[marvda1]

one of the best sounding rooms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfLCO27Lsg

[dcbingaman]

I attend my first big audio show in over 20 years at AXPONA in Schaumburg, IL.  It was a blast, except for getting out of Chicago on airplane in a snowstorm yesterday.  (They completely shut ORD (O'Hare) down at 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon on Easter Week, and damn near had a riot.  The Chicago Police had to come in to simmer everyone down.  I escaped on the last plane to STL out of MDW (Thank God for Southwest Airlines at Midway) this morning at 12:30 am.)

The show itself was very interesting.  Lots of big, expensive, pretty stuff that costs as much as a decent sports car.  The big kids had the big rooms in the Convention Center.  There were excellent set-ups auditioned by Vandersteen (outstanding sounding, as usual), Von Schweikert, B&W, Magico, Focal (cool-looking but disappointing sonics) and a few others.  There were two MCH audio / video set-ups by Emotiva and JTR Speakers / JVC that were also outstanding.  (The JTR monitors produced some unbelievable bass transient sounds with the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Opening Credits with Groot dancing to ELO.)  They all sounded pretty good because they were all in rooms with 15' ceilings that were 30' wide by 40-45' deep.  It is relatively easy to get good bass response in this size room. 

The big Magico speakers were quite impressive and could reproduce music at rock concert levels.  That sounded good in a large room, but when I heard a smaller pair in a regular size room, they sounded pretty much like everything else.  There is a lesson there.  If you have a 35' x 50' x 12' listening room, the big Magico's might work quite well, but in 90% of consumer listening rooms, they are overkill at best and inappropriate at worst.  I have no doubt in my room, my pair of 30 year old Spendor SP-1's or any other good BBC monitor would sound as least as good as a pair of the little Magico's, simply due to physics and the type of music I listen to.

The 100 other exhibitors had to make due with hotel rooms in the Renaissance 16 floor tower.  This is where all the problems occurred.  About 3 of these rooms sounded good, and all were distinguished by how they treated the room problem.  The PSB / NAD / Dirac Live room used room calibration and correction to clean up their room and it worked pretty well.  Pass had a second room with a set of full range single driver speakers, (Lowther's I think), that they drove with the FirstWatt SIT-3 and a Pass XA-25 that also sounded pretty good.  Finally, the best sound in the tower was a system set up, ASYMMETRICALLY, by Dan Meinwald and the great Tim dePavarchini with all EAR-USA equipment and at set of Marten monitors.  Everything in this system sounded phenomenal to my ears.  Mr. dePavarchini was gracious but tired after a long couple days.

Every other room sounded OK, but honestly they were all pretty much the same - even the music.  The big kids used these funky jazz - blues vocal tracks with deep synthesized bass - it was interesting but ultimately boring.  The smaller rooms used similar music, but hardly any that I would use to judge fidelity to acoustic sources.  (I would never listen to this shit in my system).  Very few played any well-recorded classical music, although Vandersteen was playing Beethoven's Seventh Symphony which sounded wonderful when I stopped by.  The other distinguishing thing was, due to inattention to the room acoustics, nearly every small room featured boomy overblown bass response.  Discussion with exhibitors on these problems showed me a LOT of ignorance on this whole topic.  I asked many of these guys if they had heard of Earl Geddes or Fred Tooles work of balancing room acoustics below 250 hz and got met with a lot of blank stares.  There are a lot of interesting, innovative ideas in high-end audio, but only about 10-15 real engineers who know what they are doing.....things haven't changed that much in this regard in over 20 years.

There were a LOT of tube amps there this year.  A "new-old" company called Western Electric exhibited some beautiful hardware, but didn't connect any loudspeakers up to them.  (I think they designed the CNC chassis' first).  I've attached a couple pics.  I had a long talk with Victor Kung (VK Music) who imports Elekit.  There are a lot of SET amplifiers out there with lots of bright chassis work but little or no innovation in their circuits.  One other thing Victor told me was, in the Japanese market where tubes rule, only two output tubes are considered acceptable WRT linearity - the classic 300B power triode, and the ubiquitous EL34 pentode.  The Japanese dislike beam tetrodes and pentodes because the same beam geometry which allows a screen grid to control a high cathode-to-anode current (i.e. more power) introduces a lot of non-linearity in the basic I-V curve.  They much refer semi-axisymmetric current paths.  So much so that for high power applications, many semi-conductors (e.g. IRF240 MOSFET) are more linear.  Victor asked me what is the point of building an expensive beam pentode tube amplifier that sounds like a great solid-state power amplifier (Audio Research), when you can buy a great solid-state amplifier (Pass) which sounds just as good but has many fewer practical problems.

Attendance - about 95% old dudes and 5% women - usually being dragged around by an old dude.  Average price of these systems - way too much.  You can buy a new Corvette for the price of a pair of Magico's and have a LOT more fun and nearly as good a sound system as a bonus.  I have no idea how all these companies stay afloat, but it was apparent, just by their locations, who the big, well-established companies are.

[A_shah]

Very nice write up -

Asghar Shah

[EdRo]

I've been dying to read a write up.  Thanks!!!

[JLM]

The show itself was very interesting.  Lots of big, expensive, pretty stuff that costs as much as a decent sports car.  The big kids had the big rooms in the Convention Center.  They all sounded pretty good because they were all in rooms with 15' ceilings that were 30' wide by 40-45' deep.  It is relatively easy to get good bass response in this size room. 

The big Magico speakers were quite impressive and could reproduce music at rock concert levels.  That sounded good in a large room, but when I heard a smaller pair in a regular size room, they sounded pretty much like everything else.  There is a lesson there.  If you have a 35' x 50' x 12' listening room, the big Magico's might work quite well, but in 90% of consumer listening rooms, they are overkill at best and inappropriate at worst.  I have no doubt in my room, my pair of 30 year old Spendor SP-1's or any other good BBC monitor would sound as least as good as a pair of the little Magico's, simply due to physics and the type of music I listen to.

The 100 other exhibitors had to make due with hotel rooms in the Renaissance 16 floor tower.  This is where all the problems occurred.  About 3 of these rooms sounded good, and all were distinguished by how they treated the room problem.  The PSB / NAD / Dirac Live room used room calibration and correction to clean up their room and it worked pretty well.  Pass had a second room with a set of full range single driver speakers, (Lowther's I think), that they drove with the FirstWatt SIT-3 and a Pass XA-25 that also sounded pretty good.  Finally, the best sound in the tower was a system set up, ASYMMETRICALLY, by Dan Meinwald and the great Tim dePavarchini with all EAR-USA equipment and at set of Marten monitors.  Everything in this system sounded phenomenal to my ears.  Mr. dePavarchini was gracious but tired after a long couple days.

The other distinguishing thing was, due to inattention to the room acoustics, nearly every small room featured boomy overblown bass response.  Discussion with exhibitors on these problems showed me a LOT of ignorance on this whole topic.  I asked many of these guys if they had heard of Earl Geddes or Fred Tooles work of balancing room acoustics below 250 hz and got met with a lot of blank stares.  There are a lot of interesting, innovative ideas in high-end audio, but only about 10-15 real engineers who know what they are doing.....things haven't changed that much in this regard in over 20 years.

Attendance - about 95% old dudes and 5% women - usually being dragged around by an old dude.  Average price of these systems - way too much.  You can buy a new Corvette for the price of a pair of Magico's and have a LOT more fun and nearly as good a sound system as a bonus.  I have no idea how all these companies stay afloat, but it was apparent, just by their locations, who the big, well-established companies are.

Even though I didn't make it again this year, your comments about attendance makeup, prices, big speakers, big/small rooms, and ignorance for room acoustics are spot on.  BTW Earl and I happen to have (following the same laws of physics) very similar rooms.

[OzarkTom]

Thanks for a great write-up. That very well sums up every audio show I have ever attended, about 20. Small hotel rooms are almost impossible to get great sound even with room acoustics treatment. In small rooms, use small speakers.

I think most of these audio companies stay in business today by catering to the rich. In 10-20 years when most of us older folks die off, it will be interesting to see who is left. They need to figure how to get the youth interested or they all will be out of business.

[seadogs1]

Thank You for the great write-up.

[Mike-48]

A lot of interesting comments. I thought the Bricasti room (with Tidal speakers) and the Aesthetix room (with Aerial 6ts) sounded excellent -- each had balanced and natural sound that I'd be glad to call mine.

The number of rooms with bass out of proportion was astounding. Boom! Bang! Boom!

Also, why do people find it interesting to try open-back headphones in a hall that's as noisy as Grand Central Station at rush hour? This is a perpetual puzzle to me. Why the electronics manufacturers in that hall didn't use noise-canceling headphones is also puzzling.

I had fun, and I left without wishing to change anything about my own system -- though those Bricasti M28s are pretty impressive!

[timind]

Yes, lots of BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!  I didn't visit every room by a long shot, and many rooms I turned around after a few seconds. My usual reaction was "ear bleed in this room!!"

My favorite room was the Sanders Sound System room. The sound was excellent whether sitting in the small sweet spot, or roaming around the room. Roger Sanders had only three chairs in the room to ensure listeners were in the sweet spot.

[tonyptony]

Agreed. What I found especially sad was on the second floor of the exhibition halls, Magico had their big stuff being demoed in the far open end of the building. Every time I was up there (which was more than a few times), the music was the most predictable sort of "hey, look at me with my great low end!" demo tracks. Nothing at all to demonstrate any kind of balanced finesse out of those things. If they played anything like that, I certainly didn't hear it. They may have just as well been demoing only the subwoofers.

[Don_S]

A lot of interesting comments. I thought the Bricasti room (with Tidal speakers) and the Aesthetix room (with Aerial 6ts) sounded excellent -- each had balanced and natural sound that I'd be glad to call mine.

The number of rooms with bass out of proportion was astounding. Boom! Bang! Boom!

Also, why do people find it interesting to try open-back headphones in a hall that's as noisy as Grand Central Station at rush hour? This is a perpetual puzzle to me. Why the electronics manufacturers in that hall didn't use noise-canceling headphones is also puzzling.

I had fun, and I left without wishing to change anything about my own system -- though those Bricasti M28s are pretty impressive!

Mike,  Do you know what Aesthetix equipment was being used?

[sounddog]

I agree with Mike that the Bricasti room sounded very good. I also liked the AirTight room - good detail, dynamics, bass and natural-sounding vocals, though perhaps a bit warm for my taste (I'm not a big tube guy). I was particularly interested in DACs and Bricasti had several good-sounding choices (clear, fast and detailed). I also especially liked Ayre's QX-5 Twenty DAC/Digital Hub, which had loads of detail coupled with a rich sound (Ayre was only in the Ear Room, with its 3 DACs and 2 good HPs). But I was very disappointed with the MSB room, which had its new Select DAC paired with Magicos (about $70k or so). Partly the problem may be that I don't care for Magicos, but the system actually sounded a bit muddy to me. The big Rockport speakers may be the best speakers I heard - not showy but very organic, accurate timbres, and live-sounding (but at about $70k not even an in-your dreams price for me). Vinnie Rossi's room probably was my favorite - a nearly ideal blend of some tube liquidity/warmth with very good detail, imaging and space. It just sounded right.

[dcbingaman]

Soundwise, the Vandersteen 7's with the 9 subs sounded best to me, but the new B&W 800 Mk3 Diamonds were a close second.  For pure sonic bombast, the big Magicos were pretty impressive - they would sound good  reproducing a wall of Marshall amplifier boxes like The Grateful Dead employed, but honestly, the JTR monitors made the Magicos sound like tinkertoys.  If you have to have sonic bombast, you can't beat 15" woofers with horns.  The Altec Voice of the Theater has inspired an even better PA speaker.

[jhm731]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ry_0okbbNo

[Mike-48]

Mike,  Do you know what Aesthetix equipment was being used?

Yes, they were using their new(-ish) Mimas integrated amp with its DAC card. It was driven, I believe, by files or streamed audio from a laptop or tablet.

[Don_S]

Yes, they were using their new(-ish) Mimas integrated amp with its DAC card. It was driven, I believe, by files or streamed audio from a laptop or tablet.

Mike, Thank you for the response. I was wondering if they would show the Mimas.

[OzarkTom]

When I sat up my system at the LSAF a few years ago, I had many attendees that wanted to hear my boom, boom, boom. So it is not all the manufacturers fault.

[Jon L]

I always bring my own, same Demo disc (and USB stick) to every show.  Otherwise, it is extremely easy to be...misguided.   

[djbnh]

This, from the Odyssey AC circle

Jump to 11:50:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z810QQa6vSs

[dB Cooper]

I think most of these audio companies stay in business today by catering to the rich. In 10-20 years when most of us older folks die off, it will be interesting to see who is left. They need to figure how to get the youth interested or they all will be out of business.

I have said this to the CAF people and got sort of a dismissive response, even though I heard Gary Gill tell an attendee that "The hobby is dying", which it is. CAF has a 'student' entry fee to atract a younger demographic, which is a little cheaper. The problem isn't the entry fee though; it's when they get inside and are told, essentially, that they need to spend in the thousands just to plug the whole thing into the wall and connect everything up. I actually know young people who are interested in audio. I have gotten them to come to shows. They come to one show, usually one day.... and they don't come back. They don't see $58K (the mean cost of the systems I tallied up one year, minus cabling) to $1M audio systems in their future. Neither do I, which is why I've probably hit my last show. I stayed less than three hours this year. dcbingaman, forget sports cars... Some of these systems cost as much as a small home in some areas.

The one thing that will get the younger audience in is headphone systems, but CAF saw fit to dramatically scale back the headphone market presence this year. Another factor is that in a lot of the music younger folks today listen to, there is no original acoustic event to have 'fidelity' to; it's synth loops out of Garbage Band or its brethren (even the 'acoustics' are synthesized), so why spend $$$ trying to reproduce it accurately when all the audience wants is lots of boom-car 'bass'?