I got to hear that demo. Interesting idea.
The speakers were behind a wall to wall thin curtain, so we couldn't see anything. I didn't mind that. It was kind of cool actually. It was a little too loud, but it sounded pretty good. Then I noticed it was always sort of loud, like a constant volume. The guy controlling the demo had his hand on the volume control of the amp (or preamp, I don't remember). He was riding the gain. When it got too loud he turned it down, then he quickly turned it back up to recover. That got annoying after a while, so I left. I never did find out what I was listening to, so thanks for letting me know.
I would have been fine just listening to music at a normal volume level and letting the chips fall where they may. I guess they felt insecure about their product clipping ( which it was) or not playing loud enough ( which it certainly could), so they had to trick us. I'm glad it worked out for them. No biggie for me.
While I was there, some big shot reviewer was getting his ego waxed by the crowd. Friggin' hilarious. Who do these people think they are? They are just regular people with two ears like you and me. Funny stuff.
To be fair on the gain riding criticism, there were so many rooms at the show that were controlled by some dude with an iPad. Most of them had that gain riding trick going on too. But with the iPad, it was less conspicuous. I guess that's the way to do it now. So much fidgety nervousness with the volume, and the inability to listen to a song for more than twenty seconds before switching tracks. I hope it's just a phase we are going through.
I would like to hear those Magnepans under different conditions. I thought they sounded pretty good for the most part. I hope they do well.
