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Hotel Room Confessions - Best Sound at a Show?

I’m curious to know if line arrays and/or tuneable subs make speakers able to sound great in terrible conditions. Or can horns be the ideal hotel room rondevouz? A lot of people come up with a list of best sound, despite clearly terrible sounding rooms. They try to hear past what is assumed to be room problems.


I want to ask, if you have ever heard really amazing sound in a hotel room. Like, nothing needed to be made better, you’d be happy listening there forever. If so, what were the speakers you heard?

I've heard RELATIVELY stellar performances but I've never heard a hotel room sound even as good as my current, pitiful setup.


Have you? Did a line array, ESL or horn show how it could utterly tame the room and take you to heaven in a seedy hotel room with ugly carpets?
erik_squires
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 
Randy Cooley DOES get good sound at shows, as did Brooks Berdan (who won "Best Sound At The Show" at the first or second Stereophile Show in the 90's). The Sanders Model 10 ESL's sounded great at the last show I attended, Irvine 2014 I believe it was. They were placed diagonally in the room, with a single line of listening chairs running diagonally.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,911 posts
 
Randy is a zen master and gets great sound adjacent to a yoga studio at his store in Santa Monica. I am a happy customer of his, and a select few other dealers w similar hearing, setup skills, and the attention to detail required to get that last 1% out of the system in the room. Glad to hear a few of us chase and try to better the sound he achieves. I attend shows, have helped demo gear at CES when it was at The Drake and do a bit of setup optimization around the USA, yes Eric 11 bands of bass EQ matter big time in a hotel room or better...,
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

@tomic601, I too am a customer of Randy’s (I bought an ARC LS-1 from him, which I still have. It has a mode switch!). His shop is a half-block off Pacific Coast Highway, overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

I accompanied Brooks Berdan to the Vegas CES in the 90’s-early 2000’s (my gawd did that man snore ;-), getting a glimpse into the High End business. Like all businesses, I suppose; some cool guys, some not so cool. Bill Johnson was an old-world gentleman, Richard Vandersteen and George Cardas hardcore audiophiles, Harvey Rosenberg, Max Townshend, and Tim deParacivini eccentrically brilliant.

I witnessed Brooks being squeezed by the sales manager of a certain loudspeaker company, forcing him to choose between selling that company’s models, or the similarly-priced (and imo superior) models of a competitor. I also witnessed Brooks’ wealthy customers buying "bragging rights" electronics instead of the more modestly-priced Music Reference products (which Brooks considered better designed, built, and sounding). Money talks!

cscrutinizer
34 posts
 
Hotel Room Confessions
Alright! I confess. I haven't been to no audio shows in years.
OK!, I aint got no alibi. Yeah, I was there at the New York HiFi Show. Mid-90s. No, I can't recall WHAT year. The Big One in '96? Maybe, it could have been earlier by a year or so. Like I told you. You aint gonna get it outa me! I really don't remember... 

Anyhow, outa all da highfalutin' rooms, Threshold, Krell, ARC, CJ, Vandersteen...  The room I do remember is the Shahainian Room.
Sir Richard was spinning, classical of course. His speakers powered by Bedini. 

Maybe it was his omnidirectional design. Or, Mr. Shahainian's gentlemanly demeanor. But yeah, you got me. I remember. He was guilty of having the least ostentatious and one of the best sounding rooms there.

Agoners aren't really surprised that hotel rooms packed with chairs in a row, people milling about, noisily in and out, don't sound great.
gadios
94 posts
 
Roger Sander's ESL speakers are linear in focus therefore the room size 
and reflections don't play into what you hear. Sound hits your ears first
not the walls. Roger is nobody's fool. His placements are no accident.
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