way it does. Instead of restating all of that here, I'll simply direct you to my blog.

At that time, we discussed a review of the BMC system, which was first planned for later in the year, then for right before CES, then for right after CES. My schedule or that of Aaudio Imports simply never aligned, so the date for receiving the equipment -- mono amps, digital preamp, digital transport and phono stage -- slid. Thus, one of the first orders of business in Newport was to nail down a timeframe for the review (a palette from BMC will be arriving on my porch very soon). Also on the agenda, for me at least, was hearing the BMC system again, this time fronted by BMC's Arcadia speakers in their final version.

I've now heard the BMC electronics in three systems -- Aaudio Imports' in Denver, at CES and in Newport -- and the results were slightly different each time. In Denver, I praised the electronics, which drove Acapella speakers, for presenting "more of the music and less of everything else," my way of recognizing (among other things) the extreme purity of what I heard. At CES, with pre-production Arcadias in front of the BMC electronics, the sound was big and powerful and definitely more tonally dense. At Newport, I added ease and spaciousness to my aural picture of BMC, the system delivering extreme depth in the form of an arching soundstage that seemed to extend beyond the wall behind the speakers.

What conclusions can be drawn from these three presentations? I can only make weak speculations, as the rooms and some of the ancillary equipment were different. I'll simply say that I'm looking forward to discovering the true essence of the BMC electronics when I hear them in my system soon.