Just came back from my first audio show and oh boy

[oldsysop]

We should all go to these places with the ASR shirt and its logo.

 

[Wombat]

Having attended my first Audio Fashion Show, I will surely attend the next in February.

No fee for tickets as in some places. --- https://floridaaudioexpo.com/

And happens to be closer than any of the shops I might go to to listen (should they decide to humor me) to something that might catch my eye.

Audio Buddy and I attended last February, and it made for a nice afternoon.

I don't think either of us left with the "I gotta get one/a pair of those!", so, they failed in that respect.

I'll have to be on the lookout for other members of Le Audio Cognoscenti, of whom, the only face I recognized, was that of Mr Fremer.

I should get to work on the design for my RayDunzl name tag... Hmmm...

Be sure to add 'Central Scrutinizer' in an obvious font and red colour. That should cause some uneasiness for some.

 

[splattened]

Shout out to Magnepan for saying certain music doesn't work on their speakers.

I can't tell if that's the message the vendor tried to convey, or if it was more that he was shooing away a person that he viewed as an unsophisticated slob.

I mean, here the vendor spent all day setting up their speakers so people can waltz in and listen to female vocal tracks backed by saxophones and acoustical guitar muzak. And I'm sure many of the people that go to these conventions go for that experience. They sit down and psyche themselves out for the magic, imagining themselves in a fire-lit study, sitting in a leather chair, drinking wine, experiencing these truly novel and miraculous artifacts, which must be built from unobtainium given the cost, that cannot be understood nor explained.

All that, just so the OP can walk in and ask a silly question like how do these things sound with the real every day music they listen to. You can understand why the vendor is upset.

 

[maxxevv]

I want to tell a bit more about that guy I met that offered the bet. He was accompanied with two other guys, one of them a sound engineer in the music business. They all were very adamant in their view that cables sound different, that hi-res is super important, and that even DAWs sounded different! They were completely perplexed by me saying that I don't see any point to hi-res or cable upgrades or even super expensive dacs. One of them said that it's just not the show for me and I should stick to listening through smartphones…

Those guys sound like they are from Synegistic Research from your description though ?

You should have showed them your potato phone ... "Nope, I don't listen to music using my phone"

Anyway, after the conversation I thought of a really good response to those kind of people. It's very simple – I can enjoy the same amount as you while spending the fraction of the money. So who is better off, really?

They would say that they can't sustain a profitable business if everyone was the same as you though ...

 

[HammerSandwich]

What, does he think that 100 db SPL on Metallica is louder than 100 db SPL on Strauss?

Assuming those are peak readings, the Metallica's average SPL probably is quite a few dB louder.

 

[HammerSandwich]

Whenever I see "diamond tweeters" advertised, I get an overwhelming urge to ask if they come in something that fits better in my budget... like cubic zirconia tweeters.

Cubic zirconia? I'm afraid you'll find that only in speakers from the white-van dealers, sir. <carefully timed pause> May I interest you in our corundum line?

 

[BillG]

The ones I remember were those weird sail shape speakers from Kef that sounded like meh

These?

 

[watchnerd]

CHeck out their Bugatti Chiron dash tweeter- can't even spell distortion... https://accuton.com/en-home/automotive-2/Bugatti-sound-system

Screw all that gibberish...

It's a Bugatti Chiron dash.....how to I snort coke out of it?

 

[watchnerd]

Having attended my first Audio Fashion Show, I will surely attend the next in February.

No fee for tickets as in some places. --- https://floridaaudioexpo.com/

And happens to be closer than any of the shops I might go to to listen (should they decide to humor me) to something that might catch my eye.

Audio Buddy and I attended last February, and it made for a nice afternoon.

I don't think either of us left with the "I gotta get one/a pair of those!", so, they failed in that respect.

I'll have to be on the lookout for other members of Le Audio Cognoscenti, of whom, the only face I recognized, was that of Mr Fremer.

I should get to work on the design for my RayDunzl name tag... Hmmm...

Dude, Lampizator is going to be there!

They're batshit crazy.

You have to go reconnoiter and report....

 

[GrimSurfer]

Dude, Lampizator is going to be there!

They're batshit crazy.

You have to go reconnoiter and report....

Stay away from the Van der Graff generator, @RayDunzl. It will make a mess out of your hairdo and damage your fashion cred' with "the Lampizator".

Or you could attend in disguise and fit right in (visually, that is).

 

[Wombat]

These?
View attachment 36173

Now those are coffin boxes.

 

[amirm]

And unexpectedly, almost everything I saw there came with a ridiculous price tag. Who are these people that just go and buy 40,000$ worth of speakers?

Poor high-end audiophiles. The wealthy ones buy $300,000 ones.

 

[digicidal]

Poor high-end audiophiles. The wealthy ones buy $300,000 ones.

Yeah, I had to chuckle at the review in the latest Stereophile for the darTZeel NHB-468 monos... $170K a pair and there were problems with them which "luckily seemed to be things that could be fixed with a firmware update" JA thought.

Imagine if Ferrari tried that: "I'm sorry your car can't go faster than 50mph and stalls at every stoplight... but don't worry, we're pretty sure we can fix that in a recall sometime in the future."

 

[MZKM]

Having attended my first Audio Fashion Show, I will surely attend the next in February.

No fee for tickets as in some places. --- https://floridaaudioexpo.com/

And happens to be closer than any of the shops I might go to to listen (should they decide to humor me) to something that might catch my eye.

Audio Buddy and I attended last February, and it made for a nice afternoon.

I don't think either of us left with the "I gotta get one/a pair of those!", so, they failed in that respect.

I'll have to be on the lookout for other members of Le Audio Cognoscenti, of whom, the only face I recognized, was that of Mr Fremer.

I should get to work on the design for my RayDunzl name tag... Hmmm...

I attended it as well. While waiting for the elevator I overheard some people say that they were super impressed with Vanatoo for the price, nice to see the general public not fall into the thinking that you need to spend a ton to get decent sound.

I remember one room, guy selling power conditioners or whatnot. He made a claim that it’s better to run all your components off 1 outlet socket rather than multiple dedicated lines. He said he used to have like 5 dedicated lines, then his friend told him to just get a cheap power strip and use that, and he said it sounded better, so that’s how he got into the business. I’m no electrical engineer, so no clue if that’s true.

I’ll agree with @Fluffy that everything pretty much sounded similar. I also got to verify claims that Martin Logan’s have a narrow sweet-spot; I went with my father who knows nothing about electrostatics, and when we sat down (me centered and him to my side) to listen to the Neoliths, he asked why only 1 speaker was playing, I swapped seats with him to show him that both were indeed playing.

 

[Fluffy]

These?
View attachment 36173

Yeah, specifically the blue ones.

female vocal tracks backed by saxophones and acoustical guitar muzak.

Don't exaggerate. There were also male vocal tracks backed by saxophones and acoustical guitar muzak.

Poor high-end audiophiles. The wealthy ones buy $300,000 ones.

Surprisingly enough, I got the sense this show was meant for your everyday audiophile sucker. I didn't look at all the price tags, but there wasn't a show room with speakers that actually looked like some half-a-million-dollar madness. The craziest looking ones were the Bang & Olufsen Beolab 90 that cost merely 80k$. I guess the Israeli market just don't have enough audiophile billionaires to market to.

 

[Hayabusa]

(Technically I've been to Canjam London, but I meant that this was the first Hi-Fi show with high-end speakers and such)


There were a couple of rooms that stood out enough for me to remember them. there was a room with horn speakers that just played really loud all the time. I can't testify to the quality of the speakers, but apparently they can go loud. There was another room that had Magnapens which really intrigued me, but the guy there messed up connecting them properly and it took time until I could actually listen to them. They sounded pretty good and were actually reasonably priced, but the presenter did a very bad job of trying to sell them – when I asked if there good for listening to Metallica for example, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and he tried really hard to convince me they are not for me. Ok dude, if you don't want my money, suit yourself.

You should have asked Metallica on the horn speakers!

 

[Fluffy]

By the way, there was a demo room that basically had just a laptop, a volume knob, and two beefy active speakers. Pretty clean presentation compared to the other rooms. And the young dude that ran it was pretty cool too, let me go through Tidal and put whatever I wanted. The speakers sounded pretty good with his demo tracks, but as soon as I threw Dream Theater at them they fell apart (later someone put Linkin Park with similar outcome). Not to say that Dream Theater is the peak of audio mastering, but that’s a good example of how different can speakers sound with audiophile music compared to real world music that is just imperfect. What good are speakers that only sound well with audiophile demo tracks?

 

[ahofer]

By the way, there was a demo room that basically had just a laptop, a volume knob, and two beefy active speakers. Pretty clean presentation compared to the other rooms. And the young dude that ran it was pretty cool too, let me go through Tidal and put whatever I wanted. The speakers sounded pretty good with his demo tracks, but as soon as I threw Dream Theater at them they fell apart (later someone put Linkin Park with similar outcome). Not to say that Dream Theater is the peak of audio mastering, but that’s a good example of how different can speakers sound with audiophile music compared to real world music that is just imperfect. What good are speakers that only sound well with audiophile demo tracks?

glad to see a more sensible demo. The music does lean towards ingenue-with guitar, doesn’t it? With the occasional exotic percussion-sonata for solo xylophone or something.

I remember when I was auditioning stuff in the 1980s, it was always Paul Simon’s Graceland. I heard a pair of Duntech Sovereigns playing that, with Threshold amps.

 

[anmpr1]

Imagine if Ferrari tried that: "I'm sorry your car can't go faster than 50mph and stalls at every stoplight... but don't worry, we're pretty sure we can fix that in a recall sometime in the future."

Not sure about the new ones, but Ferrari's were known for headaches. There's a very funny YT video you can find. Some guy drives his Testarossa across Europe to pick up an outboard motor and a case of champagne. So just from that you know it'll be hilarious.

Anyhow, it's getting cold outside, and the car's heater freezes up. Driver takes an old magazine or something and stuffs it into the side vents in order to stop cold air from coming into the car.

 

[Fluffy]

glad to see a more sensible demo. The music does lean towards ingenue-with guitar, doesn’t it? With the occasional exotic percussion-sonata for solo xylophone or something.

Totally. Just remembered another funny thing that happened – at the room where they showed the Martin Logan it mostly played quiet female vocals, but somehow the track jumped to a song by Muse. Just as it started getting loud, the vendor quickly skipped the track to go back to the smooth vocal recording. A guy that sat next to me told him disappointedly that the Muse was actually a good testing track, and the vendor quietly said "yeah I know".