Apologies for my disappointment, but that was my first audio show and it was a bit of a let down for me. I was only there for an hour and I did not see/hear everything. I think I missed Old Forge.
Honestly the only thing I liked was the Bernhagen Porter, and for $50K it was not so impressive. Boom-y, not clear from the demo that it had a lot of sound stage and ability to handle a lot of detail. Pretty crisp and satisfying for electric guitar though. Rough-looking, which was kinda cool under the circumstances.
I came to hear the Audio Note UK speakers. They sounded surprisingly dull and pedestrian. I've been told it was a bad setup, but gee.... Maybe they made some poor source selections, but they just did not sound good in any way.
Had high hopes for the Sound Lab electrostatics. Ho hum. Al Green sounded thin and rough and while one could argue they had more bass than many electrostatics, it was boom-y, thin, and uncontrolled. Much prefer my pair of Acoustat Spectra 11s.
I heard a lot of thin-sounding, often distant or veiled-sounding gear that were fancy-looking and carried stupid price tags. All in a tawdry hotel. Glad I walked in when the front booth was unattended. No one questioned another fat, middle-aged white guy in a t-shirt entering the rooms. I am nostalgic for the days when we could listen to audio gear in stores. And let's not even get into the choice of music.
