Audio Show....

Can not forget to mention Mark Pinske Frank Zappas sound engineer was brilliant and hosted a great seminar...

You must have been at the Toronto Audio Fest.

My impression: Never has so much expensive equipment, in so many rooms, sounded so bad.

It is not surprising though. The exhibitors for the most part cared so little about their perspective customers that they put almost no effort into addressing the acoustics of the rooms. Does that say something about what they think their customers critical pre-purchase skills are?

Do you mean the self powered Elac towers? The bass was impressive, I wasn’t sure in my limited listening whether the detail was there. Kudos to them though, not sure you noticed, but they had acoustic panels all around the room.

I was pretty disappointed in the big Gershman/Classe/VPI/Nordost room. You could tell there was detail in the system, but overall, did not sound good. I was impressed with the lower end Gershmann’s /Krell integrated in their other room.

The Wynn Audio room was abyssmal. The Magico/CH-Precision room not much better. The Klipshorns .. nearly unlistenable in that room, sort of like the Yamaha room. There was one uber-expensive speaker in one room where you could literally hear the cabinet resonate when you placed your ear next to it.

I was almost ready to walk out till I walked into the Acapella room. Sounded fantastic. The Harbeths with the Rockports sounded great too.

Not sure you noticed, but up in the hotel rooms, some were traditional 4 sided, but some were 5 sided. Almost without fail the 5 sided rooms sounded better.

Some impressive offerings from Monitor audio when taking price into account, but my show favorite was the oRFEo Jubilee, and that was before I found it it won awards. It punched up well beyond its price tag. Highly recommend it to anyone looking for a $5000 (USD) speaker.

I thought the MurAudio speakers were good ... till the music got complex, and then I didn’t. They were "interesting" but I would not say good.

All the SR equipment in the world couldn’t save the Stenheim speakers from their environment ... again poor sound.

I contrasted that with the Vimberg Mino , where the room was obviously hurting them, but the detail and tonal balance of the speaker still came through. Definitely encouraged me to seek them out in a better listening environment.

Not sure I was biased for or against the MBL entering their room. They had a few interesting clear acrylic acoustic panels around the room. However, if I had to pick best sound of the show on an absolute level, this would have been it. I just wished they would have turned up the volume (and been in a quieter area).


Those are the rooms I took note of, well that and the supplier who will go unnamed who changed the volume between between demos when it was supposed to be an A/B test. I stayed for 3 rounds, and recorded and verified the increased levels on the 3rd test. Not cool.

roberttcan"Never has so much expensive equipment, in so many rooms, sounded so bad...The exhibitors for the most part cared so little about their perspective customers that they put almost no effort into addressing the acoustics of the rooms...The Wynn Audio room was abyssmal. The Magico/CH-Precision room not much better. The Klipshorns .. nearly unlistenable in that room, sort of like the Yamaha room. There was one uber-expensive speaker in one room where you could literally hear the cabinet resonate."

Do you have any data, study, or measurements to support you're claim, pronouncements, and observations? I would think being a self-professed engineer, scientist, and expert that you would have conducted such measurements and possible held some double blind testing to compare objective results with you're own because as you say "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."    

He merely stated that some items didn't impress him. That's kinda the point right? If something sounds good to you, or vice versa, then further research is in order. You two may be engaged in some sort of back and forth, I don't know, but if I think something sounds bad/not applicable to me, I could care less how it measures.

May want to go back and read my post (and his). We both agreed we came away less than impressed from the sounds we heard at this show.

I agreed with @roberttcan ,
My experience on Montreal Audio Fest was similar to yours in Toronto.
A big part of exhibitors or don’t care or simply don’t have any idea about how good audio should sound themselves.
But if you go to audio store there is the same story.
There are too many morons in audio industry today.
In contrast there are some exhibitors that have a good sound in their room from year to year on Montreal Audio Fest.
My experience shows, the sound depends more from good taste of exhibitor, seller or audiophile than from budget spent on the system.
Regards,
Alex.

@roberttcan Thanks for the write-up. Look, it's either good or it's not good, no matter what the room.

The answer is not so difficult: the room has the tendency to magnified the sound coming from the speakers. If the sound is good the room will magnified the sound in the same matter and will not disappoint. However, if the sound coming from the speakers is mediocre, the room will magnified and emphasis the poor sound quality and make it sound even worst. 

@all....Mainly I am referencing the abnoxious prices that these companies are demanding for product.  It really is shameful in some cases...

In no way should a pair of Monitor Audio's cost 13k...
The list goes on.

Hi @roberttcan ,

I have been at Montreal Audio show during 4 years. Some of exhibitors always, year from year do a great job to get good sound in their rooms. Equipment is changing but sound is always good. (Examples are: Audio Note, Rega-Harbeth rooms).
Other exhibitors or don't care about sound or don't understand what a good sound is.  And it works, because a significant part of audiophile buy equipment for show off and grandstanding. You can see it if you look, what kind of people visit these rooms and which music was played. (Examples are: Tannoy-McIntosh, Focal rooms).

Regards,
Alex.

@alex........Thanks....

And it works, because a significant part of audiophile buy equipment for show off and grandstanding. You can see it if you look, what kind of people visit these rooms and which music was played.

You took the words out of my mouth.