Wilson X2 loudpspeaker (static display):

Wilson X2 Alexandria loudspeaker - close-up of top 3 modules.

There is just something impressive about the way this speaker looks - I do not care if some people say it looks like a robot, I like it.

MBL 101E:

MBL 101E loudspeaker up close with colored spotlight

The MBLs were being played WAY LOUD (what? What did you say? I can’t hear you at all!), as usual. The bass seemed a little detached from the rest of the music, and still with the trademark inner-detail-less sound - but also still quite impressive.

Have taken about 2300 photos, comprising 19GB on disk, using two lenses.

Can barely string two words together….. luckily my fingers are able to continue to function normally… [well, depending on your point of view - maybe that isn’t so lucky ]

Metronome’s new ‘Gaia’ turntable in the Lamm / Wilson room

People always ask me what sounds good. I always presume this to mean “… besides the Lamm room.” Their rooms always sound good, and sometimes soundgreat. It must be kind of monotonous, winninig best of show all the time…

To beat the crowds expected tomorrow, we think we’ll sneak over to the VTV show which is a couple of blocks away. Audio Note is there and hopefully a few other systems that we can hear…

OK. Time to process and upload the daily pictures: Day 2 of the Stereophile 2006 Home Entertainment Show

Continuum turntable

Berning amplifier

Peak Consult speakers

Like Montreal, the Berning sounded really nice on the Peak Consult - in control, harmonics, even top to bottom… not a heckuva lot of inner detail though. But it was music!

For awhile we were having concerns about this show… but today things are sounding a lot better. More later.

It was relatively quiet.

That was good for me - I could take lots of photos without disturbing too many people.

We wanted to get through each and every room the first day of the HE 2006 Show - and did except for two arms of three up on the 4th floor, and let’s see, the IsoMike room and another room which was holding formal demos (they had the Kuzma table, not sure what else). I’d say we covered around 80% of the rooms.

A lot of rooms weren’t completely done setting up, even by the end of the day.

The sound was really mixed, nothing overwhelmingly good or bad.

The best rooms so far were the likely suspects…

Lamm / Wilson
Audio Aero / WLM
MBL / MBL
Sonics / Connoisseur
Venture / Concert Fidelity
…
A lot of rooms might start sounding great… or they might putter out and crash into a bizzarro world of weird timbres, awful discontinutities, spectral warps and bright lights on a contagious hangover.

We’ll see!

I mean hear! of course.

Well…, both.

But everything was so cold….

The rooms are a little small here at the show’s Sheraton Gateway Hotel - at least the one we are sleeping in, with unusual accoustics in both upper mids and upper bass areas.

Nice art-deco color scheme though…

It is very cloe to the airport. Out the window of this side of the building, and there are only, really, two sides being tall, wide and thin like this, you can see the airport on the other side of a large parking garage or two:

In the distance there, one can see planes, and planes taking off… rrrrrrrummmmmmbbbbbllllleeeeee

Yep, just like the Alexis Park at CES in Las Vegas…

Except a little more humid and less trees

And LAX is a wee bit busier than the Las Vegas airport….

Noise floor? We don’t need no stinkin’ noise floor. “We got the rrrrrrrrumble baby!” [spoken in Telly Savalas’ voice (Kojak, the Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Hereos…). No? Then try Vin Diesel’s voice ]