Amir's 2023 Pacific Audio Fest Report

[AdamG]

Focal suite:

Naim electronics (same group):

Focal Sopra N2 (concrete???):

Nice looking:

Kansas 2 Focal speaker:

Sohn - Veto (favorite band of mine and at the show):​

Nice music but sounded a bit boomy to me.

Switched to Sopra N2 speaker:

Avi Kaplan - Change on the Rise (Official Music Video)​

Nice separation of layers in the music.

Untitled II (Live at the Acropolis)​

Nice music. Great high frequency detail

Hi Amir,

Great photos. Quick question we’re these Focal Sopra N2’s actually Concrete Molds?

 

[computer-audiophile]

I thank Amir for the insights, they are very informative, though not in a positive sense for me. It doesn't give me any incentive to buy anything. It rather depresses me what I see. Pointless opulence and kind of design kitsch imo.

 

[RenSong]

Is it bad that I was unimpressed with all the super expensive systems? I sat in that Just audio room for half an hour.

 

[Todd k]

Thanx Amir for the recap. One question, did u get any sideways squirelly looks from any of the assembled cable/tweaker/power wizard sellers? You have shined a fair amount of light on their darkness recently, I bet they stayed on the other side of the room when they saw you. most of that stuff looks unobtanium. Still love looking at it though. Thanx

 

[Purité Audio]

No, not al all perhaps once ‘high-end’ actually stood for improved reproduction but that time has long gone, sadly just luxury goods now.
Keith

 

[Robbo99999]

I am fairly sure they didn't bring enough cable lifters and some of these are just juice cups from the refreshment stand.

View attachment 294867

Lol, that's hilarious in at least a couple of ways!

 

[DarrylG]

The exhibits in the show honestly felt like really expensive/bulky ways of trying to get worse measuring sound. So many big boxes and speakers that don't fit in aesthetically with any normal home.

View attachment 294814
Also this just looks ultra tacky.

Any potential pseudoscience aside, whatever floats your boat I guess. In computing, when people try to make fast custom desktop PCs, the end results tend to be decent on the eye to look at. I only ever went to a Headfi meet long ago, and there, at least the headphones and amps/dacs tend to be smaller/less intrusive at least.

I assume that many people who can afford (and want) this stuff don't have normal homes.

 

[voodooless]

Looks like Amir went to the audio cretaceous as a time traveler to witness the last dinosaurs just before the massive asteroid hit

 

[eriksson]

Thanks for the ride Amir!

 

[NADKEF listener]

Those exhibitors probably see ASR more as a foe than a friend…

 

[Madlop26]

Thanks Amir for the tour, I enjoyed the pictures, despite the audiopholery involved you can not deny the artistry needed to make things look cool and expensive, but I would not changed my revel speakers for any of these, the best part was the music

 

[MKR]

We need ASR t-shirts with some pithy poke the bear phrase on them that we can wear to these shows. Maybe something like, “just say no to snake oil”

 

[AdamG]

 

[testp]

Cable Lifting FTW!

yes and it's like cheating..

 

[amirm]

Thanx Amir for the recap. One question, did u get any sideways squirelly looks from any of the assembled cable/tweaker/power wizard sellers? You have shined a fair amount of light on their darkness recently, I bet they stayed on the other side of the room when they saw you. most of that stuff looks unobtanium. Still love looking at it though. Thanx

I did not. There are no badges so they probably don't know who I am.

 

[Todd k]

I did not. There are no badges so they probably don't know who I am.

Oh I bet they do !

 

[pseudoid]

Thank you @amirm, for sharing some of your music.

It looks like the high-end audio market is regressing.

What are you talkin' about???
When was the last time you listened to a pair of speakers made of cement graphene?

 

[rubinken]

Oh I bet they do !

I don't understand all this negativity/criticism. If listeners enjoy and are moved by music created by overpriced components, that's up to them. That's great! It doesn't hurt anybody else. This hobby is all about enjoying music.

 

[pma]

Displacement, whether you choose one large or multiple smaller units, I am sure there are advantages/disadvantages for both.
Keith

One big or several smaller, yes, you need to keep moving area, but still you end up with a large speaker box. One or two small drivers with big displacement are not an option to get high bass SPL at low distortion.

 

[pseudoid]

Crap. Dropbox is bandwidth limiting and disabling all links...
Edit: coughed dup $130 and now dropbox is happy.

Between all of the cloud storage that I have (google, onedrive, etc.), I can lend you at least 10G.
Can we pool-up a whole bunch of such 'donations' [wink, wink] so that you don't have to cough-up in the future?