New York HiFi Show: Tubes and Turntables


I was at the New York HiFi Show today.  It was hard to find many CD players, despite one with a price tag $40,000.  Virtually every room featured turntables and tubes. Sonically, it was a definite improvement over shows in the past.  Not too much sizzle and boom, although a lot of systems demonstrated big bass. Natural sounding components were the rule.
There were hardly any systems affordable by the average audiophile.  $100,000 rigs were not unusual. It seems demonstrators were prone to showing their best.
 With all the myriad of exotic stuff, I’m sorry I can’t remember too many names, but the re-introduction of sophisticated treble and bass controls and room-conditioning processors were impressive.
Of course, streaming was featured in many displays.
It wasn’t a large show, so it was comfortably do-able in one day.
rvpiano
Interesting. The OHMs I have never break a sweat no matter how much power is thrown at them. More so than most any other speaker their size I’d say.

Something was awry it sounds like but your guess what is as good as mine. I’ve never heard anything close to what you describe.

What you describe sounds like an amp clipping but I would not expect that with the 100w/ch amp at most volumes in a smaller room. Possible though. I would not run any OHMs with any less than that in most cases for best results at higher volume. I use high current 500 w/ch BEl Canto ref1000m amps with my similar size OHM 100s. A bit of overkill perhaps but the speakers never complain. My larger 5s love all 500 w/ch.

I also run them off a 60 w/ch BEl Canto C5i integrated.    That definitiely has some volume limits but should have no problem with volumes most people would employ regularly.  

The BEl Canto Class D amps essentially soft clip so sonic effects of clipping are not generally outright offensive, just limiting in dynamics.

THey did use a receiver although a very well reviewed one. Chances are the current delivery is not as good as it might be even with 100w/ch with a receiver versus separates. They used the Outlaw receiver because it was well reviewed recently in Stereophile according to the post on the OHM website about the show.  THat might be a typical Class A/B amp that hard clips and clearly distorts when pushed too hard.

Any idea who was running the room when you were there? It would surprise me if John Strohbeen would allow what you describe if it were him. THere were others from OHM at the show as well according to the article on the web site.

Go figure?
I'd like to 'hear' some additional commentary from any who were actually present for demos or at least visited the space...good, bad, or indifferent.

Not being able to attend any of these major (or minor) shows does force one to depend on the observations of others, 'omni fans' or no...  And 'hotel room venues' tend to more 'typical and average' in their presentation, as opposed to the potentially 'highly massaged' audiophile space... or even a decent showroom...

Thoughts and observations, please, and Thank You. *S*
@asvjerry  My favorite rooms:

Rethm Bhaava driven by Linear Tube Audio ZOTL amplifier.  BEST OF SHOW.  Luscious, full, coherent, and beautiful sound.  Perhaps only let down by the Aqua CD player front end.  Considering this amplifier and loudspeaker combination comes in at just $6550, wonderful sound comes in much more affordably than we normally get told about

Trio loudspeakers driven by the Pass Labs Integrated.  Would have loved to also hear them with the 2A3 amplifier they were saving for later

Martin Logan

Cambridge Audio.  As we know from the first listing, price does not always correlate with sonic quality

Perhaps, I left a room off, but you can consider any not listed above to have sounded poor or worse
trelja, thanks....*S*  I'll agree with ML's...nice units.  I've a soft spot for esl's, since in some ways they gave rise to ribbons and AMT's.  I'm a dipole fanboy as well as 'things omni'...and mapman and I do share an appreciation for Ohms.  I'm just an extremist in terms of that 'breed' of driver, which some may realize or have noted...;)

I'd be surprised if Ohm didn't make an appearance at a NY, NY audio show, being a 'local' after all.  And, understood, omnis are an acquired  taste and respond to attention paid to 'upstream' components and their 'environment'...

Gee, where have we noticed that, elsewhere...and with what....;)

Cambridge...*G*, well, again, another 'local', not as exciting or enthralling as others, but...  Solid stuff, been around awhile, and when a show is so anemic as this one seemed to be, some additional 'flesh on the bones' was probably welcomed by the promoters...

Maybe next year, huh? *G*
I also attended the NY AV show last weekend.  Bought a 3 day ticket, booked a hotel and drove up from South Jersey.  Probably the biggest waste of time and money I can remember.  I took me about three hours to hit every room.  The sound was generally mediocre (except for the Legacy and the Martin Logan rooms) and the number of exhibitors was small.  I always hope tp purchase a little something (LPs or budget equipment) at a “show marketplace” but even that was limited to two or three exhibitors.  Even the Westchester, NY show from several year ago was better.

I don’t think I’ll be returning to the NY show as long as this group is running it.  How can you have a high-end audio show in Manhattan that is smaller and less interesting than other shows in smaller venues?

I always felt that it was cost prohibitive for me to travel to Denver or Chicago to attend the better shows, but I may have to re-think that after this.  

BTW, I like Whart’s idea of a NY Audio Day, which would be great for consumers and increase traffic into the stores.  A nice spring weekend would be great!  (NY was freezing last weekend!!!!)