I attended the show on Saturday, and had a great time. I thought Constantine Soo did a great job putting the event together. The venue was pleasant: conveniently located next to a major freeway exit, adequate parking, decent restaurant, easy check-in, and wide representation from the audio manufacturing industry. Many rooms offer different equipment in the morning and afternoon, and further varied their equipment selection from day to day allowing the attendees to hear for a great deal more than just having the same equipment set-up for all three day of the show. All in all this was a great effort for a first time event, and I hope there are many more in future years.
My biggest concern was the small size of the rooms and how the vendors handled this limitation. With some exceptions the volume in the rooms overwhelmed the space. My guess is that vendors were trying to demonstration the potential of the offerings by filling the room with full spectrum sounds showing the power and extension of their equipment. Quite often this resulted in a harsher and more brittle top-end than I heard from the same equipment under other conditions. Even Audio Note, one of my favorites, which still sounded very very good, would have been well served to adjust the volume down slightly. Still, some room did sound absolutely great like Loggie Audios with Acapella and Audio Images with Magico for example; but, I believe these room were larger than most. Regardless of the room size limitation this show was a lot of fun, and I hope it happens again next year.
My biggest concern was the small size of the rooms and how the vendors handled this limitation. With some exceptions the volume in the rooms overwhelmed the space. My guess is that vendors were trying to demonstration the potential of the offerings by filling the room with full spectrum sounds showing the power and extension of their equipment. Quite often this resulted in a harsher and more brittle top-end than I heard from the same equipment under other conditions. Even Audio Note, one of my favorites, which still sounded very very good, would have been well served to adjust the volume down slightly. Still, some room did sound absolutely great like Loggie Audios with Acapella and Audio Images with Magico for example; but, I believe these room were larger than most. Regardless of the room size limitation this show was a lot of fun, and I hope it happens again next year.