Stereophile had their usual show report - they have about 10 people covering the show, but 3 or 4 seem to do most of the work.

This is their show, so we should expect a great show report from them, right?

It is here

Let’s see, the rooms that we could expect to SOUND the best, because they usually sound the best, weren’t mentioned: for example the Lamm room, Zu Audio, etc.. Were they there? You can’t tell from their report.

So, although their show report is getting better, it is still a New Product Annoucement Brochureware Extravaganza,

…and it is evolving to include the Audio World Manufacturer Photo ID Index.

:-)

Positive Feedback has a small show report as well. It is here

This report talks about the sound. This makes it worth reading.

Everything didn’t sound great. This makes even more worth reading.

In fact, it looked to me like Marshall Nack didn’t like anything all that much, and describes why. Cool.

Wish he had dug deeper and spent more time with the sphereical Cabasse speaker - or better, I hope we get to hear them sometime, and not just SEE them at the shows we DO get to.

Enjoy The Music has a few small photos and some room descriptions up. You can find it here

The photos are too small for my taste - but their show reports add more photos and cover rooms that no one else covered….

Allmodcons did a report over at the Asylum.

It is here

His point, repeated, that the hobby is closing in on itself in terms of age (add sex and race too) is something that is becoming all too obvious these days….

Trelja did a great report. His reports are getting bigger…

It is here

First a few photos of our *Audio Note U.K. room.

Everything was more or less modestly priced except perhaps the CDT3 and DAC 4.1x Balanced, together a $20K front end, that was probably more expensive by itself than many other entire systems at the show. Here’s our brochure that gives the details of the system we brought to the show.

Neli thought that maybe 50-60 people made it to the room. In comparision, about 400-500– get to our room at RMAF.

We took the *Acoustic Dreams equipment rack again. Many exhibitors chose to use the hotel furnishings to support their gear rather than to bring a stand.

The show’s rooms were suites. This is what the sleeping room looked like, with the furnishings from the main room and empty equipment boxes piled up more or less out of the way.

This was our next door neighbor, Custom Isolation Products showing with Clarity Cables. One of the few rooms to bring a real equipment rack and amplifier stands, which they build. Very distinctive, modern look with heavy acrylic shelves and that very cool blue light. At $1200/shelf it is comparable in price to our Acoustic Dreams’ rack which comes in at $1500/shelf. Sonically … it’s so hard to tell about the specifics of a line of vibration isolation products, or a line of cables, at a show, but … their room sounded very nice. It’s so easy to have good things sound bad, especially at a show.

They were showing the*Marten Design ‘Miles II’ speakers and *Audio Aero Capitole Mk II CD player, with a pair of Art Audio amplifiers doing a wonderful job on the Miles. Why is it that rooms that have the Capitole player always are amongst the best rooms at a show? Maybe it has to do with the aesthetic of the owner themselves…

Duke and his wife, from Audio Kinesis were also there, Neli saying it sounding pretty good in this room as well.

AudioKinesis brought their Jazz Modules, in a lovely walnut finish. They were powered by Richard Grey’s 300B amps, in a custom chassis, and accompanied by a vintage Infinity preamp. These are very interesting loudspeakers, and would benefit from a larger room.

This room was set up by the Dallas Audio Society. Texas is big fun, and the Audio Society folks are certainly proof of this. Neli did not for some insane reason photograph the completely restored original Keith Monk record cleaning machine that was hiding in a corner … the very lucky and diligent owner purchased it for very little money, the new ones are now about $6K. This is the machine on which the Loricraft is based.

Fred Thompson’s line arrays definately do a big sound, at a real budget price point — if memory serves me, they’re $350 to build a pair yourself. The amplifier is a tiny Class T device, there on the top shelf.

Bob Spence from Maxxhorn is always a gracious host, and the sound in here was big and open with good separation and good tonality. Electronics include the very distinctive little Berning amp in the front (I think this is a microZOTL), powered by the battery pack that is hiding next to the table with the CD player (a modified Sony 9000ES). We had wanted to let the Mixibitors bring the Audio Note OTO Phono SE over from our room … but Neli was too tired Sunday evening and dinner beckoned. In retrospect … we missed an opportunity. Maybe at RMAF!

Hi Folks, Neli here … my writing is rather different from Mike’s so you can probably tell that some of this post is his, and some mine. A few overall remarks on the Lone Star show:

I did a lame job at getting out of the room and taking pictures. This was compounded by the side effects of ongoing construction in the hotel *during the show*. Jackhammers. Carpenters. Random loud banging and assorted other noise. I didn’t really get out of our room on Friday or Saturday morning to take any pictures, and many exhibitors just bailed and checked out Sunday morning. Our room, which was over in the corner, at first seemed like not-so-good of a location but in the end it was one of the quietest places on our floor for construction noise. I would expect that the show organizers are mighty annoyed. They were able to quiet the jackhammers by Saturday afternoon … but by then the damage was done.

So I didn’t get to all the rooms, and I didn’t take pictures in all the rooms I did get into. For example, Brian Smith of Audio Note Kits brought a bunch of very kewl parts, and a full kit-built system with new monoblocs that sounded really quite wonderful, and a lovely new chromed chassis … but I didn’t take any pictures. Sigh. Please don’t worry — Mike will be back at his usual antics soon.

The most complete discussion area regarding the LSAF that I’ve found so far is at AudioRoundtable.com, in their General forum. I have a hard time with forums sometime — but I like the tone of the discussions at Audio Roundtable. I’ve been liking the AudioCircles, too. A bit kinder and gentler than the better known forums.

And here’s a list of other reports:

Dave Cope (Audio Note UK’s factory liasion, and general websmith/wordsmith, see TriodeAndCO.us) has a very nice slideshow.
The Lone Star Bottleheads’ photos are up on their forum, here – and they also have a slideshow version here.

The CryoParts folks did a little reporting on there site, here:

Bill Epstein attended for Dagogo — his report is here

Both Albert Porter and Akhilesh Bajaj wrote for Positive Feedback:
Albert Porter’s report
Akhilesh Bajaj’s report

I have been seriously under the weather here for several days - the irony of the timing being coincident with home entertainment aka the stereophile show cannot be lost on us - so this is the first time I have been on the net in what seems like for-ev-er.

And before this it was comcast being down for two weeks… but that seems to have resolved itself (knock mice).

So, as you can gather, we did not make it to HE 2007 this year. We will be posting to links to the reports that look like they have something to offer. Hopefully there will be a few.

And still waiting for those photos from Neli for Line Star Audio Fest. One can only pester one’s wife so much… and i assure you I am not holding back any of my perstering firefower….

Well, Neli hasn’t sent me any pics… so…

… and she says it is pretty well attended, but not TOO well attended, so I have no idea how many people showed up.

Comcast has been down for almost two weeks… up for only 5 minutes every few hours…

So I am typing fast…!

Hopefully she’ll have pics… but it was a really small show, so don’t expect too much.

Well, Neli hasn’t sent me any pics… so…

… and she says it is pretty well attended, but not TOO well attended, so I have no idea how many people showed up.

Comcast has been down for almost two weeks… up for only 5 minutes every few hours…

So I am typing fast…!

Hopefully she’ll have pics… but it was a really small show, so don’t expect too much.

Neli will be at the Lone Star Audio Fest in Dallas Texas late this week and weekend representing Audio Note U.K. and Audio Federation.

Yes, we missed the Montreal show and it looks like we will miss the Stereophile Show in NYC.

No, we do not like this.

We going through show withdrawal hell…but RMAF will be here soon… kind of.

We had somebody come by who wanted to hear the Adagio loudspeakers in a larger room… and it was easiest to bring them upstairs…

.. and put them on the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier…

… driven by the Emmlabs CDSA single-box CD / SACD player.

After we got over the initial shock of how much efficnet these speakers were than the Audio Note speakers they replaced…

They sounded pretty darn good!

We know some system builders like to put cheap amps on expensive speakers… well, this is the other side of that coin.

And in this case I think it worked better, as there weren’t any nasties… mostly just limitations on dynamics, mostly midi- and micro-dynamics, and various subtlties that we in the high part of the fi like to have along with our music.