Just a few quick comments on the California Audio Show...
First of all, thanks to everyone who visited our room. It was great to finally meet some of our West Coast owners in person. That is always the fun part of a show. We also had an opportunity to meet a whole lot of people who returned time and time again for another listen. Many reported that we had one of the very best sounding rooms at the show.
As for the room itself, it was the smallest room we had ever had at any show. And since I flew to this show, we didn't have the benefits of room treatments. This was a concern since I was afraid the bass from the SoundScape 10's would overwhelm the room. Fortunately, that was not the case. The dual opposed passives seemed to load the room very evenly. Many people commented that other rooms were extremely "boomy" even though many of them were playing small monitor speakers. So I felt we were extremely fortunate in this regard.
Would room treatments have improved the sound? I'm sure bass traps and acoustic panels on first reflection points would have helped quite a bit. But for a small, untreated room, I think we fared quite well.
I did notice that when the room was empty, it sounded a little on the bright side and I had to keep the volume under control. But when the room was full (which was the case most of the week-end), it was a little on the dull side. Bodies seemed to soak up the top end. But when the volume was increased, the top end returned. (This is probably what Jason from Stereophile experienced listening to his Mahler CD as he seemed much happier when the volume was increased).
I think, in the end, the SoundScapes would definitely fare better in a larger room (which we will have at RAMF). The SongTowers, on the other hand, seemed to do quite well in that room, although their placement was far from optimum (the SoundScapes were where the SongTowers should have been, but it was too hard to move the SoundScapes every time we switched speakers).
There seemed to be quite a bit more emphasis on higher-end audio at this show. People always asked what source gear we were running and seemed quite surprised that it was Redbook (standard CD) audio. They would say, "wow, if you are getting this kind of sound with this equipment, imagine how these speakers would sound with some good source gear!"
We have always demo'd our speakers with an inexpensive CD player and/or an unmodified Squeezebox (both running through AVA's latest Wofson-based DAC's) so that people would know the sound quality was related to the speakers and not mega-buck source gear. With no room treatments and gear like they were likely to have in their home, what they heard would be the minimum they could expect out of those same speakers in their home. But now we have to re-think that approach.
Quite a few people took one look at the Denon CD player and Squeezebox and decided the room was not worth spending any time in. Perceptions, it appears, are extremely important in the higher-end market. So we'll have to re-examine our approach to the gear we use at shows and at least have 24/96 gear (and perhaps a high-end turntable as well).
Even with the limitations we dealt with, the reactions we got were quite positive. The Bay Area Audio Society was impressed enough to ask me to leave the SoundScapes behind for their next meeting. Unfortunately, that was not possible. But we did agree to make a pair available to them sometime after RAMF. So they will have a chance to play with the SoundScapes under much better room conditions and with the source gear of their choosing. Stay tuned for that...
All things considered, I thought the show went quite well. We received very many extremely positive comments and were very often told our room was among the very best sounding at the show. We had a chance to meet old friends and make quite a few new ones. Now we'll just have to concentrate on RMAF and up our game a little.
- Jim
