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random thoughts on THE Show

Went to the show today. Registration did a fine job, dont show up at opening, show up at 9 or 11, just sayin. Some highlights:

- Sunny Audio showing Audio Research amplification, MSB digital, Wilson speakers...Sunil is a real gentleman and knows how to set up a room. Extraordinary!
- The Vandersteen speakers (Treo's and Seven's) also running off of Audio Research were excellent.
- The Usher speakers in the Katli Audio room were terrific driven by Pass Labs and Accuphase. Fred is also another great dealer.
- Trenner & Friedl speakers are interesting but priced pretty high.
- The Tocaro speaker were crazy good with beautiful woodwork but $14k is pretty steep.
- The Venice Audio and Peter Selsenick room running Naim gear and Harbeth speakers was jsut right, as always.
- Evolution Acoustic and Dartzeel was pretty special and the Avantgarde Zero 1 speakers were stunning.
- Went in to a bunch of rooms and the volume sometimes ran me out of the room.
- Alot of rooms using Aurilic streamers.
- Not many horrible sounding rooms to my ears so the extra day of setup combined with a great deal of pretty good equipment.
- The surprise of my day involved Elac speakers and Andrew Jones. Andrew was very gracious and demoed his new 2- way small bookshelf/standmount for his new company. It was the best $1,000 speaker you will hear at the show but it will carry a MSRP $229 pair when it is released. Very nice.
ghasley
ghasley OP
2,489 posts
 
I think the car stuff is probably unnecesary, few Lambo candidates in the crowd that I saw. The new venue works better. The thing that got me chuckling is that when we regular folks are trying to see and get a listen, the occasional "reviewer" from "bumwhole stereo review" tries to occupy the vendors time. The arrogance of a few of the reviewers was really interesting to say the least....they probably dont get to act like that at their day job at the best buy geek squad, not that theres anything wrong with working on the geek squad.

This show gets better and larger every year. It really has grown to the point that it is a full day and then some to cover it. I am struck by how much equipment sounds really good, I mean really good, in less than excellent conditions ala a hotel room. Kudos to the LAOC Audio Society for a job well done.
kclone's avatar
kclone
679 posts
 
Ghasley, do you know which Elac model you listened to? I own the 409s and I'm surprised that more people don't know about this brand.
kclone's avatar
kclone
679 posts
 
oh sorry Ghasely, you did mention which model Elac had at the show, when I first read your post I thought Elac had speakers and Andrew Jones had speakers, I didn't realize that Andrew Jones is now wit Elac.
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tonykay
1,301 posts
 
I flew down on Saturday just for the day. The Irvine Hotel was also having a show of exotic cars (Lamborgini, Ferrari)and the hotel had both in many rooms together. I particularly liked the headphone room (although Oppo was a no-show?). I was surprised at how good the Hifiman headphones sound. Especially the new HE1000. The $3000 price tag will force me to give them serious consideration when they arrive next month. No, I have no connection with any headphone maker. In fact, they had Stax phones on display (similar to mine) just for comparison and it confirmed, for me, why I have never looked to replace them.

If you like this hobby, I recommend going next year. It's $15 well spent and you'll be thoroughly entertained for the time that you're there. Unfortunately, I had to catch a late plane and felt that I would like to have stayed longer.
oregonpapa's avatar
oregonpapa
4,867 posts
 
I spent Saturday and Sunday at the show. The new venue is great. The entire hotel staff made it perfectly clear that they were doing everything possible to make the weekend an enjoyable experience for everyone. Dinner and Breakfast in the hotel restaurant (not the buffet) was amazing. I had a steak dish on Saturday night ... and the chef actually came out to discuss the meal. How often does that happen?

On the show itself ... I honestly don't see myself going over to the digital download side. I have too many records to listen to and enjoy the hunt for more records too much. With that said, there was some really good sound this year ... and most rooms were playing some actually good music instead of that dreadful audiophile crapolla.

Did anyone check out the new E.A.T. turntable? Amazing sound, an amazing value and beautiful as well. It's reviewed in the upcoming TAS.
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