Show Reports....

[KeithR]

ok, I haven't been to a show in around 4-5 years so was pretty excited to see one come to SoCal. A lot of mediocre sound at best, but here were my highlights and lowlights. Perhaps others can chime in as well.

Highlights:

1. Lotus Group----their junior speaker (but still at a lofty 75k) was shown and to me had it all in spades. power, palpability, and smoothness---it probably helps they use an active crossover at shows to take out some room issues. this one didn't use the Feastrex driver, but instead a Scanspeak Illuminator. My issue with this speaker is the requisite to triamp---and i think this ultimately scares a lot of folks away (me included)

2. Evolution Acoustics---nice meeting JTinn and playing a lot of fun music (Radiohead "Creep" on 45 was sweet). Speakers don't have low end, and imo, require sub---but within their range, very nice sound indeed. I left thinking both the Playback Designs dac and Dart gear would work well with my speakers (nice warmish sound--even on digital as JTinn was quick to point out)

3. Reference 3A/Concert Fidelity---while the room had a lot of issues (if they had a couple panels on the ceiling, would been 2x better), i think these speakers have a ton of promise and can be driven with low watt tubes (although they were using 100w ss monos).

4. Vivid/Luxman---very transparent midrange left a positive impression. i put on some Mumford and got the room rocking. Nice synergy amp/speaker---and the Brinkman turntable seems great to me. thought the system lacked in the bass department--could be the room.

Lowlights:

1. YG Acoustics/Tenor--- cold, lifeless sound. since i know the Tenor amps aren't the reason, must be the speakers.

2. Magico Q5-- i'm sure I will be in the minority on this one, but I just don't care for Spectral once again. I'm betting the Q5s sound superb on ARC gear as I like the brand of speakers (and almost purchased V3s 2 years ago). To be fair, i didn't get a demo of my music in the room.

3. TAD---again, just not my cup of tea. had all the hifi stuff right, none of the soul. I think (yet again) tubes would have helped this speaker. No one was tapping their toes in the room to swinging jazz--that says a lot to me. Andrew is a really nice guy though and i respect his work a lot!

4. Tannoy Prestige/Cary---heard a lot of Pink Floyd in this room and it appears the type of music that works well on them. However, just too euphonic and slow for me. Definitely more of a vintage sound---but on full scale classical it doesn't work. These Tannoys are fairly popular today in the HE world---but I feel my Zus outperform them and are cheaper.

5. Focal Grande Utopia/Burmester---300k of gear for cold, lifeless sound. I think the speakers were too large for the room.


Overall show comments:

1. shocked how much SS was being shown. not many tubes at all these days.

2. tape masters are just unfair to use as demos---i put on a well recorded cd after a tape and it sounds like crap.

3. low light music---Norah Jones rendition of Wild Horses. O'Hanlon demo---and it made me want to slit my wrists it was so long and drawn out.

4. 5,000 people showed up--this is great news for the industry

5. i tried to bring a lot of modern music and was met with a lot of "what is that?!?!"---people really loved it. the two tracks i demo'd a lot were:

Mumford and Sons "Awake My Soul"
Jamey Johnson "High Cost of Living"


6. the guys at Brooks Berdan were great---if i needed a dealer in LA, that is who i would turn to. i might go to them for a vinyl setup. as far as there Wilson/VTL room they ran? VTL has gotten too SS for me these days.

7. A lot more younger folks (like me) than i have ever seen before at a show. the iPod generation is interested in music guys, now the industry needs to cater more to that direction.

8. Albert Porter and I hate typical audiophile show music

9. Exhibitors in every room i asked allowed me to play my music---this is a big change from years past (come at the end of the day used to be a common response)

 

[Bruce B]

2. tape masters are just unfair to use as demos---i put on a well recorded cd after a tape and it sounds like crap.

Yeah, don't bring a knife to a gun fight!!

 

[amirm]

Very nice report Keith. Thanks for writing it!

 

[DaveyF]

Keith, your report pretty well sums up my impressions also.
However, I didn't see Magico Q5's I did see the Magico Q3's which were being demo'ed in the Synergistic room using the Esoteric gear as front end and an unknown Korean ss mono block as the amps. The cables were the Synergistic Gallileo's with other Synergistic room treatments included.
Ted Denney did the honors and the sound was IMHO the best at the show. I even got to talk to Alon Wolf about his upcoming Q1's.( he had sat in the demo while I was in attendance).
The TAD room with Alan Jones was very impressive also, Alan really seems to know his stuff and the smaller TAD's were sounding sweet.
The Edge room with Stephen Norbert was a pleasure. Stephen allowed me to play a CD rip of one of my "Budgie" albums on the Estelon set up. He hadn't heard of them, but was ok with as he said 'lightening up the mood'.
The Big Focals were as you stated, just dreadful....IF they don't sound better than this for $180K then Focal must be deluding only themselves if they think they are going to sell! Clearly the room was way too small--BUT IMO a speaker costing that much should be able to sound at least reasonable in a room of that size. The sound was close to being the worst at the show and was just a joke.
I spent waaay to much time in the Rogersound room. The exhibitor there seemed to have very little knowledge of how to set up a system. For some reason, I got roped into re-doing his set up and changing all the basic parameters. After I repositioned his speakers more into the room for a nearfield set-up and flipped the speakers up-side down ( so that the tweets were on the top and not the bottom,as he had incorrectly positioned them) the system began to have some steam. With a polarity change on the sats and with some simple diffusion over the speakers, they started to sing. Unfortunately, even though all in attendance way preferred my set-up, the exhibitor decided to go back to his old ways and proceeded to empty the room

JTinn, was as you said, very graceful and after we chatted a while, allowed me to play one of my very early Hendrix pieces. ( from when he was unknown and playing the blues). Even though the sound isn't a'phile approved, everyone in the room seemed somewhat amazed at how this old recording captured Jimi's budding genius.
The MM Micro One's were sounding as good as I have ever heard them, OTOH I do agree that a sub would benefit them greatly; I cannot escape the feeling that I am hearing them strain when the music gets dynamic.

The Wadax room was also interesting, I thought the speakers were very marginal, the pricing seemed shall we say......HIGHLY Optimistic and they were unable to really fill the room. Which, IMHO, is no real surprise as they are using a Dynaudio 6" driver for the bass and no sub. Talking to their designer, I got the impression that either he couldn't hear the problems or was preferring to BS me with psedo-science. Either way, I left the room very un-impressed.
The YG Acosutics room also was a MAJOR disappointment. The YG's were cold and lifeless and their imaging was confined to the speakers with no depth whatsoever. Here's where I put my flame suit on....Michael Lavorgna's report of these on the S'phile web page states..""Tons of body, weight, speed, great, big and open. How big can a flamenco guitar be?" read my notes from the sonically impressive YG Acoustics room"....Michael, IF you really believe that a Flamenco guitar sounds like this, all I can say is you have NEVER heard a real/live flamenco guitar If I were to play my Flamenco guitar for you---even just one chord, and if you then couldn't hear the difference between what the YG's were portraying, then IMHO you need to have your ears looked at


Worst sound at the show.....IMO there were several poor rooms, BUT the worst, again IMHO, was the room with the Spendors....Something just wasn't working and their rep was unpleasant to be around. I think that this speaker has had its day and now needs a MAJOR re-design.

 

[mauidan]

All the show reports I've read, say this was one of the best sounding rooms at the show:



BTW, I listened to:

Mumford and Sons "Awake My Soul"
Jamey Johnson "High Cost of Living"

If I had to hear them more than once, I don't think I'd slit my wrists, but I would seek help for depression.

 

[KeithR]

All the show reports I've read, say this was one of the best sounding rooms at the show:

View attachment 1952

BTW, I listened to:

Mumford and Sons "Awake My Soul"
Jamey Johnson "High Cost of Living"

If I had to hear them more than once, I don't think I'd slit my wrists, but I would seek help for depression.

Not sure Mumford is depressing music, but I also played Radiohead and Air---better?

The Wilson/VTL was very good I thought---- just like I said in the report, it could have used a hair more warmth. Certainly better than most rooms. But comparing that to the Lotus room was night and day.

 

[KeithR]

DaveyF- what did you think of Tonian Labs?

A lot of people are talking about that room, but I just couldn't pin my finger on what was wrong with the sound. it just sounded perhaps closed in to me, but others said it was dynamic as hell. The nice thing about the Grand Veenas was the immediacy they portrayed----I'm really starting to notice an issue with lower sensitivity speakers on dynamics/immediacy.

And you and I must be the only ones who didn't like the YGs---guy coming out of the room told me "easily best in show." I'm with you--- it didn't sound like real music to me.

re: Magicos. The Q5s were with Spectral across from Legacy on the first floor. Ironically, I missed the Q3s. I tried to play my own music in every room which slowed me down---really need 2 days to do that and hit them all.

 

[Steve williams]

DaveyF- what did you think of Tonian Labs?

A lot of people are talking about that room, but I just couldn't pin my finger on what was wrong with the sound. it just sounded perhaps closed in to me, but others said it was dynamic as hell. The nice thing about the Grand Veenas was the immediacy they portrayed----I'm really starting to notice an issue with lower sensitivity speakers on dynamics/immediacy.

And you and I must be the only ones who didn't like the YGs---guy coming out of the room told me "easily best in show." I'm with you--- it didn't sound like real music to me.

re: Magicos. The Q5s were with Spectral across from Legacy on the first floor. Ironically, I missed the Q3s. I tried to play my own music in every room which slowed me down---really need 2 days to do that and hit them all.

Keith

you know who Tonian Labs is...several years ago you introduced me to him when he was the distributor for Supra cables. he now makes his own speaker and cable

 

[KeithR]

yup, Tony was there--- have you seen his cable? Talk about minimalist

he also was playing an 80s Audiolab integrated amp with Magnavox CDP (one of those old NOS dacs that people love)

 

[Steve williams]

I have seen his cables and I agree with your description

 

[RUR]

And you and I must be the only ones who didn't like the YGs---guy coming out of the room told me "easily best in show." I'm with you--- it didn't sound like real music to me..

Not the only ones....I thought they were dull and lifeless.

re: Magicos.....Ironically, I missed the Q3s.

Heh, despite the fact that listening to the Q3's was one of my specific goals, I missed them because I never entered Berdan's room. Ironically, when I asked Alon (downstairs in the Audio Salon with the Q5) where I could hear them, he did not say "Upstairs in the Berdan room", directing me, instead, to Scott Walker's store. Opportunity lost. :-(

 

[DaveyF]

Not the only ones....I thought they were dull and lifeless.


Heh, despite the fact that listening to the Q3's was one of my specific goals, I missed them because I never entered Berdan's room. Ironically, when I asked Alon (downstairs in the Audio Salon with the Q5) where I could hear them, he did not say "Upstairs in the Berdan room", directing me, instead, to Scott Walker's store. Opportunity lost. :-(

That's a little strange RUR. The Q3's were in the room with Scott Walker's exhibit. I went to listen to the Legacy's ( don't know why as these speakers never do anything for me, and this time was no different) and I never saw the room with the Q5's
Without doubt this show needed more than one day to see everything. I arrived at 12 sharp and by 7 I had missed at least one floor ( floor 3) and obviously exhibits on the ground level

Brooks Berdan wasn't showing Magico, so I guess Alon must have gotten confused

Keith, I listened briefly to the TL-S1's in the Tonian suite. I wasn't pushed out of the room as in other worse sounding set-ups (like the Spendors) OTOH, I felt that like many rooms relying on just digital, that the sound wasn't close to some of the other- shall we say 'better prepared' rooms. ( read JTinn's room, etc.)

 

[RUR]

That's a little strange RUR. The Q3's were in the room with Scott Walker's exhibit....Brooks Berdan wasn't showing Magico, so I guess Alon must have gotten confused

Confusion all 'round, Davey! A friend who attended the show on Saturday said he found them in Berdan's room. Still dunno why Alon simply didn't say "They're upstairs". Ah well, gives me an excuse to visit Walker's emporium - probably a better setup than the show anyhow.

/Ken

 

[DaveyF]

Confusion all 'round, Davey! A friend who attended the show on Saturday said he found them in Berdan's room. Still dunno why Alon simply didn't say "They're upstairs". Ah well, gives me an excuse to visit Walker's emporium - probably a better setup than the show anyhow.

/Ken

Ken, Confusion possibly due to the typical layout of the hotel set-up. Walker's room was on the ground floor with little to show that he was showing Magico, or for that matter Synergistic's with Denney in situs.
While I used the show catalog, it really wasn't that easy to navigate the rooms, particularly on the ground floor, so that's probably why we missed some of them. Walker's room was around the back and in the corner. They had one of the large ballrooms and this IMO had a positive effect on the sound. Nonetheless, the entrance to the ballroom was off to the back-side of the exhibit room and one had to wait in line for the 'showtime'.
The Venture room was actually next to this room, although a smaller venue. Their room was IMHO too large for their set-up and they suffered as a result....I guess it's the luck of the draw at these events.

 

[mauidan]

Some show pictures can be seen here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=95261.0

 

[mauidan]

Not sure Mumford is depressing music, but I also played Radiohead and Air---better?

The Wilson/VTL was very good I thought---- just like I said in the report, it could have used a hair more warmth. Certainly better than most rooms. But comparing that to the Lotus room was night and day.

Never listened to any Radiohead or Air, so I can't comment.

RH's show comments seem to confirm that the Brooks Berdan: VTL/Wilson/dCS/Grand Prix/Cardas room was one of the best:

http://www.avguide.com/blog/robert-harley-the-show-newport-beach-highlights

 

[KeithR]

RH likes really detailed hifi sound, which isn't necessarily my thing. for instance---i have heard Spectral 30x over the years and not once been drawn into a Spectral system. Spectral is pretty much his reference.

Different strokes for different folks, that's all.

 

[MarinJim]

I had a great adventure at the Venture Audio and Concert Fidelity rooms. Outstanding!