June 7, 2017July 22, 2017 by Michael

LA Audio Show Report 2017 in 5 Minutes or less

LA Audio Show Report 2017 in 5 Minutes or less. A more wordy report is in the works.

The show was about 2/3 the size of last year’s Newport (actually in Irvine) show, about 110 rooms, with fewer attendees. At this point only stalwarts exhibit at these shows and people were optimistic about next year, especially if a better hotel / location can be found.

Each show sounds better than the last, IMO, and no one embarrassed themselves too much. We were very happy with our sound.

No one tried to break new ground at the tippy-top of the audio performance spectrum which is becoming less and less common, and was always rare outside of CES, which is itself dying high-end audio-wise. So… kind of sucks to be really picky at these shows.

We posted photos live on our LA Audio Show Party which allowed people to comment and suggest additional photos in real-time. I will be adding a few final photos there to finish coverage of the 108 or so rooms I was able to get to at the show.

[cover photo] Danny Kaey [ post your meme in the comments ;-} ] … Tries to save me from the addictive pleasures of the Einstein / TechDAS room.

But he was unsuccessful [the TechDAS Air Force One turntable in the Einstein room].

Von Schweikert brought some very large speakers.

A number of small speakers were sounding good…

Rethm speakers

Perfect 8 speakers

Prana Fidelity speakers

Evolution Acoustics debuted some new speakers

With a huge, awe inspiring crossover [again]

MBL won the darkest room competition… again… [and was perhaps the most popular room, it was frequently busy here]

Neli (and Hermann Winters – Acapella audio arts) took care of the exhibit room while I got to go outside and play.

Many women these days are in high-end audio, but often behind the scenes, if not, in fact, running the companies [like Neli does Audio Federation :-)] so us boys can play with our toys: Lucy (Acapella), Annette (Einstein), Kelly (Prana Fidelity), Melissa (Clarity Cable – just a attendee this year), Bea (VTL), Eneke (Vandersteen), Pandora (On a Higher Note), Samira (HighEndZone), Terry (AVShowReports) Marjorie (the RMAF show) and Marine (runs this LA Audio Show) and many more who were not here at the show this year [deepest apologies to other women who were here and should also be on this list].

A.J. Conti (Basis turntables) passed away unexpectedly recently, and his final design debuted in the Vandersteen / HRS room [more photos forthcoming]. His wife is continuing the business [not a surprise, based on all the women running things in the preceding paragraph].

The show, as much as anything else, allowed people to get together and plan how they will try to take the consumer electronics world back from the lo-fi barbarian hordes [or just complain a lot. or just blame it all, from MP3 to the lack of innovative music being produced today, on your innocent friendly neighborhood photographer, as Danny is doing at the top of this post:-) ].

Wilson dominated the speakers choice made by exhibitors, being present in the Cardas, Boulder, Constellation, Grand Prix Audio, Wilson Audio, and Audio Research rooms

New products were introduced. Here we see the new Vivid “Giya G1 Spirit” loudspeaker. [Our sleeping room bed was on the other side of that wall there. Sounded good to us! 🙂 ]

About 40% of the rooms have a turntable, like this Kronos table, which was in 2 or 3 rooms [see our photo gallery of the 40 to 50 turntables at the show on our page on Instagram].

Turntables may now outnumber CD players at shows as more and more people switch to the turntable | music server combination as their only sources

High End Zone showed Starke Sound’s massive 30 [or so] channel audio / video setup and a 20-channel [or so] setup in a different room. Each channel was reproached with a fullrange-ish speaker.

Sorry about the quality of some of the photos – low light conditions, part-time none-too-bright photographer, etc. etc.