[Hugh]

I'll bring you a beer then.

Better yet, come by Atrium #220 for a few more cold ones.

I'll be running sound for all the live music performances.  If you want to complain about the mix for any of the concerts, come by and say hi.  You may find yourself running the mixing board while I wander off for a beer...

Russ

[Sparky14]

Whooo...looks like work is going to allow me to attend. Very excited! 

[gkinberg]

Registered and really looking forward to my first audio show. I am looking into putting together a computer audio system so that is likely to be my main focus while I'm there. I'm also looking forward to putting faces to screan names.

Sincerely, Garth

[ltr317]

Flying into O.C. airport on Wednesday.  Really looking forward to the show for the first time.  If it's as good as Rocky Mountain, then I'll be back next year.  Have a few manufacturer rooms to visit for some review loaners. 

Paul Mah

[enjoythemusic]

If you're going and on Facebook, please join that page at http://tinyurl.com/d6ksgw3

[mal]

If you're going and on Facebook, please join that page at http://tinyurl.com/d6ksgw3

Done. See you there.

[capwkidd]

You may be aware of this already, but it's about a 40 minute (or more with traffic) drive from Disneyland to the Show hotels.  Unless you are looking forward to navigating freeways and wading through slow & go traffic, it will be a lot easier to stay close to the Show, even if you have to pay a little more for breakfast. 

There is an IHOP restaurant 1/2 block from the Show hotels.  Don't let the "International" in their name fool you, they serve an all-american breakfast. 

Russ

I know iHop, I go often.... Yes, I know, traffic..... Looks like I am staying at the Marriott.... dam expensive though!

[capwkidd]

Flying into O.C. airport on Wednesday.  Really looking forward to the show for the first time.  If it's as good as Rocky Mountain, then I'll be back next year.  Have a few manufacturer rooms to visit for some review loaners. 

Paul Mah

If the first year wasn't as good as RMAF, then this year sure sounds like it will be! Woot! RMAF is a pain, fly, hotel, rental car, what a hassle! I could, technically, go home every day, but 3 hour drive, in traffic, each way is too much! So, I have to stay at a hotel....

[capwkidd]

Anyone know when and how often the shuttle will run between Marriott and the show? I asked the Marriott and that did not even know about the shuttle....

Is there a PDF list of the vendors and rooms, without all the fluff? There is a link on the show site, that has lots of extra stuff, makes for a big PDF that is hard to look through on a phone....

[SoCalWJS]

I'll be taking lots of pictures of the show with a little point 'n shoot (for my own entertainment) and will try to post a few if I can get a decent connection. (This will NOT be the fantastic, near instantaneous coverage that Pez gave from RMAF  )

If anybody has any specific requests on something they want to see, please let me know and I will try to get a shot or two if I can find it.


 

Wow, less than 24 hours till the start!

[jhm731]

Audio Research will be showing their new Reference 75 for the first time in public at the show. I'm told it will be in Rm.331-333. Would appreach some feedback from you folks attending the show.

[capwkidd]

I am waiting for a Tube/Digital hybrid amp (pre-pairs for the flames lol)

Wait... Maybe I have seen one already... Hmm... Oh well, Digital amps for me!

[capwkidd]

Nice, but how much?

Audio Research will be showing their new Reference 75 for the first time in public at the show. I'm told it will be in Rm.331-333. Would appreach some feedback from you folks attending the show.

[jhm731]

Nice, but how much?

$9K.

[capwkidd]

$9K.

If I spend that kind of money on anything, it will be the Nola KO

[Sparky14]

Anyone know when and how often the shuttle will run between Marriott and the show? I asked the Marriott and that did not even know about the shuttle....

Is there a PDF list of the vendors and rooms, without all the fluff? There is a link on the show site, that has lots of extra stuff, makes for a big PDF that is hard to look through on a phone....

Yeah, that site map sucks. I'm hoping they will have a better one. I'll be there by Noon today, if there is I will try to pdf it and post it tonight.

[Cheeseboy]

At the gate in Oakland now  I'll let you know about the new amp. I hope they will take my wife's car as a trade in. This could be the amp for me.

[jhm731]

At the gate in Oakland now  I'll let you know about the new amp. I hope they will take my wife's car as a trade in. This could be the amp for me.

Looking forward to your report, hopefully it will be on an active display.

Please let me know if it has fans like its big brother the REF 150.

[Sparky14]

OK...spent 5 hrs at THE Show today. It was my first show in 20 years. I'm not real big into the technical jargon and such, so it is pretty much a like it or didn't type of review. Didn't make any notes, so this is all off of memory. Here's my impressions:

HILTON

Floor 5: I was impressed by the Wyred4Sound equipment. Much of the 5th floor seemed to be played old vinyl jazz, which for me goes right to the "I remember nothing" pile. I do recall Rogers Sound Lab had a 2.1 setup that was a real bargain that sounded quite outstanding.

Floor 4: The Theil speakers WOWd me. It was great to finally get to test out Schiit equipment, their stuff sounded great and looked very well made. I was disappointed in the Fritz Loudspeakers, although it may have been the music selection & supporting equipment which did nothing for me. Zu Audio speakers sounded very nice. Emotiva....my first chance to hear the XSP-1 and the new DAC.....but the music was low, and all the Emo folks were busy with LOUD conversations. The lighting was awful, you couldn't see anything. I didn't bother to come back. Next door was the Emotiva Pro line which looked great and sounded nice.

Floor 3: KEF didn't live up to my expectations. Modwright had some beautiful amps that sounded just as good. Z-Infinity...had not heard of this brand, but they had some great speakers playing. Sunny's Components had several rooms of Dynaudio. I've always loved Dynaudio, and these rooms reconfirmed that. The wireless Dynaudio XEO was really intriguing, and sounded very Dynaudio.

Of special note (to me) was Sunny's room which had Dynaudio driven by Peachtree. I have a Decco2 driving Dynaudio Focus 110s at home, that is why this room was of special note. The room had two setups, first the coming Decco65 driving DM 2/6, which sounded really nice. And then the monstrous Grand Integrated driving Confidence 2.1s, which sounded great googly moogly....that's the best I can describe it.

Floor 2: The Magico speakers were great. The MBL speakers which look like inverted diamond studded earth digger drills.....yeah, those..... based on the sound, I would have to guess that those speakers cost about $450 million dollars. Yep, that good.

Floor 10: The TAD reference "bookshelf" speakers (which is to bookshelf as War And Peace is to magazine) were big, beautiful and awesome. YG Acoustics didn't wow me. How did I miss the Totem room? Rats.

ATRIUM

Floor 1: Martin Logan had a couple of rooms off the beaten path that were really poorly suited for audio....so for one of the few times in my life, ML didn't blow me away. Doesn't matter, I still love them.

Floor 2: The McIntosh room had some average sized floorstanders which really shined in the giant ballroom. This gets my vote for the best total system in the show. The MBL Inverted Diamond Drill Things in a big room would probably win though.  Angel City - Hugh had his Trinity speakers in a HT setup playing Avatar. Sounded fantastic. Those speakers are really big too....I was impressed. Burmesters room....blahmester.

Floor 3: The Swans speakers looked fantastic. Unfortunately, the talking was much higher than the volume. The Magnepan doors were locked and I couldn't hear anything...bummer. The Parts Express backwards banana curved speakers.....outstanding!

General Thoughts:

Several rooms had Primaluna amps....and all of them impressed me.

Home Theater.....HA. There was barely any surround sound at all. The Trinity system was the only SS that I even noticed.

Thumbs up to the two or three exhibitors that had a listening room, and a seperate conversation room. Nothing worse than trying to hear $20k speakers only to here people two feet behind you talking about Jennifer Warnes having a concert tomorrow (I heard that conversation at least 4 times).

OK.....I may be kicking the nest here.....not a single room playing anything resembling popular music. Yes, lots of jazz, lots of Krall, lots of I've never heard of it. At least Pink Floyd was there in abundance. You are running several hundred people through a room in a few hours. If you are playing something super obscure, I have no point of reference. And even when people bring their own CDs in to play, they pick the one track from a guy who lives in a hut in Sierra Leone. The one time I got my CD on, I picked a Linkin Park track that everyone in the room appeared to know. And guess what, everyone stayed for the whole song. There is some popular music that still sounds well made. Play it, and maybe people will stick around for something familiar. Newbie rant over.

HEADPHONES: I do love me some headphones, and I was thrilled to see cans well represented at the show. Got to hear them all, the Super Senns, T1s, Grado PS5000, Audeze, HifiMan. As I previously mentioned, the Schiit stuff impressed me. Ditto for Headroom. Schiit also had a pair of my DT990s, so I got my ears tuned. All of the circa $1000 cans sounded amazing. But of all of the good headphone stuff, two things really stood out as great values. First, a Lavry amp/dac driving a pair of Senn HD25 (I think) cans. Sounded great for little sealed cheapish cans. Second, the Hifiman HE400 headphones really stood up well in a room full of more expensive cans.

HELP! Ok, other attendees can you help my memory? There was one other mini-system that I really enjoyed....and I cannot remember the manufacturer. They had an integrated amp and a CD player at $399 each, which totaled the size of a shoebox. They were running from an iShuffle to two tiny speakers. I was super impressed by the sound from these little toy size components.

In the end, it was great fun to see what the industry has now. I really haven't looked at this scale since the late 90s with my Martin Logan Aerius speakers and Luxman amp. The proliferation of PC based systems surprised me, and every single one of them sounded every bit as good as vinyl or CDs. I didn't buy anything, nor did I leave with any "I gotta have it now" feelings. But....I may change my mind tomorrow.

[Jon L]

The new Eddie Current Audio "Electra" electrostat amp is supposed to be there.  See it?