Mike Fremer and J.A. seem to be of the opinion that the Mass Media is to blame for the small size of the audiophile marketplace - as they editorialize in Stereophile.

regmac over at the Asylum described problems with this perspetive [look, I post a link to the show report there then I kind of check to see if there are any questions, and so I am over there. So I peek around to see what is happening. Seems that people are a little nicer to me and nastier to each other over there].

Messrs. Atkinson and Fremer are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore!

I agree with most of the thrust of this post - essentially that the Mass Media is the mass media. They conspire to help their owner corporations make more money in every way this side of blatant murder - and they just don’t seem to be focusing much on keeping high-end audio out of the hands of wealthy adults.

So, lets look at this a minute.

We want more people in high-end audio? It is called marketing. It is a known science.

Dealer organizations, Manufacturer organizations, and dealers and manufacturers themselves can put ads in U.S. Today, the Wall Street Journal, NYT, Inquirer, Car and Driver, Robb Report, … whatever.

Depending on the quality of marketing, and the investment, … and considering that we are starting out with essentially zero percent of the population, we could double, triple, … even grow the market by 10 times without relying on GREAT marketing [great marketing is Apple’s marketing of the iPod and iPhone].

The problem is, how many manufacturers could handle this? Some are at capacity now. Some can grow by 2X .. maybe. The ones not shipping anything can fill in the gaps, but then we have all these new people in the hobby getting second rate gear.

And what about customer service, repairs, and reliability?

So, the growth would have to be slow if it is not to collapse and make a bigger mess of things than they are now.

If we accept that dealer’s graphical restrictions makes it counter-productive for them to run ads, and that dealer and manufacturer organizations are hard to start, hard to keep from going corrupt, and hard to raise funds within a hobby that is shrinking,… then we are left with the fact that it is the manufacturers (M) that need to advertise. OK, like Honda or, say, Bose.

In order for the M. to justify this, they need to have a good dealer network, spare capacity to deliver product, a product that does not change versions every Tuesday, a product that is reliable, and enough profits to be able to afford to advertise.

I think that the number of M’s that satisfy all these requirements must be close to zero - which is why we don’t see these ads. [except for the every Tuesday part, Esoteric might be close].

One of the questions we get asked a lot by people is “Did we hear anything great” that they should know about… that might affect their purchase plans over the next few system upgrades.

Thinking back to other shows, we, like most audiophiles we talk to, only find a couple or three things we think change the high-end landscape at each show.

On the plus side we have

Amps:

the $139K Lamm ML3 and the $85K Audio Note U.K. Kegon Balanced. There are now two more ultra-fidelity amps added to what is still only a handful of ultra-fidelity tube amps.

Since these two brands, which we happily carry and use on a day to day basis in multiple systems [:-)], already had most if not all of the amps in this category to start with [Kondo is great, but their purpose is very different, and somewhat inaccessible to the American taste] - they have just solidified their reputation even more.

And, with the proliferation of so many newcomers, with amps from $30K to the sky, having brands with a reputation for building world-renowned amps for more than a few months should appeal the the buyer who wants to get their monies worth.

What does this mean for people with, uh, restraint? While the Kegon Balanced is like a 300B Gaku-On [the Gaku-On uses 211 tubes], Audio Note does use lots of the same technology in their new P4 Balanced [which is MUCH less expensive - the exact price of which is waiting on us to finish staring in horror at the British pound / U.S. dollar charts].

It is very unlikely that Lamm will come out with a ML2Prime or something between the ML2.1 and ML3 [unless everybody clamors for it - and even then, likely not] but the ML3 does increase the worthiness and renown of the brand [not that they needed it - so this is not major].

Speakers

Let’s just go through them quickly and see which ones merit further discussion vis-a-vis people changing their buying decisions [as opposed to being pleasantly surprised that their previous choice is now sounding better than ever]. The $45K or so Audio Note AN/E SEC Signature now with high-efficiency hemp driver and high-resolution AlNiCo tweeter, The $16?K Classic Audio Reproductions with Field Coil midrange, … well, then we have the usual suspects: Hansen, EPOS, Audio Machina, Sunny Cable.

But new this year we have the Cessaro in the Zanden room [first time at a U.S. show], and new Kharma, Marten, Acoustic Zen speakers [are they trying to drive us nuts?]

For Kharma the new 3.2.2 [introduced at RMAF] and the new Galileo Exquisite [maybe I now will learn how to spell Galileo] make those who had the decision to make between going with the smaller 3.2 and the larger Midi Exquisite much more difficult - which these two speakers filling in that gap. For prospective Marten purchases - the new Form series competes with their Miles III [choose Form’s if you prefer lively and forgiving over accuracy and transparency, is the way I look at it]. And Acoustic Zen, with their new six foot tall statement speakers [I think these are still in prototype - but they sound ready to me and they are full range and somewhat forgiving].

The Cessaro - it is so much easier to talk about things we don’t sell, mostly because I want to be completely accurate about the pluses and minuses about the things we DO sell, and the things we don’t… well, I can just give kind of a general recommendation - that it ‘looks good’ at first blush [or second or whatever]. So, uh, yeah, the Cessaro horn speakers sounded good within the constraints of a room that had giant speakers and no room treatment. The highs were pure, the midrange was decent and the bass was attached and not under- or overwhelming - very much that ‘big horn sound’ done correctly, to my way of thinking, so that it sounds like the music other speakers make, just bigger and more relaxed and more dynamic. To be explicit: these sounded a lot like Acapella speakers - the sound quality [and appearance ] of this particular pair roughly falling between their Campanile and Triolon models. I say roughly because I only heard a few songs here - it was just a first blush.

Cables?

We are still staggering under the blow that the Nordost ODIN has delivered to our expectations of what cables can do. Specifically the interconnects. They rock.

Turntables?

Well, besides the Audio Note TT3 Reference [which we will post LOTS about over time here], the other tables I did not hear - and many I did not see. The big Transroter - seen and not heard. The, geez I do not know their names off the top of my head - the table in the Sanders room and the one on the 7th floor of the Venetian with a granite platter - I did not even see, much less hear [so the names won’t do me any good anyway].

On the minus side, we have

1. the commoditization of what was the hallowed [by some, admit it] Continuum turntable. Being heard, as it was, in so many systems, and many that were not WOW systems, the hype bubble surrounding the Continuum has leaked a little of that hot air.

2. the proliferation of new expensive amps and speakers from companies, new and old, that have never built one of these things before - and whose core competency, whether it be cables or whatever, is being neglected with respect to advances that one might imagine [or not] they could be making instead.

What does this mean? More choices and more confusion for the consumer. The beginning of the end of a number of companies [well, it does portend big problems in other industries, anyway, usually to do with money squandered and focused competition grabbing market share].

3. The [growing?] disrespect some exhibitors have for the sound. Maybe it is just more obvious now. But with iPods and sound cards and laptops and cobbled together media servers going into so-so DACs - many exhibitors just did not care if the megabuck things they were supposedly trying to get dealers to sell sounded good or not.

4. In a similar vein - the media server craze. The number of media servers in the prototype stage at CES was amazing.

In the early days of the PC, say 83 to 95, it was obvious that the PC would kill workstations. So some people used the PC [DOS and Windows] to do their work for all those years, even though it was inferior [and still is to some degree]. People may not remember, but there was a Win286, Win386, Windows 3.0, 3.1 and finally 95 that almost really worked for the first time. I know because I was one of those people and I own all of these.

Again, we have high-end audio companies spending their research dollar on this stuff - instead of better sound - when at the end of the day, Amazon, for example, can just keep your music server on the net for you, never any risk of hard disk failure, available at your friends house, in your car, on your cell phone, wherever - and you just have to click on ‘buy’ to have any track or CD added to your server instantly. All these hardwired incompatible GUIs, having to manage a physical CD or inferior MP3, worrying about format changes as they improve download speeds and the MP3 format… it will all be done for us. But hey, maybe one of these companies will beat Amazon and Microsoft and Apple - I certainly would be over-joyed to see it. But…

Hope all this was more or less in English - cause I need to boogie. I’ll re-read it later. Or get Neli to do it

[Oh, but I should add photos too…]

As you may have noticed…. Visually, the Venetian is very different than the St. Tropez and Alexis Park.

The rooms at the Venetian, especially some of those up on 35, are exquisite. Well appointed, well decorated, clean - suitable for entertaining just about anybody you can imagine: rich folk, Hollywood actors and actresses, sports stars, even the handful of politicians you think you might be able to stand a few minutes alone with. Not quite what you think of when you think of your average audiophile.

The rooms at the Alexis Park, and more so the St. Tropez, are old, dilapidated, scungy, skanky, horribly decorated with stiff soiled curtains that conflict garishly with the patched, blackened carpet, and kind of smelly to boot - suitable for entertaining, well, nobody. Not quite what you think of when you think of your average audiophile either.

The equipment in the photos at the Venetian are gorgeous, more so that THE Show. At T.H.E. Show did my best to crop out the icky curtains and stains in the carpet, whereas at the Venetian I felt free to include some of the yellows and reds of the backgrounds, and the golds of the lamps, it added color and context for the equipment.

I do not believe that the equipment is all that much lovelier at the Venetian than at the St. Tropez and Alexis Park.

At the Venetian, the exhibitors setup their equipment in this luxurious environment. They look around at the fine furniture and the view and the elegance - and they dust off their equipment a little bit, make sure it is all aligned in an attractive manner. Maybe ask someone for an extra rack or go get some plants to spruce it up a little.

At the T.H.E. Show, people kind of shove some of the mismatched furniture down to one side of the room and plop some equipment on it, or on the floor. Wires go everywhere. Components are kind of dusty and fingerprinted from the last 3 shows, but, heck, they are still cleaner than the room.

So I think this helps explain the difference in the attractiveness of the components in the photos.

But given all this, I think it is universally acknowledged that it was more fun to attend T.H.E. Show than the Venetian. It was more of a personal experience. More of an audiophile experience.

Why?

Is it because:

A. the business business business attitude of the rest of CES [some of which is right downstairs]?

B. the Venetian has a casino downstairs? [I personally think not. The casino is like a whole other world, man. More Ferengi than Humon]

C. the traffic was lower at the T.H.E. Show? So people got individual attention and the exhibitors didn’t get overwhelmed and treat people like moving bowling pins [but still sufficient that it kept most exhibitors busy all day]?

D. the quality of the traffic, that only true believers made the effort to make it to THE Show?

E. the beauty [and perhaps the sterility] of the Venetian distracted people from the equipment? [I think not, THE Show could use a little of that sterility, let me tell you. And if the grunge did not detract from the enjoyment, why would cleanliness detract?].

F. None of the above

G. All of the above

H. I have no idea.

I. I hate tests… Cut it out!

At this point, we are returning to the Alexis Park. It worked well for us. We talk about getting one big room instead of two small ones, different rooms, blah blah blah. Point is, we’ll be back. At least for next year, anyway. The Alexis Park is in somewhat better shape than the St. Tropez, and, at the end of the day, it is all about connecting with other people.

And maybe I should … borrow … a couple or three of furnishings from the Venetian and use it, going room to room, to throw behind each system at THE Show as it is photographed.

Oh, and carry a duster with me. We use the ones they sell for automotive use. Picks up the dust instead of pushing it down the ventilation holes of the equipment.

And, uh, then make sure we use it in our rooms each morning…

Is now, more or less, complete.

Less because we want to add an index to the report(s) …someday.

More because that day is not today, and it is not tomorrow.

So, then this is it, in two resolutions: Medium, suitable for lower resolution monitors and most laptops; and High, what the report was designed for .

2800 photos, of 180 rooms at the Venetian and 52 rooms at T.H.E. Show.

CES 2008 High-end Audio Show Report

We’ll be posting more about what was heard at the show on the Blog here, specifically the rooms in the Most Loved list.

For many rooms, I have been using a ‘tag cloud’ like this to represent the type of sound the room is going for:

This has proven to be a very interesting exercise.

Some rooms, it is obvious what they are going for.

Some, many, it can be really hard to tell. Get some kind of sound out for the show, anything!, probably. So, in all likelihood , Workhorse.

Some are very flexible, and it is hard to pin down exactly what these rooms, this year, are going for.

One of the main goals of this categorization system has been to help people clarify what they are talking about. You see people say ‘The MBL room was best!” [Not the first day it wern’t] and another say “The EPOS room was best” [whatever ‘best’ means - which really means they liked it for some reasons often unbeknowst to us and themselves… but we digress].

But these two systems have completely different goals [ignoring the cost differential] - one is purely Impressive - Bass and Room Pressurization and that is it. The other serves to be Enjoyable for playing back your average piece of music.

So *our* readers can read these posts, and, assuming that the posters were trustworthy AND have ears, know that among Impressive systems [and among people who like Impressive systems - but this is a a little shakier interpretation], the MBL system was approved of. And among those who are looking for an [Economical] Enjoyable system, the EPOS system was approved of.

I think, that until we can get people to understand and reveal their sound style preferences, this is the best we are going to be able to do [and we can’t even get the ‘professional’ reviewers to do this yet].

Another goal of including these tag cloud is to help people understand the systems from afar. Another is to help people who heard the rooms think about what they heard with respect to what the goals of the system were. Another is to categorize the show in some way… did you notice that many Impressive systems were in the larger rooms [smart] but not all [cheapskates ].

[More later…]

Thinking about vibration and the effect is has on electronics, and cartridges, a question came up.

If vibrations from the sound of the system affects the sound of the system, negatively, as we all know it does [vibrations cause the wires in electronic equipment to move, and since they are often in some kind of magnetic field(s), these vibrations generate electric current in the wires that has nothing to do with the sound. Egro: noise]….

…then what about other vibrations?

Especially second story vibrations:

1. Here, we have wind that vibrates the house a lot
2. People walking or kids playing
3. Vibrations from the refrigerator motors
4. Vibrations from other people and elevators when in an apartment building.

And even ground floor vibrations:

1. Passing traffic, especially when the listening room location is near a busy road.
2. Some people have big freezers and furnaces down stairs, and sometimes the vibrations of these are transmitted though the foundation.

Anyway, our main listening room is upstairs, and I wonder how much higher a noise floor we have hear because of environmental vibrations.

Hard to test, because when it is really windy, and the house is shaking - it is also very noisy just from the noise of the wind.

Similarly with large trucks, that might be a mile away, but we can hear them [it is quiet up here] and once in a while feel them, especially when they use their exhaust brake [which is illegal up here, but if you gotta slow down, ya gotta slow down….]

So, there are indeed probably deleterious effects from environmental vibrations, causing a raising of the noise floor, but the noise from the things causing the environmental vibrations raises the noise floor itself, and even higher than that caused by the vibrations it causes, so it is probably not worth worrying about [i.e. if kids are running around, pounding the floor with their little feet, they are probably screaming too ].

Not worth worrying about? Whew! OK, good. Neli! We can go on with our lives now. Such as they are….

Or, more specifically, the sound of being in a car driving over snow.

Above like 10 degrees, there is that crunch, crunch, rolling crunch sound.

OK, that makes sense, sounds a lot like when one walks through snow.

But below about 5 degrees, which is what it was day before yesterday - there is a groan sound, kind of like when one is in an airplane and and it is descending, a couple of miles from the airport.

This sound, kind of a deep woooooo sound, has been made by several makes of cars - so it can’t be just me. Really.

Is this just the groan of very cold metal being stressed?

Anyway, this hobby has made me pay a lot more attention to weird sounds around me.

Another one is how many times we hear ‘Eagles Cry’ sitting around here in my office - and how many times this same ‘cry’ is heard on TV shows whenever they have a outdoors shoot. Seems like Eagles are just telling their prey ‘Go Hide, Quick’ squawking like that, but hey, its their business knowing how to be an Eagle, not mine.

There are a lot of pieces and parts of the show report - kind of sprinkled in amongst almost 2000 photos - and even I forget where I said what.

But one of the themes this year was influenced by a ‘Cranky Geeks’ episode (online or special TiVo download) that crystallized, for me, the problem with most reviews in our industry. Although Cranky Geeks was talking about the software industry - it applied equally well to ours [and the Washington Press Core as well, but let’s not go there].

That is that the press is serving as the Public Relations arm of the Industry. The corporations. They take press releases [well, in high-end audio, we don’t need no stinking press releases - so our reviewers have to do more work], massage it, and spit it back out as a review.

Thinking about this off and on during the last few weeks as I do the kind of laborious task of juggling CES photos, I think that there are telltale signs of reviews that are really just PR - that really just server as pages for the industry to link to, to serve as an incentive for the industry to donate free equipment to get more of, a safe place to advertise on.

And those signs are that it reads like PR.

PR, like your prototypical salesperson, never, ever, ever say anything bad about what they are selling. Nothing that can even be *slightly* construed as negative about the piece of equipment.

Now reviewers are famous for putting in clues that seem like they maybe might be a hint at what they really think about the component.

But, think about it. All components have a sound and have issues. .

So most reviews are like describing a car crash by saying over and over again how great the car was - and about what songs were playing in the car at the time of the crash.

Anyway, I grew up respecting the press as being honorable, reporting what was really happening, very often DIFFERENT from what the official spin was about the events. Now it is all in support of making more money. Not making waves.

And the only reviewer who I have any confidence in that they actually write real reviews is Mike Fremer.

Sure, he ignores his prejudices, and ignores how badly his poor sad room affects the sound, and ignores the fact that much of his system equipment is flawed and affects what his results are going to be. So he ain’t perfect [and he has some anger management issues - or at least, he should learn to count to ten before posting. I know. I know. Many people want me to count to a billion before posting]. But I think he is the best we got. [Which is saying a lot about the state of the press industry here, huh?]. And I think he has been getting better.

HP hasn’t written a real review for years and years. Art Dudly, Srajan are runners up - and they may be just as good as Mike, but I just don’t read enough of their reviews, especially of equipment that I am familiar with that have easily agreed-upon issues.

As far as the other reviewers go, as far as I have time to read their copy - uh, well, there is really no reason for me to go farther.

I haven’t met Mr. Fremer, nor Art Dudley and have no specific desire to do so [I emailed once or twice with Fremer about 6 years ago]. I have met Srajan at shows when he used to go to shows here in the U.S. [and he is the only member of the press that acknowledges we exist - all the others try hard to ignore us because we encroach on their (abandoned, as this post testifies) domain] but he doesn’t review stuff I am familiar with - and I instead mostly end up reading his editorials.

Anyway, to wrap this up - it is not like reviewers, in general, are any more a**holes than the rest of us - in fact, of the few I see at shows, most of them are just like the rest of us. It is just that I see the responsibilities of being a reporter differently than they do.

Yes. Please. Corrections. Clarifications. Say whats? People feel free to post your comments, questions here [also, feel free to email them as well].

There will be a lot more posts on the show here too, just as soon as the main report gets much more complete. Someday.

Thanks.

[The show report is coming along - we are at about halfway through the 3rd day. Check it out and let us know what you think so far, if you get a chance: CES 2008 Show Report ]

We get emails like this all the time.

“Hello,

I searching through search engine and found your website that sell some
products that i need. So I decide to purchase that product from you.
Before i place some order, i have several question below:
1. Your company able sent the goods to outside your country?
2. Shipment by UPS or FedEx?
3. Are you accepting Visa and Mastercard as payment?
4. How can i get some discount for this purchase?

Please let me know your further information for my inquiry soon.

Best Regards,
Joseph”

Translated this means:

“Hello,”

Hi,

“I searching through search engine and found your website that sell some
products that i need. So I decide to purchase that product from you.”

The software I downloaded that searches for small businesses on the web found your site and then sent this badly written email I copied and modified a little in case you already are wary of the amazingly similar original.

“Before i place some order, i have several question below:”

Before I actually spend any time trying to steal from you, I need you to indicate just how stupid you are.

“1. Your company able sent the goods to outside your country?”

Do you send products to places where you can be easily ripped off because of lack of enforcement of certain credit card laws?

“2. Shipment by UPS or FedEx?”

I will mention a few reputable companies to make me look reputable.

“3. Are you accepting Visa and Mastercard as payment?”

Are you extraordinarily ignorant of credit card scams?

“4. How can i get some discount for this purchase?”

A real customer would ask for a discount, so I am asking for a discount so I look like a real customer [this is actually more advanced than 90% of all of these emails]

“Please let me know your further information for my inquiry soon.”

Please respond if you are an easy mark. I want more money now.

“Best Regards,
Joseph”

Please send me your free products,
Automated Ripoffs Incorporated