|
![[SOUNDSTAGE! LIVE]](../covers/ssmainlive.gif) The Best in Online Trade Show Reporting Show Report SummaryA Tale of Two Showsby Todd Warnke
Clueless Like most audio writers, unless I’m given a story, I have the same chance of finding one that O.J. has of finding the killer. With the assignment of "general impressions with a storyline," I went to LA, frankly scared out of my wits. Instead of the wandering around with the comforting security blanket of a room or product category assignment, I was cast adrift in the halls of the Westin as Minister without Portfolio. And after the two press and trade days, my worst fears were confirmed. My "story" was mostly about a dinner trip to Santa Monica that somehow ended up in Malibu which concluded with an unsuccessful after-midnight search for an open liquor store, and a serious headache courtesy of the bar tab picked up by Drew and Speakerboy. And then the third day dawned Arriving at the Westin, the understated atmosphere of the previous two days was replaced by near chaos. A small example. The Dunlavy/Classe/Theta/Faroudja room, with seats for about 75, at 10 A.M. on Friday had lines snaking down the hallway, guarded doors and actual demo times. Unusual? The previous two days the doors had been open and the room seldom had more than 15 people in it at a time. Not that the demo or the equipment was undeserving of attention, it’s just, to put it politely, the trade days were lightly attended. But now the story’s out of joint, so let’s back up to the start. My life as a journalist Stereophile and the HI-FI show group deserve kudos for putting a map of the Westin with room locations online about two weeks prior to the actual event. Being able to plan your assault beforehand means better coverage at the show. So, with my Web printouts, a copy of Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game (yes, the excellent John Marks Records recording of the same name prompted that choice), my laptop, and my carry-on wheelie luggage, I boarded the 6:35 United flight from Denver to LA on Wednesday morning. Arriving at 7:50, I picked up the rental car, checked in at Motel 6 ($49.99 a night, two blocks away, and they left the light on for me), and was at the Westin by 9:30. Since the show opened at noon on Wednesday I had a couple of hours to find the other ‘Stagers. For some reason the press room was the spot (the free munchies?). Messieurs Blackburn, Duvall, and Schneider were fueling up, and, after a few calories of my own, we organized, synchronized watches, and set off for the Sony press conference. Since there are other reports of that elsewhere on SoundStage!, I’ll pass on describing it in detail, but I would be remiss not to mention that, for the first time, this ol’ two-channel diehard saw some reason to think about home theater. Until this show, even the best consumer projection TVs had failed to impress me, but the Sony large-tube TV was the first consumer product I’ve seen that was both large enough and detailed enough to convey images in convincing manner. Taking off from the press conference I poked my head in several rooms to watch setup procedures. One room I wandered into really showed the skill that exhibitors must have to make the expense of HI-FI worth it. When I first looked in, the sound was as muddy as Turkish coffee. After a couple minutes of polite chit-chat, I left the men to their work. Thirty minutes later, I came back by and was astounded by the transformation. As if I needed the concept re-enforced, this demo showed why show judgments are so tricky. Yes, good sound is only achievable with good equipment, but bad sound, quite often, is very much a setup issue. By now it was noon, so I was ready to start the grind. Rather than deal with the elevator, I decided to start at the 12th floor and work my way down using the stairs. Now, I’m sure that most of you have been to one trade show or another. Besides the audio shows I’ve attended for SoundStage!, I’ve been to numerous computer shows. As an attendee at those other shows, I know what it’s like to be faceless. Walk into a booth with 25 other people, and unless you work at it, chances are when you leave no one will notice. At CES and HI-FI, however, I experience a completely different reaction simply because of the little word "Press" on the bottom of my name tag. The first day of the first show I went to with that on my tag was a wonderful, ego-stroking experience. Walk into a room and get greeted like a long lost cousin. Best seat? Of course. All eyes on you? Absolutely. Choose the music? You bet. And all this because you’re a good guy? Wrong! The next day I turned that badge around so no one could see who I was (or, more correctly, what I was) and become moveable window dressing. OK, it wasn’t quite that bad, but the exaggeration is slight. In most rooms the press comes first, and, from many a manufacturer’s viewpoint, reasonably so. Besides, many new companies, most high-end firms, remain relatively small, so mentions are vital to their survival. All of which leads to a downside where there is no obvious one. I have spent, literally, hours cornered by well-meaning, earnest designers eager to tell me why the continued existence of the entire industry depends on sales of their new $250 two-way speaker, which, by the way, they prefer to Wilson Watt/Puppies. Or, even worse, that the world was on the brink of cultural barbarianism until they perfected their new $25,000 two-way speaker, which by the way, they prefer to live music. Because of this, I have perfected the art of Stealth Reporting, which has been codified as follows. Secret agent man Rule one: Always wear jeans and a nice shirt. The shirt helps you blend better than in a T-shirt or in a sports coat, and the jeans allow for a greater range of motion should you need to sprint for the door. Rule two: Never walk into an empty room. A corollary to this rule is, whenever possible, follow someone else into a room. Often it will be assumed that you are together and so, like a lead blocker, the first person in will absorb the first wave leaving you free to wander the room comfortably. Rule three: Never make eye contact. Done right, this is not insulting to the exhibitor. Walk in the door, do a quick survey and head directly for the equipment. This establishes you as a man on a mission. If, from the corner of your eye, you see some one looking at you, move in for a closer look at the preamp. If the person moves toward you, back out quickly while tossing a quick nod. Rule four: Pick up literature as soon as you can. If you wait until you exit the room, invariably someone will ask if you want a press kit or brochure. This will, also invariably, lead to a conversation. And rule five: Acquire a second language. If forced into conversation, opt for the other tongue. No puedo decirles que importante este talento es. These rules allow me to cover a lot of ground quickly, allow me quickly separate the boffo from the blasé, which means I can focus on those rooms that really do interest me. Workin’ Spending the next two days working my way from the 12th floor to the
1st, I felt like a Bedouin. Besides show conditions, which often make good equipment sound
very dry and uninvolving, being a two-channel/music guy (in spite of earlier experience at
the Sony The upper floors also contained several other havens. On the 12th floor,
the Artemis/Lamm/MAC room offered sound that was expressive, detail and very dynamic. The
9th floor offered sonic respite in the Meadowlark/Naim/pARTicular room (Naim and
musicality may be that ultimate high-end redundancy, but the Meadowlark speakers took them
even farther than I’m used too, as well as adding a fantastic level of The 7th floor had three great sounding rooms. The Wisdom Audio room won me over with its combination of true subwoofer bass and planar midrange and treble. The Adrenalines are VERY big speakers, with a price tag to match, but they seemed to offer sonics of more than commensurate skill. The Nordost/Sonic Integrity/System Audio Speaker room combined detail, musicality and dynamics with affordability. But the highlight of the floor, and indeed, for me the show, was the Blue Circle Audio/Merlin Music Systems room. I know you’ve heard me rave about this combo before, but as good as it was, Bobby Palkovic (of Merlin) and Gilbert Yeung (of Blue Circle), have taken it even further. Blue Circle introduced the BC-3000 line-stage preamp, a modification of the BC-3 linestage that DAS raved about (and bought), as well as upgraded power supplies. And Merlin has continued to refine the VSM-SE. The speaker now uses new Cardas binding posts (which are a thing of both simplicity and beauty) and a new molding process for the cabinet. Just as with the BC-3000, these changes are evolutionary but significant. At least once each day I found my way up to the Blue Circle/Merlin room to relax and remind myself that great sound at a show is possible. On day two of the trade/press portion of the show, the 6th floor showed
me something I never thought I’d see -- er, hear. Horns that sounded great. The
Avantgarde Acoustic/Birdland/Vertevarius room was using the Avantgarde Solos, and they won
me over. No doubt the French-designed (and new to me) Birdland DAC/preamp and amp were
largely responsible for this. I talked with the designer for several minutes and was
extremely impressed with his approach and skill. These The 5th floor had the most unusual exhibit room, and great sound as well, from the boys at Bow Technologies and Blue Trumpet Research. The Bow gear was set on a Townshend Audio air-massed stand that contributed mightily to the quality of the music. Bow was showing their new Wazoo integrated amp and had pictures of the new Wookie single-box CD player. Besides a cool name, the Wookie will use a remote that looks like the handle of a light sword. The 4th floor offered another of the finest pools of musicality in the welcome and familiar sight of Jeff Joseph. Showing the new Joseph Audio RM-25Is along with API’s Les Edelberg, the Cardas wire gang, and VTL electronics and a Muse source, as always, Jeff had the room makings tunes. As a side note, I did notice that the wood pucks were no longer a part of the room treatment, Jeff having returned to the trusty M&Ms. When I asked why, Jeff replied, "They taste better." While I’ve never tried a wood puck it still seems that Jeff may be right. The 4th floor also had a fine two-channel exhibit by Linn and another by Creek, Epos and Music Hall. Both of those exhibitors were also showing home theater in separate rooms. Like I said, everyone and his British cousin were doing the HT thing in LA. In fact, the 3rd floor was a virtual HT Mecca. I’ll leave it to others to describe how those rooms sounded, but I will say that the two-channel sound in the Legend Audio Design room was much to my liking. While not as low key an exhibit as they showed at HI-FI ‘97, nonetheless the sound quality was impressive. Smooth, detailed and nicely alive, it was refuge for old-fashioned young fogies like me. The 2nd floor was also home-theater central. Of primary interest to me
was the Dunlavy/Classe/ESP/Theta/Faroudja room. The projection image was the finest
I’ve seen. At around $50k, it was far too rich for the likes of me, but WOW, was it
stunning. Another comment on this room: Perhaps more than any other home-theater room I
visited, the And, at last, the 1st floor! Being primarily booths, there are no room reports, but the selection of software was tasty. For this alone, the trip to a HI-FI show is worth it. I was able to pick up the Chris Whitley’s newest, Dirt Floor, on vinyl. If you don’t know this album, you need to. Recorded using Tim de Paravicini electronics and mastered with ProAc speakers, it sounds as lifelike as your system will allow: just a man, his guitar and nothing else. At 28 minutes it’s a bit short on length, but very long on heart-felt country blues. So that’s it. Except for the aforementioned dinner trip and headache (which will remain unrecorded to protect the innocent) that’s a quick journalist’s trip through LA. As you can see, there ain’t much a "story" there, which is why Thursday night I was a bit concerned. What to say? The lines had been short, sound had varied like normal, home theater had shown its annual gain of 5-10% of the exhibit space, and the old faces were lit with friendly greetings. And then the lines started. The real world Friday morning the line into the parking lot was a 15 minute wait! At 9:30 AM! Wow. After parking and getting inside I found that I had better get used to it. The queue for tickets to musical and seminar events was at least 50 yards long. I wandered up to the 3rd floor and found that there were lines outside of rooms that had yet to open. Up to the 12th floor I went, and while the hallways weren’t crowded, the rooms were. By now it was 10 A.M., and the Kharma room was so full that doorway seating was all I could find. In fact, I discovered that the only way to get into a room without being jostled was to go to the middle floors. And by noon that strategy was losing its effectiveness. Now, this situation is not a condemnation of the show. If anything, that it was so eagerly attended by the public is a sign of health in the industry. Part of the large attendance may have been that, unlike San Francisco where I heard or saw no local advertisement of the show, I heard at least two radio stations carry ads for the show. And I got to tell ya, it’s cool to hear an ad for high-end audio on the radio. I’ve often wondered why we can’t get our act together and take out a joint ad in The New Yorker or some such publication. Perhaps the Peterson Publications purchase (say that three times fast!) of Stereophile will allow, or perhaps more correctly force, some cross-magazine advertising. Anyway, seeing the crowds, I suddenly had the inspiration to join them. So I wandered back down to the 1st floor and purchased a day pass. Putting the "Press" badge away, I became one with the collective. While it was just short of a human current, I found that I could walk into any hallway and let the masses dictate where I went. Step into the center of the hallway and a strong rush carried me until we hit a doorway where eddies would push me either into the room or around it and into smooth sailing for a bit. Wandering this way left my mind clear of room-selection decisions, and so I listened to commentary instead. What I heard both surprised and confirmed my expectations. Most of the attendees were local, but a couple of people were from as far away as Oregon, Washington and Utah. Home theater was indeed the hot topic among the under-35 crowd, but it also attracted a strong minority of the over-35 crowd as well. Tubes were almost universally sought out. This surprised me a bit. When I asked some of the younger, home-theater devotees why, their answers varied from curiosity to dissertations on the natural superiority of tubes, with most of the commentary falling in the latter category. 16-bit/44kHz digital seemed dead amongst all but a select few, this in spite of the fact that I heard many excellent conventional CD players at the show. As a reviewer this attitude concerns me. The Super Audio Disc is still a ways off, and I can’t conceive of why anyone would not want to play back an existing polycarb collection using the excellent gear that is available. Sure, a DVD player will also play your 16-bit/44kHz disc, but nothing is free. A kilobuck DVD player will not outperform a comparably priced CD player. And, just as it took CD until 1990 to take over half of the floor space at my local Tower Records, it will be several years after the Super Disc debuts before it becomes the lingua franca of the audio world. And it will take about that long for the hardware for the new standards to gel as well. Three or more years is just too long to wait. When I asked about analog, I found some interested parties, but what I heard seemed to be more tire-kicking rather than active interest. A couple in their mid-thirties said that they had about 1000 LPs in their basement, but that anything more than $500 for "a really good" total package was too much. Another gentleman in his 50s, a "major jazz hound" in his words, liked the $1080 Thorens TD 320 III ‘arm and deck combo, but after the demo and out in the hallway said that he probably would search the used ads and garage sales for an older Thorens or AR table. There were a few who had come primarily to talk to their audio idols. Their reactions on seeing Richard Vandersteen or Kevin Hayes reminded me of the first time I met George Cardas. Yes, I made an absolute fool of myself, and I probably shouldn’t even write that since George may read this and remember the occasion! While moving from room to room or while waiting in line, I also asked fellow herd members about their systems. Frankly, I was a bit taken back at how attached most seemed. I also found that a large number of them had a system built around a single component. By that I mean, they had a single piece that costs several times more than any one of the others. Usually this was a pair of speakers or a source, and in most cases this was the centerpiece of the system. I find this approach very interesting. First, because it is not at all how I work, and second because I find that synergy (let’s hope Mr. Weaver doesn’t take offense at my borrowing his tag line) is the single most important part of a system. And in my experience that synergy usually involves systems composed of pieces in the same general price range. Still, I can see how modest components, well matched, could benefit from a Theta Gen. III DAC, or a Linn LP12. Or how one might reach for a pair of Martin-Logan SL3s and then build an affordable system around them. Yes, more than a few of you had systems that were far beyond anything I have at home, owned or on review. But the majority of the people I spoke with, while they looked in on the MBL room, had more modest dreams, and less expensive actual systems. Adios Anyway, after the better part of a day visiting the show as a civilian, I walked away with a clearer recollection of what it is to see audio as a hobbyist or consumer. You know, spend too much time as a reviewer and you actually find yourself writing lines like, "While the Blasto speakers offer competent sound at an affordable $5000, to really hear music you need the MegaBlastos, which fully justify their $12,000 price tag. And of course, to really get their full measure only the top of the line electronics from Second Mortgage Labs will do." While the sonic advantages of bigger and more expensive components may in fact bear out, joining the masses helped me remember that most of us still live in the real world where value carries as much weight as absolute performance. Oh, and where lines are also a fact of life! |
|
Copyright © 1998 |
|
![[SOUNDSTAGE]](pics/toplefttop.gif)
It was the shortest of lines, it was the longest
of lines, it was the best sound, it was the worst sound, it was great video, it was crappy
video, it was fully tweaked, it was tweaklessness, it was the sweetest of spots, it was
listening from out the doorway and down the hall, it was a time of friendship, it was a
time of faceless masses, it was great live music, it was audiodweeb dreck, it was tight
bass, it was home-theater bass bloat, it was high art, it was cheap crime. In short, it
was the Los Angeles HI-FI show. And so, with all apologies to Dickens, here’s my
report on that event.
exhibit), the near 50/50 split between
home theater and straight music exhibitors meant long dry spells with only the occasional
musical oasis. In an unfortunate turn, one of those cool pools of music was the third room
my camel and I wandered into, the Kharma/Lamm setup. There, Trevor DeMaat had the most
detailed, tight and musical bass I heard at the entire show (DAS adds...and all this
using the brand new Lamm ML-2 single-ended amplifiers, pictured above right, rated at only
18 wpc! The Kharma/Lamm pairing was certainly a wonderful pairing.). While, early on,
the sound was also a bit cluttered above the bass, by the end of the show it was a true
retreat from the noise that many other rooms offered.
detail). The Moth Audio room had superbly relaxing and
inviting sound -- speakers were the VR-6 by Von Schweikert Research. I love the look of
their components, so retro and so appropriate for the variety of unusual tubes they
employ. On the 8th floor, the Anthony Gallo "balls" were surprisingly good. And
the Audio Research room, at least in my experience, surprised me with the rockin’
tunes and ‘tude.
are components to keep an eye on. Also on the 6th
floor, the Celeste/Totem Acoustic room was astounding for the way Victor Bruzzese has,
once again, defied the laws of physics. The $1100 Arro speakers, using a 4" mid/bass
driver, had satisfying and room filling bass, and in a cabinet that would pass the
stiffest of spouse-acceptance tests.
Dunlavy room had
the volume right. Watching Contact, with Jodie Foster was an intimate experience.
When she spoke softly, it was indeed a caress of sound. When things blew up, it was loud,
powerful but not overwhelming. Conversation was at, well, conversational level. In short,
perfect sound at the perfect level.