My first visit to Axpona; The emperor has no clothes?

[Purité Audio]

Unrealistic to imagine that reproduction from a pair of loudspeakers if ever going to sound identical to a real instrument, just think of their relative propagation.
Keith

 

[Johnkeizer]

Unfortunately that’s what a lot of audiophiles claim is their holy grail

 

[Mart68]

Unfortunately that’s what a lot of audiophiles claim is their holy grail

It's a false goal IMO. My view is that if it sounds like a recording of the real thing then you're on the right track, because that's what it is!

 

[Tell]

Unrealistic to imagine that reproduction from a pair of loudspeakers if ever going to sound identical to a real instrument, just think of their relative propagation.
Keith

If the instrument in recorded close miked in a dry room and played through a pair or relatively wide and flat speakers it could sound like it's playing in your room. Though not seeing the actual instrument in there might rob you of that illusion so closing your eyes will probably help.

 

[Purité Audio]

Close yes but two speakers compared to one instrument ( in this example) with its own specific propagation.
Keith

 

[Zgrado1970]

Not to be rude, but if you went to Axpona and didn't hear at least one room that impressed you, then the issue is you. As you said, you can save a lot of money. Last year, I heard dozens of rooms that I thought were very impressive. Obviously a lot of them are out of my price or sheer size range (for speakers). There are plenty of OK or average rooms, but there are also lots that are excellent.

The issue is not you. Yes, you will be impressed by some $$$ systems after sitting in a darkened room, looking at a price sheet, listening to a sales pitch, and hearing the awed comments of some old dude. But that wears off in about 5 minutes.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

If the instrument in recorded close miked in a dry room and played through a pair or relatively wide and flat speakers it could sound like it's playing in your room. Though not seeing the actual instrument in there might rob you of that illusion so closing your eyes will probably help.

speaking as a performing and recording musician with pretty good home loudspeakers: nope

 

[Tell]

speaking as a performing and recording musician with pretty good home loudspeakers: nope

As a person that have heard it: yup
But again, there is stuff that breaks the illusion, like knowing it's not a live instrument in the room for example. But this could probably be blind tested in some fun ways with someone in the room playing a guitar vs recording the same person and guitar and then play it in the same room.

 

[Audionaut]

The issue is not you. Yes, you will be impressed by some $$$ systems after sitting in a darkened room, looking at a price sheet, listening to a sales pitch, and hearing the awed comments of some old dude. But that wears off in about 5 minutes.

No, I only agree with that in part. For decades, the IFA in Germany was the world’s largest trade show for audio electronics, and I used to attend it regularly. The most expensive products were rarely the best. In fact, almost never.
But amid all the hustle and bustle in those massive exhibition halls, there were always some truly impressive demonstrations.
Now, in the consumer sector in Germany, there’s only the High End in Munich and a few smaller exhibitions left, though the High End trade show is moving to Vienna.
It’s all already quite limited and cramped in some respects, just as I can see now in these photos from Axpona also. It’s very difficult for some speakers to sound decent in rooms like that.
But what really never interested me was the price tag, and only very rarely the verbal presentations—unless they were technically well-founded.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

As a person that have heard it: yup
But again, there is stuff that breaks the illusion, like knowing it's not a live instrument in the room for example. But this could probably be blind tested in some fun ways with someone in the room playing a guitar vs recording the same person and guitar and then play it in the same room.

I would love to be a subject in a test like this

 

[Chris A]

I have heard mega buck systems demonstrated by the dealers and they still can’t convince me I am listening to a real live guitar, never mind anything larger

I have a very dynamic CD album of Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries (1984 CD version) that has a dynamic range rating of 18 dB. This is very high dynamic range rating as produced CDs go. The following is from the Dynamic Range Database:

Even for this solo instrument recording that largely avoids the audible effects of modulation distortion (only harmonics are audible), I still don't really get a sense of "being there" from just two loudspeakers (i.e., stereo). Generally, it takes a really good 5.0 or 5.1 setup to evoke something like the feeling of a live performance, but only if the recording engineer knows a lot and uses the right types of microphones in the right places, and the acoustic recording venue is conducive to translating to my listening environment (i.e., it's not in a recording booth, etc.), The other two audio guys (the mixer and then the mastering guys) stay out of the way and pretty much have to provide the paying customers with the mixdown tracks, not something that's been reduced to pablum to make it "commercially viable".

Then I have to turn up the in-room performance to something like actual performance SPL, which is really energetic for an acoustic guitar that's played aggressively (as this recording captures).

In order to not break the illusion of live performance, you need a set of loudspeakers having pretty high efficiency in order to convincingly reproduce all the impulsive dynamics/harmonics, retaining a fair amount of undistorted headroom such that even the loudest portions of the performance are free from audible distortions. And you need the loudspeakers to have pretty flat amplitude and phase response across the entire audible spectrum. (I'll refrain from discussing loudspeaker directivity requirements in order to get the direct/reflected ratios in-room up to something approaching the original performance venue acoustics.)

And this is for the simple case of a single acoustic guitar to sound anything like live performance.

Imagine what is needed to convincingly reproduce an entire symphony orchestra playing a Mahler or Shostakovitch symphony. Any loudspeaker/room system that could convincingly reproduce a large early-20th century symphony would have no trouble reproducing anything else you want.

Now...does anyone think that you're going to get that at an audio show...or any semblance of that? I've not seen it or anything close to that.

Chris

 

[John@DreamScapes A/V]

Did we meet in the Dreamscapes room Sunday late when they were trying to set up the Sigbergs but the hotel wifi and the Storm processor weren’t playing nice?

Hello, and thank you for hanging out with us. I'm not sure if the hotel killed our wi-fi access upon show closing, but it was still down when we finally got everything out of the room and into the trailer at 11:30 P.M. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we enjoyed the evening company!

 

[jhaider]

Hello, and thank you for hanging out with us. I'm not sure if the hotel killed our wi-fi access upon show closing, but it was still down when we finally got everything out of the room and into the trailer at 11:30 P.M. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we enjoyed the evening company!

Hey - you were trying do to a whole system replacement for a few people when the show was technically over!

Likewise enjoyed the discussion and learning what you guys are about. And your Theory/Storm immersive setup sounded top notch. Also bought that Slowhand at 70 disk on the way to the car

 

[Scytales]

Unrealistic to imagine that reproduction from a pair of loudspeakers if ever going to sound identical to a real instrument, just think of their relative propagation.
Keith

And yet, for decades, Cabasse held demonstrations at the Festival du Son in Paris, featuring musicians performing live and playing back pre-recorded versions of the same musicians in the same venue. I'm taking this opportunity to mention them here.

 

[Multicore]

The speakers I specifically went to listen to, as I was considering purchasing,

Which were those?

were underwhelming for the most part, making me question the glowing reviews I have watched on YouTube.

Well, at least there's that for a positive outcome. YouTube reviews ...

 

[jareinertson]

I agree with you except for one thing, the marketing for super-expensive audio equipment is only creative in the sense that it often departs from reality. As a whole it's incredibly formulaic and predictable. Maybe you could not switch out the guts of these speakers with a Genelec, but you could really switch the names between a lot of the marketing copy for a lot of hi-fi equipment and nobody would notice.

"black background" this, "soul of the music" that, it's pretty much always the same.

Say what you want about Schiit but at least they have a recognizable approach to how they talk about their products.

Similar issue with auto marketing. When was the last time an auto ad talked about reliability, functionality, etc. Instead of how it makes you feel or some other such nonsense.

 

[mhardy6647]

Similar issue with auto marketing. When was the last time an auto ad talked about reliability, functionality, etc. Instead of how it makes you feel or some other such nonsense.

Reliability.
That would be refreshing!

The AVR industry breathed fresh life into planned obsolescence.
Big, expensive boat anchors after less than a decade became all the rage in that industry.

 

[krabapple]

Not to be rude, but if you went to Axpona and didn't hear at least one room that impressed you, then the issue is you. As you said, you can save a lot of money. Last year, I heard dozens of rooms that I thought were very impressive. Obviously a lot of them are out of my price or sheer size range (for speakers). There are plenty of OK or average rooms, but there are also lots that are excellent.

You may not realize it, because it isn't what you meant, but the actual room may be what you were hearing as much as anything.

 

[krabapple]

I'd love to know how many, if any, presenters at AXPONA calibrated their systems and used room EQ DSP.

 

[AA63]

I am a musician first and some what of an audiophile whatever that means. I decided to go to my first Audiophile trade show (Axpona) to get a chance to listen to these
extravagant high end systems and listen to a few speakers I have been thinking about purchasing. I have to honestly say over all I was not blown away. I was expecting to be enlightened by some of these systems having speaker cables thicker than my arms, speakers with 20 drivers, Monoblocks on the floor raised up on titanium spikes basking in the glow of professional lighting systems and large glowing vacuum tubes. Some of these systems sounded really good yet not spectacular. I was anticipating walking into some of these rooms and hearing sound systems that would invoke a primal response in me like "wow I have never before heard such detail, clarity and an accurate sound stage like that ". Didn't happen. The speakers I specifically went to listen to, as I was considering purchasing, were underwhelming for the most part, making me question the glowing reviews I have watched on YouTube. So little focus on the music itself was also somewhat surprising. To me the higher end systems seemed more about image than sound.

After this experience there are two possibilities; The 3D detail and incredible life like clarity these super high end systems produce is above the sophistication and ability of my hearing to perceive, which is ok as I am going to save a lot of money or there is a lot of snake oil out there that I wasn't expecting?

Completely normal. Without bringing your own playlist and listening to it at the volume you prefer, the experiences at shows are generally meh. You might catch an occasional "holysht" moment, but otherwise, it is difficult - just nature of the beast. Much better to try and meet up with some local shop owners to arrange some listening sessions - which in itself is a task these days (I'm going through this exercise myself and am astounded at how unaccommodating and uninformed higher end shop employees are - at least in my neck of the woods). Speakers are the hard to audition well - which is why I appreciate this site to at the very least narrow down the slog.