[Vapor Audio]

We're home from Denver, safe and sound.  My bed never felt so good as it did when I crawled in about 2am last night!  What an exhausting, but awesome trip. 

This was my first time at a big show being 'the man', responsible for 2 rooms and ALL associated gear needed to setup.  Thanks to my incredible crew, Pete, Rick, Dave, and Jessica we pulled it off.  Also thanks to Norman of Arte Forma who flew in from Taiwan, and Mark of Antipodes via New Zealand.  But even with months of prep and many helpers we still made mistakes.  I thought it would be interesting for us vendors to share those mistakes, and other things learned, to possible help things go smooth for us all next time around.

- Don't trust anyone else to switch wiring, always double check!  The Cirrus was running out of phase until about 4pm on Friday, and being out of sorts it never occured to me why mid-bass was so lean and the center image wasn't focused like normal.  Thanks to an attendee who literally came in, sat down for 10 seconds, then looked behind the speaker and said "did you know they're wired out of phase?" we found the problem.  Why didn't that occur to me?  Embarassing 

- More wiring problems in the other room, one Cirrus White on the clean 4ohm tap and the other on the 8ohm tap that had a buzz.  Sorry Tyson and Pez for making you listen to it that way, but again my fault for letting somebody else do the hookup and not double checking. 

- Don't count on people to come through in the last week if they don't in the 2 months prior.  We had a cable vendor that was supposed to wire one of our rooms, time went by with nothing done, then next thing we knew it was time to leave for the show and still nothing arrived.  He promised to overnight to the hotel, and when we arrive there was no package.  We call and he says sorry, I forgot     So all 5 of us ran around begging for what we needed.  Thanks to Brian Ackerman of Aaudio Imports for not only giving us what we needed, but driving back to his house at 11pm to get it for us.  That guy is a class act, thank you! 

- Know your room.  Two big mistakes I made in choosing our rooms:  1)  We backed to the highway so there was constant 75db of road noise from the highway.  2)  There are no power outlets on the wall where we placed our gear, so the power cords we brought weren't long enough.  More scrambling and we made it work, but all the wiring changes meant we couldn't connect things the way we wanted and had planned for. 

- Just a shout out for the Nissan NV2500.  What a great show vehicle that was!  We had that bad boy packed floor to ceiling, 5 pair of speakers and a crapload of electronics, room treatments, etc.  All that and it still drove like a sedan and got right at or just over 20mpg for the trip. 

- Spend more time sketching out the look and feel you want in your room.  I think our rooms looked fine because we brought some decent accent lighting, but still it didn't separate itself from the myriad of other rooms for the people that just take a peek and decide whether to enter or not.  I'd guess 2 out of 3 people that walked by never came in, and that's probably normal.  Next show we'll have a killer motif that will catch those people's eye, and at least get them to come in for a closer look.

- Also next time I'll make more room for treatments, and less room for speakers.  We had enough to barely get rid of the slap echo in the room, and it did still sound good, but absolutly do not skimp on space when it comes to hauling the necessary room treatments. 

Even with all that we feel pretty good about what we put forward at the show, but still I know it could have been better.  The planning for next year already started on the 900 mile drive home 

[TomS]

Ryan,

This is a GREAT topic that all need to hear. I had a conversation with another exhibitor today about this very situation. Very few know what the crews go through to make all this happen, much less result in a great sounding room that pleases everyone. And by the way, yours was terrific, loved the new 3-ways 

Tom

[satfrat]

I'm impressed by your honesty Ryan.  I would imagine most vendors would rather hide their goofups than to start a thread about them. But your thread is not only honest, it's very enlighening about the possible pitfalls that I'm sure happen many others besides just yourself. The logistics of it all must be a load on all vendors and it's nice to actually hear about some of them. 

Cheers,
Robin

[Vapor Audio]

Ryan,

This is a GREAT topic that all need to hear. I had a conversation with another exhibitor today about this very situation. Very few know what the crews go through to make all this happen, much less result in a great sounding room that pleases everyone. And by the way, yours was terrific, loved the new 3-ways 

Tom

So much planning, so much worry ... and still no shortage of things I forgot.  Like all the Herbies dots I use between the speakers and stands, had to find some cheap rubber replacement at Home Depot 
 
And while we managed to make 5 pair of speakers sound good, it might have been a better idea to bring 2 pair (1 for each room) and focus on making them sound perfect instead of changing the setup every day ... and consquently being up until 2am tweaking with burnt out ears. 

Thanks for the kind words 

[Vapor Audio]

I'm impressed by your honesty Ryan.  I would imagine most vendors would rather hide their goofups than to start a thread about them. But your thread is not only honest, it's very enlighening about the possible pitfalls that I'm sure happen many others besides just yourself. The logistics of it all must be a load on all vendors and it's nice to actually hear about some of them. 

Cheers,
Robin

Well, if I didn't have such a great crew of helpers ... believe me the room would have been a mess.  Any success we had is only because we came together so well and all focused, but it was by the skin of our teeth!  Tomorrow I'm having them all over again and grilling some steaks as a thank you 

And there are plenty more mistakes that I am too embarassed to admit 

[standub]

So much planning, so much worry ... and still no shortage of things I forgot.  Like all the Herbies dots I use between the speakers and stands, had to find some cheap rubber replacement at Home Depot 
 
And while we managed to make 5 pair of speakers sound good, it might have been a better idea to bring 2 pair (1 for each room) and focus on making them sound perfect instead of changing the setup every day ... and consquently being up until 2am tweaking with burnt out ears. 

Thanks for the kind words 

Don't you mean a fabulous trip to home depot.   But in all seriousness you still build the best speakers IMHO.  Man if my praise for you keeps up soon people are going to think Nuance is to Salk as Standub is to Vapor, sadly Nuance is much more personable.  Sorry Ryan.

On a side note I was trying to listen for differences with the new cross over on Friday I did notice that the bass was sounding different.  Once again however another short coming I have is I can only tell something is wrong and not what is wrong.

[Vapor Audio]

Don't you mean a fabulous trip to home depot.

Haha, we certainly jazzed the place up a bit!

Thanks for hanging out with us so much over the weekend (and thanks for the beers), I really enjoy getting to know my customers better.  Let me know if you're ever passing through St Louis.

Man if my praise for you keeps up soon people are going to think Nuance is to Salk as Standub is to Vapor, sadly Nuance is much more personable.

Actually, people (if you drift over to audiogon) will accuse you of not even existing 

[Pez]

No candy in the Vapor room. You guys got dinged on that big time from me. 

I have watched vendors setup for this show and I have done full on setup of these types of shows. Every vendor is dealing with some sort of buzzing, equipment failure, other vendors failing to come through on their end of setup, and just the chaos of stress that surrounds these shows. It's truly awful to watch sometimes and even worse to be in the middle of at it's 1am and people are starting to get pissed off. I don't think people really know what you guys go through for these shows. I'm no stranger to any of it so I understand where you're coming from.

[Tyson]

Have backups for everything.  2 sets of speakers, double sets of wiring, backup DAC, Preamp, Amp, etc....  That way if something goes wrong, you have an immediate drop in replacement.  Beats the hell out of scouring the show for other vendors to lend you stuff! 

[Pez]

You guys did ok with room treatment, but make sure to do something about your first reflection point. If I recall correctly your side walls closest to the speakers had no treatment. These rooms are small and those side walls can really cause issues.

[JLM]

I've seen an amazing number of vendors rush a new product to a show, just to have their new baby poop a big one.  (A show is no place to try doing pit stop work or beyond.)  And while a prototype is interesting, is anyone sure how it will compare to the finished product?


You elluded to two other mistakes I've seen:

Not having scoped out the rooms before hand.  Sounds expensive/time consuming, but the embarassment saved can be huge.  Years ago at another show I heard speakers sound horribly boomy from a fairly respected small manufacturer (we were both at a loss as to why).  I lost all respect for him (that he would embarass himself like that). 

Too damn much equipment in the room.  Most of these rooms are small and way overmatched for the cost/capabilities of the equipment in them.  Even without a pre-visit you should know the room size and be realistic.  Hopefully you have 3 months worth of B&M business through the room during a 3 day show, so don't think you'll have time to change setups.  I know at the 2012 AKFest you (Ryan) had multiple speakers there, but can't swap out everytime a another face comes in (fustrating to visitors to not be able to hear some interesting looking product).  Optimize for one setup and stop. 

[alch3my]

I couldn't make it to RMAF nor am i a vendor, but from the pictures of the setups i've seen, i would say the most glaring mistake would be:

way too little room treatment

[Big Red Machine]

If I recover from our trip, which I should have blogged about, you'd see how much work it is to even get to the show, set up, tear down, manage customers, reviewers, photographers, bloggers, etc. during the show.  I'm still half asleep, have a strained stomach muscle from lifting boxes, and a pile of bills needing attention, and phone calls to make this morning.  These shows can really test your mettle.  I think you'd get a kick out of our adventures.

[jtwrace]

Actually, people (if you drift over to audiogon) will accuse you of not even existing 

[SoCalWJS]

A few of the rooms seem not to have allowed enough time to elapse between the actual completion of their products, specifically speakers, and the beginning of the show. Drivers needed more time to break in and/or paint a better opportunity to air out their finishes (sorry! - got chased out of one room  )

[michaelhigh]

A few of the rooms seem not to have allowed enough time to elapse between the actual completion of their products, specifically speakers, and the beginning of the show. Drivers needed more time to break in and/or paint a better opportunity to air out their finishes (sorry! - got chased out of one room  )

That sounds incredibly unpro for such a pro show. I'd be repulsed as a consumer.

[DaveC113]

I'd also add vendor's attitude towards their potential customers and reviewers is very important. I have been to 4 RMAFs now, but have not been to the last 2. RMAF 2012 was much different from the last one I was at WRT vendors playing customers/reviewer's test tracks. In '09 I think every room I visited would play my test tracks, and 99% had a very good attitude about it and were happy to show off their products to people who seemed interested. This year I got a fairly decent amount of vendors who looked at me like I had leprosy when I said I had a test cd / mem stick. Some refused to play them and came up with excuses why they couldn't.... even a couple of rooms with music servers!! In fact, I was told by Mojo to come back later when my friend and I were the ONLY ONES in the room. Lots of other rooms only had vinyl setups, I'm sure some people brought vinyl they were familiar with but I don't use vinyl. Then there were folks like Wisdom, who were rude and condescending about it.

Anyway... I was surprised and disappointed that things were going in that direction, but it made those folks with a positive attitude really stand out.

[rbbert]

I also noticed less willingness to play attendees' music this year than last year; I'm not sure why.

Were there more than two rooms (Nagra and Zu Audio) without digital playback??

[dminches]

I find it close to impossible to really gauge a system listening to music that I am not completely familiar with.

[DaveC113]

I also noticed less willingness to play attendees' music this year than last year; I'm not sure why.

Were there more than two rooms (Nagra and Zu Audio) without digital playback??

There were MANY rooms without digi playback. I think speaker mfg'ers are trying to control what people hear, and carefully select music that makes their systems shine. A perfect example is Zellation playing all very simple music at low volumes over their new quasi-single-driver speaker. At least one of my test tracks is going to be a difficult test for a single driver and it's impossible to tell a lot about a speaker if you don't play a wide variety of music at different volume levels.