RMAF 2001 – Audiocircle Show Report
[Hi Pez :-)]
Uh oh. Someone is expressing opinions in a show report:
Luckily we never do that around here. 🙂
I’d like to address the ‘room treatment cures all’ philosophy later, first, and I quote:
‘”the ______ aren’t fully broken in so there’s a bit of glare” Absolute dumbest thing you can say as a manufacturer. ‘
OK.
I am sure I have written this exact kind of thing in one of our show reports. So now I will take the time to elaborate on why my very similar statement back then was not as perceptive as I would have wished it to be.
It is indeed indicative of a lack of communication between the exhibitor [who wants well broken in happy happy speakers] and the manufacturer/importer [who was not able to get the brand-spanking new model of this or that out the door until the last minute – just as they did last year, and the year before that, and …]. Shows are THE place to debut brand new gear. That is just the way that spacetime works – not much we can do about it.
Audio Note electronics are the only things I have yet seen or heard of that sound good brand new and cold out of the box [makes me feel like giggling madly].
But the point that I want to make is that are a lot of subtle messages being passed to the listener here:
1. Yes, I can hear the glare too. I am not an idiot.
2. Yes, I respect you enough that I am not writing you off as a fan boy/girl/reviewer and that you can actually hear the glare
3. I am making a big assumption here that you do not like glare [some people have learned to expect it, and it is not high-end without it, poor souls]
4. If you like the sound of the speaker except for the glare part [and likely associated compression/constrained dynamics artifacts] then maybe you want to consider this speaker: if you are ever in the market/if you see it again sometime/not to be a piece of trash
5. Feel sorry for me, my life sucks
6. I am going to shoot the manufacturer if I live through this [but then again, I got this as a loaner, and they do help pay for the room, and the speakers will in fact sound great in, like, a month or two… so maybe not]
They are really asking you to do them a favor, to ‘listen around’ the glare – to use your mind to blot it out. Try it. Is there else anything interesting about the system? Maybe not. And this ‘listening around’ something takes a bit of effort that is hard to expend on all 160 rooms at a show… but be choosy… sometimes it will be really worth it.
On the other hand, some rooms are just for show – often everything is new out of the box. Sometimes they just consider their room to be a store front and intend to sell it all at bargain demo prices. These rooms are not for listening to [though they will be upset if you say so, especially in show reports :-)] and woe to the poor show attendee who gets confused about this.
😉
