Please- No more Tin Pan Alley


I love Axpona.  I go every year and it's great to actually hear the equipment and meet the designers that you read about.  But the music selection is sometimes not the best.  I like a wide range of music.  I'm not adverse to hearing anything(well maybe not Rap). There are a lot of rooms to cover.  Most people want to listen for 5 or 10 minutes to get a feel for the sound of the system and possibly purchase one of the components.  Please, vendors play a few minutes of a variety of music so people can see how the system sounds with different music.  How's the bass, the vocals, the dynamics, etc?  They should play selections for no more than 2-3 minutes and move on.  I know it's more difficult with a turntable- but still.  Nothing more aggravating than going into a room and listening to a song you don't like for 15 minutes.  And PLEASE- no more Tin Pan Alley by Stevie Ray Vaughan. And I like SRV.  That song is WAY overplayed.  It is so well recorded it would sound good on a transistor radio. It tells the consumer nothing about the system.
jackmonster
For gear comparison purposes there's actually something to be said for hearing many rooms play a track you are ridiculously familiar with so you can discern the sometimes subtle differences between rooms.  I approach the listening rooms more diagnostically in order to compare gear than going to enjoy the music.  I listen to my system at home or go out for a live show if my goal is to just enjoy great music.  
I always take a compilation CD of music I'm very familiar with. If the opportunity arises, I always ask the person demonstrating the equipment to play a cut from that CD. Most are more than willing to abide by the request. 

Frank
Listen, there is elevator music, and there is Tin Pan Alley, by SRV. I disagree, as it is an excellent example of a great song, a great recording, and, by a great artist. It has been one of my references for years, and it easily, and quickly, helps me identify problems and virtues of any new system or component I am evaluating.
I hear you brother. While it's an excellent record, there are many more excellent sounding records. We, (the audiophile community) need to expose the other excellent sounding records.

Unfortunately systems take time to settle and 3 days is no where near the amount of time needed for a setup to start really gelling. If these shows were able to give the designers 3 or 4 days before the show to get their sound going they would possibly (maybe) be able to play a wider range of music, or at lease have time to select more that sound passible for a showing, but a day of setup and then the show itself is never going to cut it.

Even though trade shows bring a lot of excitement for a couple of weeks to the hobby they're not a very good place to be making sound judgement. Maybe someday there will be audio expos instead of audio trade shows, or in addition to.

Michael Green

A good vendor will accommodate a serious buyer, most folks walking through are not serious buyers.
My suggestion, and what I try and do, bring a reference CD you're familiar with.
Can we add any Diana Krall, Eagles, Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and any current pop. 

This year, "The Show" is walking distance, in my neighborhood. If there is an onslaught of the above mentioned, I can at least go home and grab a few records to hear on those uber systems.


  I also got pretty tired of hearing Tin Pan Alley at the 2017 RMAF.  The whole bombastic white boy bluesman minstrel act should really be over in the 21st century.Funny thing was I never heard Diana Krall once.