How to listen /audition at audio shows?

You have to identify items to try from the pack somehow. Use your ears. If you hear a good sounding setup at a show all you know for sure is each piece in it is capable of delivering that sound in that room. That’s a first good step to help identify specific items of interest. Then you have to do your homework and determine why that setup worked so well and how that might relate to your specific case at home. Nothing great ever comes easy. The devil is always in the details, right?

Another useful show strategy is find your reference sound as best as possible at the show, if you do not already know what that sounds like. Cost no object! Once you’ve identified it, don’t waste time listening to gear that is out of your budget range. Spend time listening only to things you can afford and might actually buy that are in a system that approximates that reference sound well.

@dynamiclinearity,

"If a system sounds good at a show it is good. If it doesn’t sound good you can’t be sure what’s going on and if it’s a product that interests you, you need to hear it in other venues."
I strongly suspect this is true but usually you don’t really have the time.

At one level a show is like a tournament of a kind with some folk trying the hearts out to be the best in show. That was certainly in evidence at that last show a few weeks back.

More than a few systems featured the use of certain well known isolation products. Some of the rooms such as the Kerr Acoustics room even went as far as use strategically placed panels in an effort to counter possible unwanted room resonances.

Whatever it takes, you the exhibitor owe it to yourself to present your product in the best light possible.

I’m sure many of us have heard show systems perform at way below what they might be capable of, and at this level, that really is unfortunate for everyone concerned.

One good thing is that at a show most rooms are similar in size and shape. It will be easy to tell when a system sounds good or great compared to other rooms and their associated equipment. With a ballroom setup it can be hit or miss, too many variables.

If your hair stands up or you get goosebumps that's a good sign. Take your own material that you listen to regularly. 

Good luck, have fun and be safe. 😉

The last show I attended one room let us hear 3 different phono stages.

The first two clearly were tube. The third I said to the presenter, "What, solid state?" "Yeah." Not all solid state, I think he said some kind of hybrid, there was a mosfet or something. Point is, I had no trouble hearing to the level of being able to detect one solid state part in a whole component never heard before, in a system never heard before, in a room I had never been in my life, playing music I never heard before.

This was at least 20 years ago.

I don’t know why so many of you find this so hard. I do think however in light of the above maybe pay attention to someone who actually knows what he’s doing? As our second greatest most famous president would say, What have you got to lose?