Anyone going to the NY Audio show today to Sunday

Mat of VPI played the Devil went down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels in the Joseph Audio, VPI room. That was the room that had the Joseph Audio Pearl 3s.

I went on Friday and really enjoyed the show experience. However, what impressed me most was how LOW the performance to price ratio was in just about every room. I heard very few systems that really sounded good to my ears and many VERY expensive systems that sounded pretty darn lousy. I kept asking myself why this might be the case. Even the Harbeth Monitor 30.1's sounded just OK and that is a speaker line that I am very familiar with and have heard sound exceptional either in my own home or in a dealer demo. I suppose the rooms may have been at issue but the room sizes and configurations varied considerably and many of them seemed, at least from what I could tell, to be pretty good spaces. I walked away wondering how many new converts would be created when price tags were so high and performance so lacking. It also made me sad that these shows have become the primary way that audio firms are marketing their wares. I've had some transformative experiences in dealer demos but was largely unmoved by what I heard on Friday. I may be running against the grain here, but I've heard properly set up systems in decent rooms that were a fraction of the cost of most of what was out there on Friday that sounded way better.

what impressed me most was how LOW the performance to price ratio was in just about every room. I heard very few systems that really sounded good to my ears and many VERY expensive systems that sounded pretty darn lousy.

Agree, Dodgealum, but I was trying to accentuate the positive. I've not heard much of the gear that was there before and I'm prone to say that my preference for all tube gear didn't fit in very well w most of the systems there. The VAC Statement/VAC signature/Raidho system was probably the "best", IMO, and one of the more expensive, but the again, the Wilson Maxx and the big Genesis systems were also at the far end of the price curve and were astonishingly mediocre. As far as high performance/price ratio, I would have to say there were two- the stacked "clue" monitors and the Coincident room. It is quite astonishing that one guy can produce speakers, pre-amps and power amps that all sound "right". They are not cheap, but in the fantasy world that high end has become, I think that they provided the best value at the show. I overheard Israel Blume tell a potential customer that while they could not compete in overall dynamics and roomfilling ability, that his mid-price speaker ($10K, one third the most of his top line speaker_was the value sweet spot, Now that's a guy I can really admire! And yeah, there are more than a few well chosen and well set up systems at a fraction of the cost of some of the ones I heard, that outperformed them in every way. But then again, most people don't listen the way I do, either.

I went for a total of 14 hours listening to every room in contention for my
personal best of show at least 3x over 2 days:

Top tier in alphabetical order:
Burmester/Genesis
Coincident Technology
D'agostino/Alexia/MBL (and with no room treatments!)
TAD with Viola electronics and Feickert turntable
Zellaton

Runners up:
Joseph Audio Pulsars
Sanders
VPI room with VPI table, Joseph Audio Pearls and VAC Citation amps

Rooms that I expected to sound good but did not:
Vivid room
KEF Blades in Audio Doctor room (although the Kronos table looked great and
I bet would sound better with the proper set up)

Room that I could not get to and therefore cannot pass judgment:
MBL

Best value
KEF LS50 ----tremendous value @$1,500

Hi Chayro,

Yes, I'm Jeff Joseph. It's too bad you weren't able to get a seat, judging the sound balance from a standing position is unpredictable. Perhaps you were stuck in a bass null. The bass in the seats was excellent, I had many ask me if we were using a subwoofer ! We weren't.

I have the Charlie Daniels album too, I bought it on Harry Weisfeld's recommendation, along with Frankie Laine and the Zubin Mehta interpretation of The Planets.