I'm mostly in agreement with you Geoff. The last show with about 100 exhibitors had four really excellent audio systems. Two were laughably bad (a glass enclosed speaker with a Kronos analog front end that was thin and bright and a wood cone two way speaker sounded hollow and dead). Wouldn't you know it, some critics wrote how they enjoyed the worst sound at the show.
Most rooms were okay but with sonic problems, some attributable to the room acoustics, some due to setup and some due to equipment (resulting in bright upper mid Focals, dark and funny sounding Magicos, etc.).
But, everyone (including 7 or 8 critics who wrote about it) who has heard the Von Schweikert Ultra 11/VAC/Kronos room at about half a dozen shows were transfixed by the musicality of the reproduced music. Funny, I didn't see any SR tweaks or E-Mats or other tweaks in the room-some ultimate systems just sound fabulous without them. On the other end of the cost spectrum, a $7500 Volti horn speaker with a $9000 La Perla Audio integrated amp, $2500 analog w/a Dynavector 20x2 had people (like my wife and I) enjoying all types of music (jazz, orchestral, rock) for half an hour at a time. That's a system I would try tweaks on like TC and E-Mats to bring more air and wider soundstage to it.
Most rooms were okay but with sonic problems, some attributable to the room acoustics, some due to setup and some due to equipment (resulting in bright upper mid Focals, dark and funny sounding Magicos, etc.).
But, everyone (including 7 or 8 critics who wrote about it) who has heard the Von Schweikert Ultra 11/VAC/Kronos room at about half a dozen shows were transfixed by the musicality of the reproduced music. Funny, I didn't see any SR tweaks or E-Mats or other tweaks in the room-some ultimate systems just sound fabulous without them. On the other end of the cost spectrum, a $7500 Volti horn speaker with a $9000 La Perla Audio integrated amp, $2500 analog w/a Dynavector 20x2 had people (like my wife and I) enjoying all types of music (jazz, orchestral, rock) for half an hour at a time. That's a system I would try tweaks on like TC and E-Mats to bring more air and wider soundstage to it.