Are You Old Enough to Remember Those Jaw-Dropping Manufacturer Demos?

I don’t know if you would call it a gimmick but the best demonstration at a hifi show for me was at a DC show in the spring of 1970.  The good folks at Dynaco were demonstrating the new A25 speakers by hiding them behind a screen that covered the entire side of the room.   After playing a song or two, someone turned on some lights on the other side of the screen showing the speakers.  I was amazed by how entire wall seemed full of sound and gave no hint as to where the speakers were located.  I was so impressed that I bought a pair of A25 within a week.  The A25 can still hold its own today.   Truly a classic design.

At Capital Audiofest, a few years ago, a local D.C.-area dealer set up a room with a really tiny tube amp, a laptop for a source, and tiny ProAc Tablettes for the speaker.  A lot of people commented on how great that modest system sounded.  The first thing most listeners did when entering the room was to look for the subwoofers; there were none.  What was hidden was the DAC used in this setup.  It was an Audio Note DAC 5 Signature that cost more than ten times the rest of the entire rest of the system.

One demo has stuck in my mind for the past 40 years.  It was set up in an empty storefront in West Edmonton Mall.  At the time, the largest indoor shopping center in the world.  Anyway, the vendor had two huge floor standing speakers on an elevated stage and about 50 chairs.  The room was packed and the system was just booming out the tunes.  Naturally, everyone was wondering what the speakers were.  Then came the big reveal.  They pulled the grills off the front and inside were a couple of the Bose double cube speakers.  It was hilarious.  

Although not jaw-dropping in a "trickery" sense, two things stand out in my mind. These both occurred in the late 70's or early 80's Those were the glory days when good stereo stores were plentiful in most metro areas. I was in Kansas City at the time. The first was when I had a chance (as a novice) to hear a pair of Klipsh corner horns, The second was a demo of the ADS digital delay system. That one especially blew my mind. Amazing how startling the collapse of the sound field was when it was switched off.

 My memory is a Dual demo, but it wasn’t  the turned upside down one.  It was playing the Telarc version of the 1812 Overture with real canons.   I think it was an early digital recording. When the canons blew while playing on a “normal” counterbalanced TT it blew the tone arm clear off the record.  The Dual played right through without a hitch.  I bought a CS606  from this demo.  Still in operation today at my son’s home.