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I went to THE show and didn't make any friends ...

Hi Everyone!

I know absolutely noone is waiting on my show report, but to help others hear where I am coming from, I thought I would post my notes and drama anyway. I was only able to spend half a day and here are my thoughts:

The last show I went to was in Oakland and it was sponsored by Pass and ASC. For my ears, a bad combination. I’m just not a Pass fan, and the ASC traps made every room sound like they played exactly the same bass note and one treble note all the time. This show was much smaller, and no such sponsorhip, so the sound in each room had a lot more variety.


Best value of the show goes to Fritz and Wyred4Sound. They also took the most care with the room acoustics. For the total system cost, around $15k, I thought it was really good, but the treble balance was hot for me, as were most of the displays I heard.


Best sound: Audio Concepts room playing Vandersteen Quattro’s’ with Vandersteen amps and a tube pre I forgot the name of. Of course, this was a $45k system. $15k speakers, $15k amps and goodness only knows the turntable and amp.


Unlike previous shows, the ESL’s acquitted themselves well. The Martin Logan and Sander’s ESL’s had some of the best balanced responses to my ears, with the Sander’s having among the best imaging (in exactly 1 chair). I like Roger and his speakers, but man, his taste in electronics is basically the same as Julian Hersch’s. Technically OK without being emotionally involving, or relaxing. The opposite, it put my ears on edge. Perhaps the digital crossover and room EQ they were using?


Other rooms with great imaging included the Brooks Berdan room with the Magicos, the large Legacy conference room, and the Thrax Spartacus demo room. The later had really good mid to treble balance, but was a bit chesty on vocals.

The award for most pretentious goes to the room demoing monitors and the short bald guy who tried to aggressively stare me down for politely asking if he could step six inches to the side so he wasn’t blocking his own demo. Hilarious.


erik_squires
sfischer1's avatar
sfischer1
56 posts
 
If you’re referring to the Martin Logan room on the 6th floor, they were Expression ESL 13A. I helped to setup that room and it was a pleasure since I’ve been a fan of Martin Logan for over 20 yrs.

I’m glad you liked the sound and it was a very affordable system, driven by a very nice Hegel integrated, streaming digital from first Aurender and then a Wolf server. Folks seemed to really like the latter.

I've supported several show venues over the recent years and the Hilton had pretty decent basic rooms.  The ballrooms, on the other hand, were very difficult.  They were square with sliding partitions and a lot of slap echo.  The 3rd floor featured some intermediate sized rooms which seemed very workable.
erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
sfischer1 :


Possibly. We were going fast and I didn’t take many notes, but I only recall one pair of ML’s.


I heard the top end ML’s in Oakland and man, the room was terrible. The ASC room treatments sucked the midrange out of any room that was over treated.
bradleybgordon
3 posts
 
Thx for the thread Erik. 100% agree with overall impression (and candor). Search felt like hearing best of the worst. Worst show I've attended for overall SQ (but never made the trek to Munich). Went from room to room to room looking n hoping for just one sublime experience. Never found it. Mostly boomy, overloaded rooms (and why always the high dbl's dealers?! more is better seems flawed logic in crazy small rooms. ever heard the word 'finesse' vs brute force). Like wandering in the desert for 40 yrs. n not even coming out with a stone tablet, just more thirst. Yes, room acoustics pretty much condemned most demos, but at other shows at least a few found a way to demo at least 75% of their gears' potential along w a few magic moments. Not the Vandy's, Magicos etc imo. And those Tune Tots sounded crazy hot to my ears.  Never thought I heard that this show, but perhaps I just missed THAT room (or my ears?). Maybe Legacy room came close to a balanced, well integrated, articulate sound w their room correction. Btw, did notice a lot of Innuos players/streamers FWIW. Very thin crowd when I visited Sunday too. Huge disappointment. While I own a lot of high end gear, also miss seeing/hearing a few rooms who put together a great budget system. Some CAN astonish and embarrass when done right and lord knows we need fresher blood in our hobby.  Just dont get this race to the top, that I suspect becomes a race to the bottom re. the HE gear sector's viability. Sigh. On a positive note, didnt hear D. Krall once!
erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
You make a good point, @bradleygordon


I haven't seen any of the budget rooms covered. Stereophile in particular seems to have kept the entry point to being mentioned high.


Best,
E
mirolab
208 posts
 
Most shockingly amazing demo of the show for me was in a room full of restored Altec horn systems.  They were playing ELP's "From the Beginning" from some visitor's CD, and it was a transformative experience!!  Truly mind-blowing....  There was simply nothing more lifelike than those 15" two-way horns.  Of course, they were nowhere near flat response, and had nothing below 40Hz..... but who cared?

MOST rooms sounded REALLY bad, with a boxy predominance in the 100-200Hz area.....  Ocean Way had the best sounding small room for me......  Allen Sides really had it dialed in, and his gorgeous 2-way studio monitors had the deepest lows and highest highs all covered.  He gets great sound consistently at Audiophile shows, and Pro Audio shows! (maybe because he's a real sound engineer??)   His large speakers are amazing too, but were simply too big for the small room.  
Another great sounding room was Muraudio's spherically curved electrostatics.  Seems impossible to do, but they did it, and I think they sounded amazing.  At $30k though.... too much for me.
I returned home from THE Show, turned on my 1-week old ZU Dirty Weekends... and geeze, for $1000, and heard better sound than 75% of what I heard in those hotel rooms!!   Zu did not attend THE Show this year. 
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