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Trelja in New York

Well, here it is. My own personal show report. I guess I should be ashamed of myself. Taking up all of this space and all. First, I regret that I did not meet anyone from Audiogon at the show. The show had a MUCH larger attendance than I ever could have anticipated. I mean it was gigantic. And many people there had no idea about high end audio. Second, my lucky day! While I was standing in line to purchase a ticket, a guy announced that the show sucked, and was offering to give his away. Guess who the lucky recipient was? Well, I was able to save the price of admission. I did give my $4 coupon to the guy behind me. Now, for the show... I was disappointed in the sound of most of the rooms. Other than exhibitors displaying on the 2nd and 4th floors, the rooms were just too small. It was a joke. Virtually everyone displaying on the 9th, 10th, and 42nd floors were in bad rooms. Especially, those on the 9th and 10th floors. These manufacturers simply overpowered the rooms they were in. Sound was horrible. One exception to the "too small room" set was Talon speakers. A lousy sounding speaker in my opinion. Thin, weak, and underpowered. Anemic. They definitely get the "all show, no go" award. This is a speaker with a 5 digit price tag? I wonder how someone who owns this speaker feels. They were eclipsed in the "biggest disappointment" category however. By none other than the $85K Dynaudio Evidence. Yes, they play loud, and without strain. That is the best thing I can say about them. But, they need to go visit the Wizard. They have no heart, or soul. These two speakers are proof positive of two things. One, you don't have to spend a lot of money to get good sound. And two, brains and money do not necessarily go hand in hand. Next up for duds was the Creek demo. Nice turntable, but their amp/speakers were terrible. I have heard Creek amps sound a heck of a lot better. Poor job by a good company goes to Rogue. I forget the other companies in their room already, and they should take my lead. Their electronics are a bit pushy, and need to be mated with speakers and cables which are more mellow. It was not the case here, and the sound was bad. Linn was also getting poor sound, despite the fact that they were in a good room. Too much bass and brightness. Are they going for the boom and sizzle crowd? Silverline and Triangle speakers can sound much better than they did at this show. And what is going on with Alon these days? Here was a great speaker company. Their new products seem to be aimed squarely at Donald Trump and Fabio. Expensive would be a supreme understatement. What happened to this company, with its value oriented philosophy? They would dominate just about any room. Nice treble coming from the Raven tweeter. Guess that answers our questions. Seems to be a great, high sensitivity tweeter. Should we think of this tweeter for the SET crowd? Another disappointment, Red Rose Music. They are coming hard, but give them a good listen, and see that if you stop listening to what they tell you you are hearing, the sound is definitely not worth the asking price. Don't believe the hype. Nice treble though, ala the ribbon tweeter(just like Alon). One more. Whoever that horn speaker company is who was in the Atma Sphere room, please GET OUT of the speaker business. Now. And Atma Sphere, you did yourselves a tremendous disservice by teaming up with that company. Fundamentally flawed is all I can say about those horns. Speaking of horns, I was not able to listen to the AvantGardes(ran a demo every 30 minutes), one of the few I could not hear. As I said, most of the sound was bad. I wonder how I would feel if I was showing my products with this kind of sound. Mortified, I think. OK, enough griping, let's get to the winners. First up is Trelja's "Best of Show" award. It goes to the Vandersteen 5s, driven by the new Cary V12 amps. By a landslide. A LOT of companies should take a lesson from what these guys are doing. Impressive. Most impressive. Next up is "Most Stunning" component. This one is also a landslide. The forthcoming Western Electric 300B amps. Yes, you read that right. Art deco. They are not yet operational, but coming in the summer. Just let me put it this way, if they sound 25% as good as they look, they will be the best amps you can buy. And, actually a bargain at $16/pair, complete with WE300B tubes. JMLabs speakers sounded great. These guys are pros. Coincident took the "Best of Show" on one of the tough floors. I know I may seem to lack credibility on this one, but it is true. They did not destroy their sound, and that was enough to earn them the Blue Ribbon. The word smart comes to mind when thinking of the Musical Fidelity room. Unlike Rogue, they mated their products very well. Enough so that the whole system sounded warm and full, despite the new MF line being more neutral and analytical. These guys understand what good sound is. They used Analysis Plus cabling, and it was good(Megasam knows a good combination when he hears it). Merlin speakers struck me as something to try to hear more of, despite not sounding well in their rooms. Cary amps sounded good in most of the places they were playing. Mirage sounded good to me, despite having one of the empiest rooms in the whole show. The Joule Electra room(I forget who they teamed with) fell into the same group as Merlin for me. Not spectacular at the show, but I would like to hear them in a better setting. Dick Sequerra was a prince to me, despite being a God in this industry. Israel Blume was also stellar, though he is not yet a Dick Sequerra. All in all, not a bad time. Just that there were far too many people to be able to give some companies a really good listen. I think less attendance would be a boon to people like us. We would be able to focus more into every room. Hope everyone else who went enjoyed themselves.
trelja
bmpnyc
713 posts
 
The vendors at the A/V show are supposed to be the most concerned with the proper demonstrations of their products, after all, they are trying to sell you something. Instead of the majority of companies making an extra effort to enhance their presentations, and a minority of companies being careless, the opposite was true. I make allowances for the hectic atmosphere and technical difficulties, but it seems as if half of the products were not ready for prime time. Perhaps cables were not broken in, or speakers were not broken in, but what does it say to you about a company that doesn't care enough to get the details together, or worse, employees that can't tell the difference between a good sound or harsh sound? I offer an example not from the show, but one that makes the point. I went to the Sony Style store in NYC last week to buy a few SACD's. They did not have a way to show customers all of the SACD's that were available, only what they happened to have in stock. A manager promised to mail me a list, and it never came. Furthermore, their flagship Home Theater room had an older model, non progressive scan DVD player in 4/3 mode when it should have been 16X9. Considering they will make the most profit from software, and should present their products in the best possible way on their own turf, this is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Sony basher, in fact I just got the Sony DVP-9000ES, and it surpassed my already high expectations. I am saying that the same kind of carelessness was evident at the audio show, and yes, many of the speakers did not sound very good. These manufacturers had every opportunity to get it right, and blew it. Don't be too hard on Trelja, he did us all a good turn by reporting his experience. If he wasn't tactful enough for some, or didn't take into account all of the variables that might have skewed a manufacturers presentation, the companies only have themselves to blame. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, talk about the Emperor's New clothes, who was fooled by "The Harry Pearson Room? Quoted from The Absolut sound..."it is clear that we now stand on the edge of a breakthrough to a new kind of realism in the reproduction of music in the home". His $236,000 system was
just plain wrong. Many great components were combined to create the clearest, hardest "sound reinforcement" type sound I have ever heard. It was as if you were at a concert with an extremely clear system, but subtlety, and true musicality were sacrificed to the god of bombastic presentation. Put simply, the sound hurt my ears, and a few other people's ears that I know.Here we had a Burmester belt drive CD transport, DAC and power conditioner,that costs $65,000, A Clearaudio $27,000 turntable rig, Conrad Johnson's Art 2 line stage preamp $16,000, Edge NL12 Amplifiers (aptly named),Groove phono stage($15,000), $53,000 worth of Nordost cables,VTL MB-750 power tube amplifier at $20,000 each ,Wisdom (?) Loudspeakers,$38,000, and it really offered very little in the way of real listening enjoyment! Amazing! This definetely proves that you can throw money at something, and it doesn't necessarily make for a good result, not to mention all the well meaning, pleasant, but misguided smiling faces on the presenters at this demonstration. Also, I must say that having the show on Mother's Day was a serious timing error! Thanks to all the members for posting their impressions of the show. I couldn't spend as much time as I would have liked to at the show due to relatives arriving from England.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Djjd – Let me explain my defense of Trejla. Hi-end audio is a very specialized field with a relatively small group of individuals and a very small group of manufacturers. Most of us live in markets where these products aren’t readily available for audition without traveling a distance. My guess is that most of the smaller designers of these products aren’t in it for the money so much as the satisfaction of lending their talents to the improvement of SOTA sound. Maybe they feel they have something better to offer than is already out there. Whatever their reasons, to get attention, that is to present your product in the best possible light, all efforts should be made and no stones should be left unturned. A 101 class in marketing might just help some of these designers that don’t seem to have a clue.

Now if you have a small manufacturer that is spending several thousand dollars to present his product for hundreds if not thousands of potential customers to hear, why would you not spend THE TIME and added expense to make sure that your product is sounding its best? A very good point was made by Joekras, we all don’t have ideal listening environments. I’m going to pick on Talon again for the simple reason that I have heard exactly what Trejla has stated about what he heard, and from owners. They take several hundred hours to break-in. My question is why don’t the Talon folks break the speakers in BEFORE the show? Duh, am I missing something here? I may or may not hear their intrinsic virtues during a brief listen but I’m certainly going to give more consideration if I hear them at their best. I read exactly the same comments from professional reviewers at the CES in January. These manufacturers are asking a lot from potential customers to just write off the fact that “show conditions” were the basis for poor sound. I say let the chips fall where they will. If a manufacturer IS NOT savvy enough to realize the opportunity a show presents in showcasing his product, the fact is he isn’t going to last in this tough, competitive world of hi-end audio and as far as I’m concerned doesn’t deserve to. Hi-end audio is a hard-nosed unforgiving business, more so than many. These guys need to wake up to the fact that first impressions are the most important. They need to take advantage and seize the moment. I say if they don’t know how to set-up a room HIRE someone that does. As far as I’m concerned there is no excuse for some of the poor sound I’ve heard at the few shows I attended other than lack of effort.

One final word, Trejla or any one individual that posts here on Audiogon isn’t going to influence my opinion or anyone else’s concerning any particular product. We are as individualistic and opinionated a group as any I can think of. I certainly value yours and Macm’s opinion as well as Joe’s. I hear in Joe’s comments an absolute frustration, maybe even a general admonishment to manufacturers. They really need to do better if they want our business. We are talking about products with price tags in the multi thousands of dollars. I don’t know about you but I have both hands on my wallet and before I shake one hand loose long enough to plunk down the long green, I’m going to be certain about what I’m paying for and I won’t be influenced by anything more than my own ears.
fpeel
455 posts
 
Looks like some people don't mind when others share an opinion just so long as it lacks any sense of emotion or commitment. Sorry, not my cup of tea. By putting a little of themselves into a dissertation a writer makes their work more interesting and believeable. Understanding that just because it's in writing doesn't make it true *is* important to this perspective. Otherwise the tendency is to take things too seriously.

I liked Trelja's review of this show. His sense of excitement made me want to be there in spite of the obviously downsides.
trelja OP
3,223 posts
 
Thanks to everyone for both the support and the criticism. As I reported previously, I simply reported my own impressions. Good or bad. If anyone has a problem with them, that is fine. You can either accept it or reject it. But, you will be getting it from me. I don't care who you are, I will not sugar coat something. I hold the high end manufacturers to a high standard. If you have a problem with that, tough. If I step on some toes, that is OK. Not everything in life is perfect, or deserves praise. I did praise those who I felt worthy of it. Likewise, I torched those worthy of it. No excuses. No apologies. As Joekras states, we are East Coast guys. We tell things like they are. If you are into BS, I am sure you can find those people too. From what I see, the vast majority of what I have stated has been echoed by others who either attended the show, or have experience with the product. That tells me I am more close to the mark than I am far. Those opinions are coming from some of the most respected members of this site. I don't think I can be unhappy about that. I'll put these people up against ANYONE in this industry. There will always people who don't want to hear whatever message. Some more opinion... The Talon speakers have been trashed by many here. We all have basically the same opinions of them. That should speak volumes. Sean's analysis of how the speakers measure mirrored my impressions perfectly. I will again ask, this is a speaker with a 5 digit price tag??? I haven't heard them broken in, but from the way they sounded at the show, they have created a lot of hype(in Stereophile and on Audiogon) over an inferior(yes, you read that right) product. I am confident anyone with a good sense of sound would not plunk down that kind of money for such a speaker. Their finish is excellent, their design is beautiful, their ad copy first rate. The sound at the show was HORRIBLE! I buy a product based on how it sounds, not how great the finish, design, or advertisements are. If the speakers were not broken in, and do sound much better than they did over the weekend, the people at the show should lose their jobs. I know if that was my company they would. They just cost me A LOT of business. Now, on to Creek. This is a Stereophile Class A rated integrated amp that they decided to pair with a decidedly inferior pair of speakers. What came out? Bad sound. Suprise? No. I gave Creek a compliment by saying their stuff can sound much better. Whoever made the decision in pairing that amp with that speaker did the company a tremendous disservice. Maybe they should lose their jobs. The point of a show is to make your product sound as good as possible. So maybe a person with no local dealer will have his interest piqued enough to buy. I am lucky enough to have my dealer carry Creek. I know what it can do. This was not that. Now who appears in a worse light, the Creek people at the show, or those who want to gloss over Creek's shortcomings in setting up a good system? Dynaudio is one of the class marques in speakers. Why do they not know how to make an $85K speaker, in a very good room, sound good? I didn't bash Acarian, just stated that they used to make speakers which were reasonably priced, and didn't absolutely take over a room(4 gigantic tower - the only speaker they showed). No longer. Lots of us stated that Red Rose was not what they hype. But really, did we actually expect a speaker with a 5.25" woofer to sound like a full range speaker? Something about the laws of physics kicking in there. The horn company that showed with AtmaSphere was awful. In a second floor room(read big - which should mean good, and one of the two main floors) they had no one in there. I stayed a good five minutes(because I like AtmaSphere so much), and watched people walk out looking as if they just sucked on a lemon after just 10 seconds of listening. My comments about Linn are exactly what everyone else wrote. Too much bass(in a big room) and too bright. We are all welcome to our opinions, regardless of whether we agree or disagree. However, you will not be able to quell mine, no matter how hard you try.
adsala914
1 posts
 
thanks trelja....
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