Stairways.

Stairways are often the quick way to get around at shows [the Flamingo / THE Show at CES being an exception].

Yeah, you will most likely arrive breathing heavily and with leaden legs when ascending floors – but this can often be more pleasant than shifting from leg to leg staring at the psychedelic carpet waiting for elevators for longer than around 5 minutes [YMMV if you have more or less patience than I. Neli almost always prefers the stairs – seizing an opportunity to burn off more calories and get more fit. Ugh. :-)]

I looked for a good map of the Marriott 1st floor layout – to no avail [though I did find out that the Great American Beer Festival is happening at the same time as RMAF this year in Denver].

So… until I find such a map: we will just have to muddle along.

The low-hanging fruit is to always take one of the two stairways when journeying between the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th floors in the Tower area of the show and the 4th and 5th floors in the Atrium part of the show.

Now for the not-so low hanging fruit. 🙂

One can traverse the stairways between the 2nd and 8th floors. It is somewhat easier going down than up.

And one of those stairways ends up down on the ground floor taking you OUTSIDE, to the right of the main entrance and to the left of the North side entrance. This door is usually open, and people who grow impatient waiting for the main Tower elevators to return from their sojourn to Tibet could, if they would be so bold, to go out the exterior doors to the left of the elevator bank, hang a right, walk about 40 feet and through a metal exterior door and take the stairs up to 2nd, or, for the not faint of heart, the 8th.

The stairways for the Atrium side of the show also go down to the ground floor – but exterior doors are typically locked [a change they made 3 or 5 years ago]. This means that you really can’t use these stairs to go up from the ground floor to the 4th or 5th floors.

And when descending the Atrium stairs down to the ground floor, you will either find yourself outside in a hurry [and, BTW, it does rain and snow in Denver. You will need something to protect your camera and / or self] or you will find yourself in an airlock next to Audio Limits’ room and have to frantically wave at people through the locked glass doors to get them to let you back into the building [have done this many times. However, it really works much better during show hours when there are people around. Otherwise you have to exit through the exterior door and take a long walk around the hotel back to the main front entrance].

Well, those are my tips and tricks.

Perhaps somebody has some others they might want to share.

Oh, and there are also the freight elevators, which break a lot less frequently than the guest elevators for some reason – but we do not use them when we are, you know, gearless – otherwise it seems kind of rude to those that are, you know, gearfull.

RMAF

Is everybody ready?

For those are not going…. we completely understand. But here we are once again in October, so here we go once again to attend [not show, however, small rooms do not work for us.] at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2013.

For those that are going: I think it is important, fun and ear-ducational for everybody to go to and try and hear each and every room.

No, I mean yes pundits say it is impossible but no, it is not. All good citizens of audiophiledom should hear as many different systems as possible. The weird. The awful. The spectacular. The clunky. The sweet. The raw. Low res, high res, turntables versus iPods, planars versus horns, everything.

In this way you take back the power from the pundits who may not have your best interests in mind.

It really is a great and fairly unique opportunity to try and understand what you like about each system and what you do not. By all means hang out for awhile in rooms that you like – and try to listen deeper to determine why it is one of your favorites.

But… still… try and not let that stop you from hearing everything else.

And be careful about spending too much time in rooms with components that you have ‘heard about’, struggling to hear why in the heck people actually like the darn thing. Sometimes, way too often, standout components, even if they really are standout, are found in a system that is not conducive to showing off that component in its best light [think unbroken-in gear and, more recently, laptop DACs or iPod sources]

There are 20 hours, and about 160 rooms, which leaves 7 and a half minutes for each room minus walking time. That is two full songs in many music genres.

And here are guidelines to help improve the amount of time for listening:

1. If the room exhibitor is talking with someone and appears to not be even close to executing that familiar slow Tai Chi-like ‘putting on music while talking to someone’ pose [and as opposed to Jet Li-style WHOOSH and ‘we are now playing the next track already thank you very much’]. Then move on, making a mental note to return to this room if possible.

2. If the room is too loud or too aggressive, save your ears. Move on making a mental note to return to this room if possible when it is quieter / sounds better.

3. If you go into a room and are attacked by rapid salespeople. This doesn’t happen all that much at hi-fi shows – but it does happen. Maybe 5% of the time? Run away as fast as you possibly can [which, you know, will not be all that fast because you are carrying a ton of LPs and a winter coat – its Denver] making a mental note to return to this room if possible when they are on their pee break [I did this a lot back-in-the-day. Now I just tell them to ‘talk to the hand’. Yeah. Right. Unfortunately I am not yet a terminator-grade show reporter. No, I let them talk to Neli, which they like way more than talking to a trouble maker like me, anyway ;-)].

4. If you go into a room and one of the famous reviewers are in there, you know, reviewing and all [and sometimes even the want-to-be famous reviewers]. The real famous reviewers are typically nice but scare the bejeezus out of most exhibitors, making for a tense listening session for you. Some of the want-to-be famous are jerks and will give you dirty looks if you breathe, also making for a tense listening session. Move on making a mental note to return to this room if possible when the there are just ordinary folks in the room [I know I am also a distraction when I am in a room taking photos with my camera with its seemingly 95dB click. But I do try to be as quick as possible and I have learned over the last 12 years or so to try and not stand in front a speaker why I am taking photos, at least, though no doubt I affect the soundstage presumably with negative effect].

[You would think watching a famous reviewer listening to a system would be educational, but they look just like some ordinary bloke who wandered off the street listening to some esoteric piece of music that they are apparently intimately familiar with but which nobody else has ever heard of before. You know. You see these people all the time. If not in the mirror, then look to your left or right. Just move on, nothing to see here.]

Reasons not to just move on. I know lots of people use the reasons below to skip a room, but I do not and wish everybody else [hint: Neli ;-). And JL. And … OK, the whole lot of ya :-)) would not either.

1. They are playing music you do not like. Hopefully the next song will be more to your liking.

2. The system is too inexpensive and will not ever be on your ‘to buy’ list. It is always instructive to see what less expensive systems can do well, and what they do not. Keep your ears in shape, make them work to identify the things that you are getting for those megabucks you spent on your more expensive gear.

3. The system is too expensive. Again, keep your ears in shape, listen and heart what can now be done with the most recent technology. Get inspired. These capabilities do trickle down to reasonably priced gear fairly rapidly [not just compared to tectonic plate movements either – if the technology CAN be trickled down at all, it is usually with a half-life of, say, 5 years (about 1/2 of the companies who are going to take advantage of the technology, are doing so after 5 years). By comparison, website technology trickles down with a half-life of about 8 months. And cars about 3 years? So at least some audio manufacturers are pretty good when it comes to adopting new technology].

4. Don’t like the exhibitor. Sometimes jerks setup a good system. Life is not always fair and often makes no sense at all.

5. Need to take a elevator / walk up stairs to get to the room (this barrier is near impassable for many reviewers and forum pundits)

6. There is nothing ‘new’ in the room – no new version of something, no new component of some sort. (I think Einstein was working on this law of the physical universe when he passed away – something to do with how ‘news’ is locally defined within a small group of people that mostly just talk to others in the small group. ;-)]

7. The seats are too comfortable [Ha! just seeing if you are paying attention]. Comfortable seating is like a super massive black hole that sucks you down and requires a supreme effort and massive amounts of energy to escape. B-E-W-A-R-E.

See y’all at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest everybody!