Listened to a live CD of Roy Buchanan. Horrible recording quality – but I now believe that Roy Buchanan is a s facile with the guitar, as able to bring out the subtle emotions he is reaching for, with even more dexterity and ease than Jimi Hendrix himself.
Neli drove some of our stuff down today. A couple of more trips tomorrow and we’ll be ready for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
This year we are showing a 100% Audio Note level 5 system on HRS platforms and rack. This is the first time we have shown 100% Audio Note systems in both our room and the Audio Note room – but as we try and change things a little each year we thought this would be fun.
This will consist of:
AN/E SEC Signature speakers
Kegon Balanced monoblock amps
M9 Phono preamplifier
Fifth Element DAC and Fifth Force power supply
CDT-5 transport
SOTTO and PALLAS cabling
Sogon power cords
Peter Qvortrup – Audio Note founder and CEO will also be in attendance.
At this time I am planning on doing an ‘abbreviated’ show report, like last year.
Interesting things pre-show? It looks like Cessaro and GOTO and maybe Silbatone will have some interesting horn speakers for us to listen to.
Here’s hoping for some good drug-like sound at the show – I can really use it. I bet all of us could. 🙂 On the other hand, we’ve been getting good druggy sound here and it makes me not want to post on the blog or read the trade rags and visit the forums… or go to shows – been a very quiet summer… 🙂 Maybe some drug-like sounds are a little too relaxing? Nahhhhh….
Hedge Funds, Investor Groups buying high-end audio manufacturers? Why? As an investment [do they know something we do not?] or as a hobby [trying to relive their 2nd, or like me, their 19th childhoods?].
I believe ARC, Krell, and Sonus Faber are in this category.
Then a few weeks ago Focal bought [reading between the lines] Naim.
Can we blame these troubles on the ipod? I saw a stat that 16 billion songs have been bought on itunes. That is 16 billion dollars that could have bought a decent system or two – but probably would have gone into CDs a decade ago.
Cisco, of all companies, conducted a survey of our youth and they would rather hang out on the internet than go on a date and rather own a smart phone than a car. That old ‘pendulum’ has swung kind of far from where it was when I was young[er].
Who knows what the future brings, but right now the sector of the market that was setup to be attractive to college students probably isn’t doing very well.
On the other hand, our part of the market, the ultra, uber, stratospheric part of the market is doing OK [would do better if so many people weren’t ‘short’ America deliberately trash talking the economy for personal gain (most large corps are reporting a bettering economy, and even the real-estate market locally is picking up, albeit our home here is still unsold – hint, hint :-).].
As for high-end audio ‘for the rest of us’ [get it? This is Apple’s old slogan], something like a wireless system headed by an iPad with DAC and Amps in the speakers might be ‘cool’ to the next generation [now Neli tells me that something like this was also proposed on c|net earlier today], the generation who will not know what to do with a CD and more than they know what to do with an LP.
… and those hedge funds must be doing this as a hobby – or a write-off – or are looking at a awfully long time-frame which has that pendulum swing back…… back to where we are 🙂
