Lone Star Audio Fest is this Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Dallas Texas. We (i.e. Neli) will not be attending this year but our cohort in music David Cope, however, will be there representing Audio Note this year. The Exhibit will be displaying the new Audio Note ‘Zero’ gear, the cool smaller sized components that were also shown at AKFest earlier this year.

Components look nice on the small rack.

The Audio Karma Fest [hard not to type Kharma] is right around the corner, time wise, and right outside Detroit Michigan, hotel wise.

Audio Note U.K. will be showing our Zero level line of separate components. When we fired them up, right out of the box, cold, new, in front of doubting ears [ours], it was immediately obvious that they sounded better than 90% of the rooms at shows that I have heard - and that they sounded like a system. Very well-balanced.

As you can see, they are fashionably small, but not small enough to fit side by side on the Acoustic Dreams’ rack shelves. Almost, though.

A full report later - but hopefully many of you will be in Detroit next weekend and get to hear it for yourselves.

There are four pieces, a transport, a integrated amp, a DAC and a Phono preamplifier.

DAC 0.1X ‘Valve Output Stage’ with USB input

R Zero/II ‘Valve Phono Stage’

I Zero ‘Valve Integrated Amplifier’

CDT Zero/II ‘CD Transport’

“It’s Spring… and Denver is warming up like a glowing vacuum tube!

This Sunday, March 22, the Vintage Voltage Expo will be the “centerpiece article” in the Colorado Sunday section of the DENVER POST! Claire Martin has interviewed a few of our vendors and there will be photos and everything!

Maybe you saw the small (yet effective!) blurb and photo in last Sunday’s Denver Post… We got a huge response from that! This bigger feature story will really boost our attendance and should place us well above the 1,200 mark! (We had about 900 last year!)

We’ve already sold over 70 vendor tables, but there are still a few left: $40 each or 3 for $100.
Sign up online at www.vintagevoltageexpo.eventbrite.com

Reminder: Calling All DJs: We’re debuting a new feature - with different DJs each offering up an hour of vintage tunes in our main showroom between 10 - 3. We want variety, and if you think you’ve got the goods, hit REPLY and we’ll work out the details! We’ll supply some of the sound equipment.

See you NEXT WEEKEND!
- Dana and Peter
303-347-8252 (email preferred)

Vintage Voltage Expo
Sunday, March 29
10am - 3pm
Ramada Plaza Convention Center
I-25 at 120th Ave, Denver/Northglenn
http://danacain.com/vintagevoltagexpo.html

[Not sure whether we are going or not. But likely not.]

“Do not miss the 23rd edition of the Salon Son & Image, held from April 2 – 5 at the Centre Sheraton Montreal.

Thursday April 2nd is a dedicated day to you the Industry members and Press members.

Over 80 exhibitors will be waiting to show you their newest products over 300 brands.

To obtain your free visitor’s badge, you must register immediately on our website following this link:

http://www.salonsonimage.com/en/pros/form_e.html

The badges will be hand given the day of the event at the information booth located in the Centre Sheraton lobby, photo identification is required.

We would really appreciate that you do not wait until the last minute to register; this will help us to provide the best service for everyone.

Thanks
SSI Team

[We will have more about LSAF 2009 as we learn more]

“We are pleased to let you know that the Lone Star Audio Fest is on for 2009.

There has been a need of a common place for fellow audio enthusiast to meet in our region. And Dallas seemed like the logical place that is central to several surrounding states and cities for us to come together. Therefore, LSAF was born with the hope of bringing our closely knit community together. LSAF 2009 is the third annual meeting, with the hope to expand attendance and continue our festival into future years.

Lone Star Audio Fest has grown from a grass roots effort to bring fellow enthusiast together in the pursuit of enjoying our common passion for music through audio playback equipment.

LSAF will be held in Dallas, TX at the Embassy Suites Dallas Park Central on June 19-21, 2009.

This Embassy Suite in the North East region of Dallas has recently gone through a massive renovation which offers a quality setting for LSAF 2009.

Here is a link to the hotel for further details: http://www.esdallasparkcentral.hotel-brochure.com/

There is no registration cost for exhibitors, and no admission price for attendees as usual. We believe that this low cost structure allows many more the opportunity to attend and exhibit at our festival. Your relationship is entirely between you and the hotel. We are all agreeing to meet there as attendees and exhibitors of the LSAF, and by booking as a group we are able to get a better room rate ($99 per night vs. the regular rate of $139). So be sure to let them know you are attending the LSAF event. To make reservations by phone call 972-234-3300 and tell them you are coming to the Lone Star Audio Fest. Or, go to http://embassysuites.hilton.com/en/es/groups/personalized/DALTXES-LSA-20090616/index.jhtml to register online.

Please email Shane Moore at shanemmail-lsaf@yahoo.com or info@lonestaraudiofest if you will be attending and would like to have your name/logo added to the list of exhibitors on the LSAF webpage(http://www.lonestaraudiofest.com/). Also, please email Shane after you book your room as well, so he can keep a head count.

If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We in the LSAF steering committee have volunteered our time in an effort to make this festival a possibility. But, we know that your participation is what will make LSAF a success. It is the fellow enthusiasts that make this audio festival what it is.

And we are all looking forward to seeing everyone there!!!!

Many thanks from the LSAF steering committee:

Shane Moore, Paul Hileman, Norris Wilson

[We will have a lot more about these shows here and in Spintricity].

After the success of Vietnam HiEnd show 2008 held in September, 2008 (please kindly visit this link to learn more: http://www.hiendshow.com/2008/) we have been preparing for the Vietnam HiEnd show 2009 from 25th to 27th September 2009 at Continental Saigon Hotel, 132 -134 Dong Khoi Street, 1st District, Hochiminh City, Vietnam.

VIETNAM HI-END SHOW 2009 - THE BEST CHANCE TO GET “GOLD OPPORTUNITY” FOR TRADEMARK PROMOTION, “GOOD OCCASION” FOR DIRECT TOUCHING VIETNAMESE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS, “LARGE FLOOR” FOR SUPPLIERS, DISTRIBUTORS AND SALES

Therefore, we do hope for your and your trademark’s attention and participation at this show. With Vietnam HiEnd show 2009, your brand name will be promoted and you will have direct contact with Vietnamese consumers, widen and increase your presence in the Vietnamese market - a market with very large potential.

If you would like to find exclusive distributors or representatives, feel free to contact us. We will try our best to create an opportunity for you to meet with the Vietnamese leading electronic distributors during this show.

For further information of Vietnam HiEnd show 2009, please be kind to see attachments enclosed or directly contact Gold Mark JSC as follows:

Gold Mark JSC - ORGANIZER OF VIETNAM HI-END SHOW 2009
Address: 2nd Fl., S19, No.16 Rd, 3rd Ward, Binh Thanh Dist, HCMC, Vietnam

Contacted person: Do Nhu Quynh (Ms) - Director of Sales
Tel:+84 (0) 8. 3517 8045/44
Fax: 84.8.35174653
HP: 84.9.032.987.01
Email: nhuquynh@dauanvang.com
Website: www.dauanvang.com, www.hiendshow.com

done.

3700 photos [yep, still need to update the show issue cover. To think, the original expectation was 1500 photos] or so. 2201 pages.

Still needs some spelling fixes and a few pages got left behind during the mass publishing marathon that was this report.

Next issue will have a nice summary of the favorites - but the show report itself will serve as the archive and discussion point for a long time to come.

I hope.

Don’t want to be doing these things all that often… It takes on average 3 minutes to judge, clean up and crop each photo in photoshop.

A few changes to the toolbar, based on feedback from our readers.

One change is that we replaced the life-preserver with a question mark, as many people did not understand that the life-preserver was the thing to click for help. It was Neli’s favorite icon, and one of mine, so we hope people like the question mark… otherwise were going to bring back that life preserver all over again

It should also be easier to find older issues.

etc.

Enjoy!

Once again, the page map and table of contents won’t show the new pages while we spend most of today [I hope I get done today] adding about 672 photos of THE Show at the Alexis Park. This is to speed the process both for us and for people looking at the 3100 older photos while we add all these pages.

Then we’ll be [more or less] done. Then I can get back to having a life. Ugh.

… I am reminded of how diverse - and at the same time how similar - all this equipment is.

As I mentioned below, we are now at over 2200 photos. That is 25% larger than our largest report - which was last CES at about 1750 photos. I expect it to be about 3000 photos when all is said and done.

This is not so much a traditional ‘Show Report’ - which we helped redefine from being a couple of pages in Stereophile that came out each Spring to something much more comprehensive - but a Show ‘Toy Store’.

Who was there and what cool equipment did they bring? Did people like what they heard? Is it new? What are the specs? Where can I find out more?

We are talking with many exhibitors to try and get them to include information right in the show report itself [and they are of course welcome to contact us - there are 1600 on our list and we will not get to them all in a decent amount of time] . We include little guys and big massive corporations - speakers and cables and tweaks. The stats show that people visit show reports over and over, even those that are years old.

We also want other people who were at the show to comment on the rooms that they went to and heard. We are talking with a few people whose ears and honesty we trust - and hopefully they will be able to actually get around to posting things.

And you too. Don’t be shy people. Just click on the little comment icon and post away. Otherwise people will just have to rely on just me and my ears - and I am very very very picky, focusing on the uber high-end as we do, so that very little sounds great [but a dozen or so systems did sound good].

I think one thing that people do not understand - being so use to the current batch of audio websites not changing year after year - is that we change things all the time, adding features, removing others, and improving the experience day after day after day. We are much more like Amazon - where new things appear and disappear all the time [and Audio Federation, though it is so big and spread out no one knows all the stuff that we do] - and not at all like the other take-it-or-leave-it sites.

And this is only the beginning.

All that this means is that it is all about the Toys. Looking at, Learning About, Talking About the Toys [when we are not happily listening to them].

We are talking with many people, famous and unknown, about writing what they REALLY think about audio in a magazine that welcomes diversity. Should we be talking to YOU?

We already have improvements that will be released soon that will speed up page turning so that this Show Report will be about as fast as scrolling through photos in the old show report. We have plans for indexing all the photos so you can find all the photos with Nordost cables in them, or Manley equipment, or tube amps, or… We have plans for tag clouds so you can instantly see which rooms are the most talked about, or which manufacturers, or which subjects dejour.

Bu what else? If any of you have ideas about how we can kick things ‘up a notch’, please post it here or send us an email.