RMAF 2019!

@labtec 

I had forgotten about the Polk room. You are correct the Polk SDA
imaged amazingly well and sounded great.  Don't know what they cost.
They were playing in one of the suites at the end of a hall, big room.
The only weirdness was there were only four chairs and they were in
a line front to back (one row four deep).  So, it appears the sweet spot
is very narrow.  Several show goers attempted to move one of the chairs and the "gentleman" running the room rather gruffly told him to "put it back".  I tried to talk to the "gentleman" and he was totally disinterested.
Not sure what was going on.  Just calling it the way it happened. 

I liked the new venue, and thought all of the rooms sounded better than the Tech Center.  I had no problem with the restaurants because I made reservations a week in advance. 

I loved the YG Acoustics and Joseph Audio Pearl 20.20s. No one has mentioned the Rockports. Loved them. The Salks were great, especially for the money. 

@barts The Polks were $6k.

The reason for the 4 chairs only lined up in the center is that the SDA technology is designed for the sweet spot.  However, it was a good test to sit off axis too because it showed that they performed just as good as others off axis. 

What's nice is that even if you didn't hook up the terminals for the second set of drivers critical for SDA, you would still have a high end stereo speaker for a fraction of the cost of others with similar performance.

Fwiw, the guy running the demo was nice to me.  In fact, I give him points for running a semi-structured demo and keeping things under control. So many rooms you go into and nobody says anything... You can't get a seat in the sweet spot and there's no description of what they are demoing.  It's just a free for all.

I asked him several questions and was definitely skeptical when I entered, but those speakers convinced me. They did what almost no other speaker can do in terms of imaging.

Dang it, I can’t believe that I missed the SDA room... ugh

I always like to find something at RMAF that I can get excited about in my price range... this year it was those Wharfedales coming out soon.  The $2500 floorstanding speakers...  they sounded fantastic and are some that I will definitely consider purchasing in the future. Cool to hear about your story attending RMAF with you kids!  👍👍 for being a great Dad :-)

I sat in the 3rd chair back of the Polk SDA demo. 

I had my Sony 4k video camera and used it in many of the rooms at or near the “sweet spot”. 
I had brought it for my youngest kid’s wedding (main reason we were there) but decided to break it out for most of the rooms we went in. 
Not sure what type of indication I’ll get of the audio reproduced but at least it’ll be something. 
Just wish I had more than one day. 

The SDA have that huge soundstage but seemed like something “musical”was missing to me. 

Regarding the spokesperson for each room, I have to give the award to Andrew Jones. 
Very informative, interactive, and humorous with the “audience”. 

The Polk room was more formal and controlled. 



The oddest presenter room goes to the  “amp in a tube”, where the spouse of the tube designer was telling me what they cost when I asked for the specs. 
She pointed at her husband and told me he designed these as she handed me a “tube” with the circuit boards inside.  
Very nice lady but not what I would expect for the show. (the audio was just ok) 

Late in the day we got to hear the Magico speakers with some high volume “non-audiophile” Billy Squier.

The last room we heard was just down from our abode and was my wife's favorite. (Crown and water beverage from one of the representatives might have had an influence) 
Paradigm sounded very nice but they had the subs and ARC
Genesis setup. 

All in all it was a great experience and hope to do it again. 

Now back to my “lowly”
Revel Performa3.