Best of Home Entertainment 2004 NY ?


Who rocked your world? And what stood out within the demo that really drew you into the music?
mphnkns
Just a note. I didn't get to all the rooms. I missed about 6 including JMlabs and Von Schweikert. Some rooms had lines down the hallway and I just didn't have time.
JM Labs was impressive - big speakers in a big room with pronounced, defined bass. Don't try these babies in your average audiophile space.

I also thought the VR5's were very good, contrary to opinions expressed elsewhere.

The Wisdom/Halcro room is just another example that throwing big money at a system doesn't guarantee good (or even decent) sound.

SIlverline Bolero's sounded good with a brand new 805 tubed integrated - so new it was still butning off flux on Thursday.

Penaudio Charisma/Chara's sounded very fine. Too bad they look like they are made of matchsticks.

Totem was showing a mighty small speaker with a mighty big sound. Very impressed. And the room was tres cool too in a Tiki kind of theme.

Enjoy,
Bob
The best of the best, sound only, that left a lasting impression, would be:

1. Walker turntable/vacuum tube Lamm/Kharma
2. Clearaudio/Rogue/Vandersteen 5A
3. Walker turntable/solid state Lamm/Kharma
4. dSC/BAT/JM Labs
5. Oracle/VAC/VonSchweikert 4jr
6. Kimber DSD recordings (sound only, poor performances)
also: Totem and Piega Speakers (electronics unkown)

Contrary to some other posts, the Thor and big model Innersound rooms to me were uninvolving and boring. Smaller model Innersound room was better. And Hyperion sounded too "HiFi" for my taste.

Prpixel, next time bring energy bars to eat. Saves mucho time (gave me time to wait in line for the JM Labs and VonSchweikert) and no chances with NYC food!
For the friend or relative who just wants to listen to music, and have somebody else get it all together for them, I heartily recommend a look ( internet direct seller ), and a listen ( money back guarantee ) at odysseyaudio.com, the most value oriented system integrator at the Show.
Klaus Bunge manufactures, tweaks, integrates, and keeps the prices low. Also, a real gentleman, who values a customer choosing his $1500 package system just as much as the slightly higher rollers who go for his more elevated systems. He sells components separately, too.
Another gentleman, a Southerner, and I guess you could call him a legend in his own time, Lloyd Walker, showed off his best turntable, with its astronomical $27,000 price tag ( worth it, too ) and in the twinkling of an eye, returned to earth, and politely sold me his new SST Contact enhancer for a Show bargain price of $55 ( regular retail is still quite reasonable ). I am finding that this may be one of those universal tweak ideas that keeps improving a system's performance, as you apply, step by step, to power cords, interconnects, speaker cables, and, even the pins on tubes.
It actually inspires you to call up an audio buddy, to quickly come listen. And, then he wants to "borrow" your remaining supply; fair enough because he always lets me hear his best CD's.
Another impressive tweak, which was being applied on some of my interconnects from home, while I was at the Show, and to which I returned home for a thrilling listen, is offered by cableburner.com. I entrusted two pairs of recently "retired" Marigo interconnects to the burn-in gadgets of George Saubon, who delivered back to me an enhanced interconnect performance which would have been priced in the stratosphere if I had elected to purchase this IC quality from other wire vendors at the Show.
Luckily, I have a number of systems, allowing for separate evaluation of different upgrade efforts. It gets very complicated when a tweak lets an item "leapfrog" in performance over its competition. Then the competition may be able to re-gain the lead, when the same tweak is applied to it. I plan to send some more wires for burn-in, and will gladly be paying for this service that I was fortunate to first try out as an introductory free offer (yes, it was a public ad right here on Audiogon :>)
Hope this review of some inexpensive ways to get great sound, by taking advantage of ideas from conscientious vendors, may be of help to someone who values a bargain.