@ geoffkait15 said:
Isn’t it pretty to think so? Look, even IF one manufacturer comes to the show with a completely broken-in component, a speaker or amp or whatever, which they actually don’t because they want to show their latest model, and one that’s not all banged up, they cannot necessarily control who else they exhibit with, you know, the guy who provides cables, the guy who brings the Turntable, the guy who brings the CD player, power cord, etc. They aren’t that coordinated, trust me. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.
@aberyclark replied:
True. What you are hearing is not break in. Maybe tweaking as the show goes on, crowds, changing speaker positioning, your ears adjusting to the environment etc.
I can’t begin to tell you the coordination problems I’ve had with gear coming in from all sections of the country - mating up for the first time during setup day at a show. This doesn’t even take into account the lack of preparedness of some partnering exhibitors.
Sure, minor to major tweaking occurs during the course of a three day show, but at shows where we "nailed" it from the onset (with only minor tweaking throughout), things got better and better - right up until we were ready for teardown on Sunday afternoon.
I advise show goers to visit their "shortlist rooms" on Sunday mornings for this reason. It tends to be quiet and the gear has had some 72 hours to settle in.
Audio gear takes a terrible beating when being transported to a show, and for vacuum tube gear which doesn’t require 4 days’ warm-up (this has been my experience with some s-s amps as well), multiple power cycles over a few days help to relieve the mechanical stress that have built up over the course of the gear’s journey to a show.
Yes to earplugs during plane travel ;-)
... Thom @ Galibier Design
