Douglas Ordon giving a presentation in the Loudsoft room [it was a weird setup, with several people and some furniture blocking the area where I would have to be to get a better shot of what he was pointing to. So this shot is from the entry hallway]

Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ speakers on Triode Corp electronics using Nittobo Acoustic room treatments.

OK.

Surprise, surprise, Neli was here. I hardly ever, ever run into her when I cruise the show exhibits. So I spent my time wondering whether this was the first time she has ever seen me photograph a room for the show reports or not [I do an unorganized sloppy job on our own exhibit rooms - don’t know why, and I am trying to be better].

All to say that I did not listen much to this room.

But she did: really good layout of the soundstage, really good soundstage depth [we are used to some of the best soundstage layout and depth I’ve heard anywhere - here on a day to day basis - so this is an extreme compliment]. She also thought, whether because of the room treatments or the amp’s innate abilities, the sound was not flabby in any way [we talked about and we really like the way the speakers degrade really, really well when paired with less than optimal equipment - i.e. we are not sure they EVER get flabby and uncontrolled. They degrade well enough that one could put a $1K solid-state amp on them and still get something worth listening to. ]

The Crescendo [and smaller Adagio] are really, really good general purpose speakers for general purpose listening and an extremely good bargain at their price points. They do like power [see how the watt meters in these amps in this room behave in the photos below], and, although we do carry them here, I did not intend for the previous sentence to be salesy [go ahead and buy them somewhere else then - most people do - the vast majority of our customers are looking for extreme high performance in $30K+ speakers or extreme high-efficiency (or both ) . But the Crescendo and Adagio are still great speakers].

Sweet Neli in the sweet spot

The system in the Acoustic Zen, Triode Corp room

The Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ loudspeaker

The Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ loudspeaker

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier

The Triode Corp TRX-M845 amplifier

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 amplifier

The Triode Corp TRV CD5SE CD player

The Triode Corp TRX-1 preamplifier

Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment

Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment on the side wall first reflection points

The Orb ‘Destat’ CD destaticizer. Removing static from CDs really does work, in our experience, but it has been hard for us to incorporate it into day to day listening.

DLS Sweden makes in-wall (on-wall) loudspeakers.

As I remember it, these didn’t sound too bad at all. Problem is that my expectations aren’t very high - but I thought that the sound was pretty good, not high-end audio, in my opinion, but they had a lot of company at this show in that department [:-)]. And definitely WAY better than, say, the in-ceiling sound at our gym [my problem here is that I do not have much to compare these kind of speakers to] .

DLS Sweden in-wall (on-wall) speakers.

Another display of DLS Sweden speakers

The Rega room this year. For some reason, until now I did not know that Rega made speakers and amplifiers.

Rega RS7 loudspeaker [I think]

Rega RS7 loudspeaker

Rega RS7 loudspeaker

Rega RS7 loudspeaker. OK, yes, I like the look of these speakers.

Rega Apollo-R CD player

Rega Apollo-R CD player

Rega DAC

Rega Brio-R amplifier

Black Rega P6 turntable

Black Rega P6 turntable

Black Rega P6 turntable tonearm close-up

Rega P6 turntables in several different colors

A Rega display showing where the company is located in the U.K. and more turntables

This year the Gradient speakers have a new look, presumably because the old look [see below] was too weird for some people.

In previous years, the rooms with the old look speakers were actually pretty good - sounding sophisticated yet musical, with good separation.

This year my feeling was that the sound here didn’t have the same positive qualities of the previous years.

Sorry for the poor photo quality with some of the photos below - the sun was perfectly positioned to shine directly in the windows causing some issues with the photos.

The previous look of the DSPeakers and the blue-haired gals.

The Gradient DSPeaker

The Gradient DSPeaker

Bladelius EMBLA playback system and ASK amplifier

Bladelius ASK amplifier

Bladelius EMBLA playback system

Not sure if this is the Gradient crossover or amp or what.

Smaller Gradient speakers in the rear of the room.

Dali loudspeakers on Primare gear. Never did figure out which Dali speakers these were, but the photograph well, so…

Dali speaker

Dali speaker

Dali speaker

Dali speaker

Dali speaker

Equipment rack in this room.

They were showing someone the features of one of their music servers - bottom photo - and no music was playing.

The oh-so-difficult to photograph deep flat black Naim gear on a similarly colored equipment rack.

A Naim music server

So many systems were completely…

[OK, yes, you might call this a rant. But it is really a lament]

They spend all that money and effort to set up a room, and then they muck it all up. They sit there with their remote control enjoying how they can sit on their bums and play this track and that track - and it all sounds like itchy and scratchy, get me out of here, 1984 again [not the Eurythmics album, 1984, that was GREAT. Currently watching the associated movie it was the soundtrack for… But, back to the lament:].

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon, guys, but I spent my 20’s with early CD sound - and I do not intend to happily relive that particular audio hell again. Not without a fight,, anyway

You young folks… go for it. See you in 10 years [takes about this long] when you all are lamenting the youthful hours and disposable income misspent , along with all the previous generations of audiophiles - as the rest of us wait for the technology to mature and sound like music [or at least hack up something that pays attention to the actual musical nature of music].

Hey, the generation before me had to live though the solid-state amp / preamp ‘revolution’ - apparently each generation has to suffer [insert wild, hellish screaming here] … The reel-to-reel guys probably thought the same thing about the arrival of LPs - the first turntables probably sounded like poop. .

This should have been an interesting system but whether it was because the WideaLab’s Aurender S10, probably the weak link in the system, just wasn’t able to bring out the best of the first rate components in this room - or whatever - I don’t know.

But…

YG Acoustics Anat III Studio loudspeakers

YG Acoustics Anat III Studio loudspeakers

Vitus MP P201 CD player

Vitus MP P201 CD player

Vitus MP P201 CD player

Vitus RI-100 amplifier

Vitus RI-100 amplifier

WideaLab’s Aurender S10 was playing in this room

Tripoint’s Troy, a passive EMI/RFI filter

Nordost had a small system setup with Raidho monitor speakers and a mix of Burmester and Jeff Rowland electronics [and Nordost cables, of course].

I do not remember the sound of the system here - I would have said there wasn’t any music playing, but the Burmester CD player, from the photos, is definitely spinning the disc.

Raidho C1.1 loudspeaker

Raidho C1.1 loudspeaker

Raidho C2.1 loudspeaker

Nordost room rack with Burmester CD player and Jeff Rowland electronics and Nordost Qx4

Jeff Rowland ‘Aeris’ preamp

Nordost ‘Quantum’ Qx4

Scansonic display