Does your system sound better than most demo's?

Hey Milpai! It was a local show with about 8 different rooms; I was only able to listen to three rooms and two of them sounded fabulous, but the one with a pair of really expensive Sonus Fabers and the new Wadia intuition sounded pretty bad for $30k, in my oppinion. It was funny because the girl doing the demo was like "you'll notice on this next song how deep and wide the soundstage is" and as I was listening, I was thinking "geez this soundstage sounds flat" lol. And then she played another song but started by saying "many people don't think Sonus Fabers can get up and rock, but I'm going to prove otherwise with this next song" and while the song was playing, I was thinking to myself "really? Thats all these speakers got ?". When it was over she was like "so, what did you guys think? You could really feel them thumping you in the chest, huh?" And the room fell silent. I swear you could hear crickets, so being polite, I said "oh yeah, that sounded great". The first chance I had to excuse myself in a discreet and polite manner, I did so.

And then... whats up with the music they play? Do they sit there and ask themselves "what's the most boring crap we can find? Lets play that!". I mean, c'mon guys, we don't want to hear music that we didn't even like when it was new in the early 80's and 90's. there's so much good music out there. Why do they always old crap, and then throw in a stupid track from yello and think everyone likes it? One guy actually interupted a speaker and asked him if he'd just play some music and shut up about telling us what the nautilus's sound like and play some clapton or Hendrix and the speaker said he'd have to buy a pair if he wanted to listen to that stuff, so he got up and left.

Who wants to hear some audio / electrical engineer talk for 30 minutes about why and how these $80,000 speakers sound so great and then play a crap song for a minute and a half?

I think part of the fun of this hobby is using knowledge to make up for your lack of funds. It's like showing up to the race track with a stripped out supercharged M3 and spanking all the rich guys in there Ferrari's and Lamborghinis.

B_limo

A couple of quality IPA's will solve that issue for you mate. When you are properly buzzed, you can imagine spanking all the rich guys you want. Eventually the buzz wears off and you are back to reality though. ;)

I disagree Jmc, just because you're rich doesn't mean you have taste, know how to drive, or can pick out and properly set-up audio equipment. My brother and I spanked 911 turbos at the track in a mini, and it's not because the mini is faster, trust me, I know. Equally pertinent, I've (now) heard $35,000 systems that don't sound as good as my $7,000 (?) system. Beating a 911 turbo around a track in a mini, configuring a stereo that beats the pants off another that costs 3-4 times as much, both equally fun and rewarding :-)

And I do agree with Milpai when he mentioned set-up goes a long way but I'd take it further and say thought, research, trial and error and passion for something you love can go a long way.

I'd like to say, though, that in the looks department, the sonus faber / wadia intuition room handed it to me, but if there spokesperson wants to hear what a black background, deep and wide soundstage, and dynamics that punch thump you in the chest sound like, she can come over to my house, or yours :-)

I remember a Stereophile show at the NY Hilton that I attended about 8 years ago. One of the demonstration rooms was sponsored by a well known NYC dealer and was featuring components from Musical Fidelity, Thiel, and Focal among others. The presenters were reps from MF's US importer at the time and they were very strong in their assertions that MF and Thiele went well together. In fact, they were claiming to all be proud Thiel and MF owners. I had never read of these two brands pairing in any periodical or web-site, so I was psyched to hear the demos.

I was in the market for new speakers. I owned 3 MF components; a power amp, preamp, and cd player. I was seated 3rd row center for an hour's worth of demos of MF and Thiel, both CD and vinyl sources, and I just could not get what they were claiming, even with prompting by the presenters. The speakers were in my price range, so it was not a mismatch based on price.

I walked away from this demo thinking that this had to be some type of marketing ploy. I know that there are those who will say that show demos rarely sound good and when the demos bomb, any number of room issues are cited. And yet, I have been to rooms where the sound was right on and the room was pretty much identical to every other room.

So the point of all this? Other than the story, admittedly I am now very skeptical of the pairings at these shows as I don't think they prove anything about component cost and synergy.

Rich

Jmc, that was some funny shiznit!

B_limo, be careful how you word. Some may think turbos are what they are calling rich guys these days and you spanked 911 of them in a mini.

Just havin some fun ;o)