We had a great show in a very challenging environment. The Marriot had renovated the rooms this past year and really made a mess of things. In the far corner of every room, they built an enclosure for heating and air conditioning. The result was that the width of the business end of the room went from 13 feet to about 10 feet. And speakers could not be placed on the side wall as a built in structure on the opposite wall reduced the width by about two feet. So we had to use the far wall and the result was that the right speaker ended up about one foot from the side wall.
Fortunately, at the last minute while packing, we decided to bring some acoustic panels (bass traps and first reflection panels) and that helped tremendously.
Our partner this year was Schiit Audio. They premiered a few new products that will be available shortly. They had two new preamps that allowed a choice of tube, solid state or totally passive outputs. They also introduced a new amplifier that will sell for $699. It is a stereo amp that can also be bridged for use as a monoblock. Throughout the show, we worked with a range of Schiit gear at several price points and all sounded very good. At one point, I added up the entire system (minus our StreamPlayer) and it came to just over $4500. Visitors to the room were amazed that a reasonably priced system could possibly sound that good.
We received tons of positive remarks from show-goers and reviewers. Here are some samples...
Carlo Lo Raso of hometheaterhifi.com commented,
"the Song 3s just sounded so musical and layered that I didn’t want to leave! Detail, dynamics and bass, check, check and check. "
Stereophile's Jana Dagdagan wrote...
"Song3s are controlled and easy to listen to, with a RAAL 64-10 ribbon tweeter, a 4" bamboo-cone midrange, and a 7.5" woofer. Their playlist was cinematically explosive, and had me impressed by the system's dynamic responsiveness.
I left the room thinking, as most people probably have: what a great sounding, affordably priced system!"
All in all, it was a very worthwhile show for us. Schiit was also pleased and asked us to again supply speakers (and our StreamPlayer) for their room at AXPONA this coming April in Chicago. So it looks like we will be in at least two rooms at that show as well.
- Jim
