Honest1:
The Ascendo room you are refering to had two M-s speakers, two Cat JL-3 Signature monoblocks, a CAT SL-1 Ultimate Mark II preamp, Reimyo CDP and VR Revelation cables. The Ascendo designer Jurgen Scheuring (sp?) was there the whole time and spoke willingly and at length. Frank Tchang also came in periodically and demonstrated his resonators, which was very entertaining.
I also felt that many rooms were too loud--i.e., louder than "natural", which kept me out of them. I think this volume issue is an unfortunate cultural propensity rather than an effect of small or competing rooms, since even the van Schweikert VR7s were played too loudly in their huge isolated room at THE. I didn't have anyone balk if I asked them to lower the volume, but there wasn't always an opportune time to ask.
A lot of the systems sounded fine when playing the ubiquitous small jazz ensemble stuff, and fell apart with more technically demanding orchestral music, regardless of the quality of the CD. This left me feeling that I couldn't begin to assess a system unless the exhibitor would let me play something from my own selection.
Room size and shape vary considerably, and construction is consistently flimsy, all of which must be a huge frustration to exhibitors who are paying a lot of money to be there. The environmental limitations have to be taken into account when assessing the gear, though some setups seemed to overcome it in varying degrees, while others did not.
The Ascendo room you are refering to had two M-s speakers, two Cat JL-3 Signature monoblocks, a CAT SL-1 Ultimate Mark II preamp, Reimyo CDP and VR Revelation cables. The Ascendo designer Jurgen Scheuring (sp?) was there the whole time and spoke willingly and at length. Frank Tchang also came in periodically and demonstrated his resonators, which was very entertaining.
I also felt that many rooms were too loud--i.e., louder than "natural", which kept me out of them. I think this volume issue is an unfortunate cultural propensity rather than an effect of small or competing rooms, since even the van Schweikert VR7s were played too loudly in their huge isolated room at THE. I didn't have anyone balk if I asked them to lower the volume, but there wasn't always an opportune time to ask.
A lot of the systems sounded fine when playing the ubiquitous small jazz ensemble stuff, and fell apart with more technically demanding orchestral music, regardless of the quality of the CD. This left me feeling that I couldn't begin to assess a system unless the exhibitor would let me play something from my own selection.
Room size and shape vary considerably, and construction is consistently flimsy, all of which must be a huge frustration to exhibitors who are paying a lot of money to be there. The environmental limitations have to be taken into account when assessing the gear, though some setups seemed to overcome it in varying degrees, while others did not.