Home Entertainment Show in Los Angeles

I took my daughter today to accompany and give me a non audiophile perspective on the sound quality in various rooms. She too thought most rooms were really bad sounding. Surprisingly the best sounding rooms had Wilson's in them except the ESP speakers room. Agree with the post above. Lamm room had the best sound( wilson sophias) run with gorgeous looking metronome front ends. Next in line was the watt puppy 8 in the Wilson room with very sophisticated, nicely attired, presentation from Mr Wilson himself and his son. Brooks Berdan room was also outstanding which had Wilsons Sophias I believe. Followed by room with ESP speakers. Too bad I was swating front row on the right channel where eveything sounded not right, but gave me the impession of live quality sound, if a bit distorted. So I am a bonafide Wilson convert- these speakers does deliver excellent sound. Other notable included AZ adagios that fiiled small room with very powerful non hi-fi sound. AR/ Vandersteen room was okay. Most pathetic room was the Acoustic signature TT (this not at fault) with some tower speakers ( make??)spaced like 20 ft apart. Sounded horrible. So was the Mcintosh room. Joseph Audios in wall speakers demo was a revelation. Small speakers, very good sound. But don't even come close to the Lamm Room. Learned a lot from the sound balance form the Lamm room.

In all fairness I missed the MBL, Acapella, Dynaudio rooms and some others on first floor.....

The Stereophile Room was definitely the best. Eighth Nerve products really made a difference in there (compared to upstairs where Rives had a before and after test set up with two rooms). Nathan Loyer is a pleasure to speak with and it's nice to be able to talk to the people who build the products you purchase. A $100k analog set-up doesn't hurt either, amazing sound.

The Venture Systems speakers were also a treat to hear. Albeit a bit out of my range at $54k. I agree with the comment on the CIA room as well. Overall some nice gear at the show. A block away was the VTV show and saw Audio Note, DeHavilland, and the TRL Sony 900 battery powered CDP and ST-225 preamp (with Tekline cables and Speaker Art speakers). In fact, the VTV show was a diamond in the ruff. Juicy Music was there and Baul's Audio had an APL-HiFi NWA.

Anybody else get down there?

Just got back, too. I agree pretty much absolutely with Ckorody's comments. The Channel Island / Von Schweikert room and the Legend room were the best I heard.

The Vivid Audio speakers sounded horrible in the totally untreated room, but I got the impression that they could be magical.

Wilson speakers always impress me, and they did again. I heard the Sophia's with VTL amplification.

I thought the Acoustic Zen Adagios were great, but a little boomy. Again, it may have been the room, but I'm not sure. I had a moment of ego in that room, too. I was listening to "Sheherezade" being played on a Super Scoutmaster and thought to myself that the rake angle was way, way off. I went and looked at the setup and saw the tonearm height was so far low at the base that the boominess surely was caused by it (and the room, too, I'd bet). But I think "boom" sells these days, so it was probably done on purpose.

Cheers

I spent 6+ hours at the show today , some observations...

1) That hotel is like a freaking maze, snaking off in all directions rahter than the normal north, south, east, west. I got turned around more than a few times.

2) Rooms ranged from small to pretty damn large. Unfortunately, many exhibitors were trying to demonstrate speakers too large for their particular room. Although, I was surprised at the ones who rightfully selected smaller products in their line to successfully match the venue.

3) Fat cables are IN this year. The bigger, the better, it seems.

4) Lamm seems to be "place to be". I wouldn't know, the room was so damned crowded with photographers and press you couldn't get in edgewise.

5) Wilson was naother "place to be", but their wisely gave demos on 20 minute intervals without interruption. I never seemed to catch the intermissions, so no entry.

6) If you are junkie for LP's and cd's, don't bring credit cards. Plenty of great stuff to buy.

7) Elliot Midwood always has a great sounding room at shows, but this time he was off the chart with the new $40k ESP Concert Grand SI driven by the massive $35k Wavestream amps, $13k Messenger Reference preamp, Lector cd & DAC, and Brinkman LaGrange or Balance turntable/tonearm/phono.

Anyway, the ESP's have four 8" drivers, four 5", and two tweeters per speaker. I suppose it's an array, but it sounds like a like a single planar panel with real world bass power. Mindblowing stuff and by far the best sound of what I saw. Of course, at $100k+, it ought to knock the snot of me.

8) Most "rocking" room for me was Globe Audio Marketing's. These guys liked to rip the rock tunes(like Zu) and let the classical/jazz/folk fans run for their damn lives. We cleared the room several times by tossing on a fantastic vinyl version of Tool's "Aenima" or Neil Young & Crazyhorse, etc.

Their were demonstrating Audio Aero's Prestige Monobloc Amplifiers - 40 wpc SET moster amps with 813 output tubes driven by 211's and 6SN7's for driver/input. That's easily 1,200+ volts coursing through those amps. These are SET amps on steroids w/o losing the delicacy, intimacy, and "magical" midrange. Great bass drive. Audio Aero preamp.

Speakers were Austrian WLM Lyra. These were really impressive - 98dB/8ohm 7" widerange driver with supertweeter. These suckers have weight, body, and drive. They do rock better than any other single-driver/wideband than any other I've ever heard. And also sound great with all other genres. Brinkman LaGrange turntable with Breuer arm and Dynavector XV-1S

Time for dinner, I'll have more info later.