Thoughts from THE Show, is $29k the new $10k?


Had another enjoyabe brief one day visit to THE Show, Newport Beach last weekend. Great to see so many fellow hobbiests, and great gear. Went in search of speakers; here is a brief and disjointed summary of my impressions:
Many vendors were focusing on the $25-32k range; with most for sale around $29k as an entry point to 'quality'.
Rockport showed their new entry, $29k speaker in the Atrium. Had great balance; was warm, detailed, and engaging. First show presence for dealer; nice guy. My first experience with Rockport; was very impressed.
Eficion: at the Hilton; wow; for $16k I think it gives Wilson a run for its money with the Sophia; its AMT ribbon tweeter had great crystal highs, and its large woofer filled the room with satisfying bass, I enjoyed it.
BMC: nice gear; their $32k speakers had dipole arrangement; with both front and rear firing speakers; very engaging, huge sound stage, and great low end response. Paired up nicely with their amp/dac
YG: brought my own CD; so I was familiar with what was possible; initialy liked their sound;but in the end found it a bit 'dry', and brittle; and not totally enjoyable, this was at at least three different rooms showing their speakers.
Wilson Shasha's in the Brooks-Barden room; always a treat; enjoyed their room treatments, and professionalism, nice analog set up. Warm, detailed, lovely, and engaging.
Ventures: wow, very expensive; and very large...but totally engaging; great integration, warm, detailed, expansive sound stage, great bass, huge open subtle nuance on female voices...
Ayon: liked their Lumen White's better last year, than their own speaker line this year, but great amps and dac.
Found the KEF blades a bit disappointing, surprised at how large they are in person.
Enjoyed the TAD speakers again this year, well balanced, integrated very well.
There was a 'curved' line array speaker; I forget its name that also was quite good, interesting design, but filled the room with great sound; no glare.
The Veloce gear, with its battery source was extremely 'quiet' and detailed, and enjoyable.
Surprised how many room utilized the Synergistic Research ART treatments...hard to tell how it improved things; but can't argue with the results.
Too much to see and listen to in one brief day. Curious to hear from other members their take....I know you don't need to spend so much to get quality sound, but so many vendors showing off their $29k speakers made me want to chuckle; and take out a home loan...also thought the digital and computer audio was getting very close now to the analog rigs.
Love having this showcase in our backyard on the west coast; and will contiue to support and attend. Kudos to Bob Levi; and his team at LA/OC audio society; another great job; and Tierney Sutton singing on Friday night was an extra special treat.
mribob
"u must be an alien from another planet. I have worked extensively with the House Hearing Institute. They have performed more detailed hearing tests on more human beings than any group in the world. No males over 50 have ever heard over 10.5 KHz. No one. Over 94% cannot hear over 8.2 kHz. "

Well, I am not from another planet, but I am not familiar with the stats so can't say. My test may not have been perfect and I last did it a couple years back. Can you provide a reference to the research?

Even in the case of 8.2K, you still would hear most of the music produced by most any common instrument according to charts I have seen indicating such things, including a significant portion of the treble/upper midrange. The ability to hear "air" would be diminished even further I suppose.

I would agree that this hobby is snakeoil ridden, but I can also state positively without personal doubt that I am able to hear differences with many subtle tweaks including ICs and power.

I also agree that hearing up to 20khz, as I have measured when young, can be a mixed blessing. A lot of noise occurs there and not a lot of music. That could work to ones detriment in terms of musical enjoyment. I know I enjoy the sound of music more than ever as I get older.

Wouldn't be interesting if audio critics and reviewers had their hearing ability quantitatively certified and published before publishing their opinions? What about also if the general public could similarly if desired? That might help match up like-eared listeners and critics. The landscape of high end audio would probably look a lot different, probably for the better.
Notice how the sensitivity decreases around 1kHz which just happens to be the upper end of the female voice? I think this chart is based on data from married men :)
"Notice how the sensitivity decreases around 1kHz which just happens to be the upper end of the female voice? I think this chart is based on data from married men :)"

"what a piece of work is man..."

Natural Selection at it's finest.
There is a free iPad app from Siemens that makes you delineate similar
sounding sibilant squacks against background noise. I have a tough time
with that one. Not frequency test, per se. There are a bunch of those
available on line.