Amir's 2023 Pacific Audio Fest Report Day 2

[FrantzM]

Amir, thank you for taking the time to thoroughly listen to the 8c's. I'm very pleased with your impressions of them!

I hope you'll allow me to briefly call attention to our new US distributor, Dutch & Dutch North America, because they really deserve it. Dutch & Dutch has been active in the US market since 2018, but since Bill Chi and Gabriel Jones (an ASR member) took over at the beginning of this year, brand awareness has increased significantly. After the AXPONA show a few months ago, the Seattle Pacific Audio Fest is only the second US hifi show Dutch & Dutch has ever attended. At both shows Bill and Gabe successfully put the 8c's in the corners of acoustically challenging small hotel rooms, and they garnered very positive responses from the press and the general public. I couldn't be happier with our new distribution .

Very pleased with your success. Now, please, can you, very strongly and intently « suggest » to your distributor to send one or preferably a pair, to Amir? A bit overdue IMO.

Peace.

 

[Nango]

If you mean what caught my eye, I already mentioned D&D, Joseph audio and the planar magnetic speaker whose name I forgot.

Odesszy.

 

[pseudoid]

I am highly doubtful we are going to see service literature distributed like we saw back in the day when we serviced near everything that came in the door. I've copied schematics and made circuits with those schematics and the manufacturers must be aware of this occurring sometimes.

Could you imagine 5 years hence, someone attempting to replace a ES9038Pro chip?
See? We got rid of service manuals because of the poor trees and to reduce waste but our garbage cans still grew BIGGER because all hardware is now throw-away. Do you think a current AVR is going to be competitive in 2028 and compatible with HDMIv65, 64K TVs, and iPhone38?
LOL << Is a Topping TP/RA3 @$229; worth fixing or trashing?

I really like this amp but seems that it would get hot at 75% power... and w/o any ventilation.

 

[TheInquiring]

I did. Track list and impressions were in the post you quoted.

How was the sound of PureAudioProject vs. Spatial Audio, please?​

 

[amirm]

Sorry, long forgotten.

 

[johnp98]

Here are links to a playlist with all the songs that were posted between days 1 and 2 if people find that useful.

Youtube

Tidal

Spotify

Edit: Oops, looks like someone beat me to it: https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/amirs-2023-pacific-audio-fest-report.45889/post-1639607

 

[MoreWatts]

@amirm When I was in this booth the day before, they only played the smaller Børresen speakers. This time I got to listen to the M6. This is a $550,000 speaker (not a typo)! Post #15 photos.

Enjoy The Music listed the prices of the equipment in the Borresen M6 speakers room.

"The source was the Aavik S-580 Streamer ($25,200), feeding the Aavik D-580 DAC ($25,200) – the D880 DAC is still in development, but I heard a proto when I was in Denmark last January. Electronics included the Aavik C-880 ($70,000) Control Amplifier, in turn feeding the Aavik P-880non-switching, pure class A, 200 Wpc integrated amplifier ($70,000), driving drive the breathtakingly gorgeous looking – and sounding – Børresen M6 loudspeakers ($550,000/pr).

All Ansuz power products, including all cables, power distribution, networking devices, noise control, and isolation products, were from their flagship Gold Signature series and included the following. One Mainz8 Power Distributor ($64,000), one Ansuz PowerSwitch ($23,000), one Ansuz PowerBox to provide power to all their active cables ($23,000), eight Ansuz Mainz Power Cables ($68,000 – each, or $544,000!), one Ansuz Digitalz BNC Cable ($27,000), two Ansuz Digitalz LAN Cables ($12,400 – each, or $24,800), two pair of Ansuz Signalz Analog Cables ($51,000 a pair, or $102,000), and one pair of Ansuz Speaker Cables ($162,000/5 Meter pair).


There's also two Ansuz three-shelf Titanium Racks ($53,100 each, or $159,300), twenty Ansuz Z2S Darkz Resonance Control devices ($4,000 each, or $80,000), ten Ansuz T2S Darkz Resonance Control Cable Lifters ($1,700 each, or $17,000), thirteen Ansuz Sortz RF Noise Controls for RCA and BNC ($1,600 each, or $20,800), and five Ansuz Sortz RF Noise Control for USB and LAN ($2,100 each, or $10,500). Just in case you weren't keeping track, This MEGA system just squeaks in under two million bucks, at $1,997,800!"

The integrated amp ($70K) and speakers ($550K) are only 31% of the total cost. This is how you make half-million dollar speakers seem reasonably priced.

So much for the AXPONA 2023 Million Dollar System. Estelon speakers were only $269K.

 

[Dialectic]

Going to a "high end" audio show a few years back definitely cured me of my upgrade-itis.

I had a great time, but 99% of that crap was just "audio jewelry."

I had the same experience. Going into most of the rooms was deeply uncomfortable.

 

[Bleib]

I had the same experience. Going into most of the rooms was deeply uncomfortable.

Haven't visited one since 2004, but didn't really like it. Too many different rooms and in for instance one room one guy was demonstrating the power of his superb powercables.
At least 20 people walked out after he made such a claim, so not all were buying into it at least.

 

[test1223]

It is impossible to get a good impression of a loudspeaker with such a short listening test.

The biggest problem at hifi dealers or even hifi shows is that your brain needs time to adapt to the room acoustics to be able to hear reliable small differences. So it isn't that trust worthy besides for bigger sound differences which can be detected.

Additionally if you don't have the ability to test A B with a fast switching time it takes a lot of time to get a meaningful test result.

On top of all of that if you don't perform a blind listening test all biases especially visual cues aka fancy expensive gear change the results.

You can rightfully argue that these cues increases the sound quality consistently since this shift can't be switched of by knowing that it is there.

Some companies optimize the visual cues and other none sound cues (often without knowing it) which influence what we hear.

 

[Tim Link]

I think you're right. I notice that my favorite sounds at the shows tend to come from smaller speakers in closer listening arrangements, regardless of the cost of the speakers or other equipment.

 

[Colonel7]

Thank you. We actually measured flat to 15hz during set-up.

Are you planning to bring the 8Cs to Capital Audiofest in November?