by Michael

How to Make a Successful Show System

Looking at the the rooms that sounded good at this years 2008 CES show, one might wonder, if one has the time to wonder about things, if there are any commonalities between the rooms that sounded musical [by which we mean a system that is engaging and has an audiophile performance commensurate with the price].

But, looking at the rooms…

We CAN say that a lot of old wives tales [just who WERE those old wives, anyway?] and rules of thumb are not really rules that people should be paying a whole lot of attention to.

For example:

* Always use small speakers in a small room, and big speakers in a big room.

But the huge Evolution Acoustics speakers sounded just fine thank you in a tiny room, and the Classic Audio Productions horn speakers sounded darn good in the Atma-sphere room, and similarly the Hansens [though this year they did bring a somewhat smaller speaker]. Now, mind you, they didn’t try and turn the systems all The WAy UP – not while I was there – and I am sure they could overload the room just fine. But that capability can also be a real plus when you think about certain genres of music that can use a little volume. On the other hand, the Cessaro speakers in the Zanden room did feel a little too large – that the room was impacting too much on the music.

It seems much more true that small speakers in a large room do not fill the room satisfactorily – though the little Magicos can do well [you just need to drive the poop out of them] and many small speakers in the best of show rooms filled their side of the room quite nicely indeed.

OK, what other rules can we throw away 🙂

* It costs a lot of money to make a great sounding system

This one is easy. It takes a lot of money to make a great PERFORMING system, one that is at the leading edge of humanity’s ability to reproduce music, one that has all of the audiophile attributes associated with the ‘high-end’. But if someone just wants to enjoy listening to music on a system that sounds good – that is not embarrassingly offensive – that was not built by people just trying to put out product without any thought to the performance that CAN be achieved at their asking price – then this is possible at all price points.

————————————-

And then there are rules that do seem to always apply [it is so like life to have some rules that work and some that are more flaky].

* Its hard to make a system sound good when the source equipment is severely compromised with respect to the rest of the equipment.

Many rooms had problems associated with source equipment that was almost an insult to the listeners – almost a ‘no one cares about how it is going to sound’ attitude. They used everything from DVD players to CD carousel players to iPods to laptops with cheap soundcards. EEEEwwwwww!!! They sounded… how shall we put it…. severely compromised.

This rule really is: Source components won’t Make a system, but they Can break it.

* Things like cables, equipment racks, power cords, etc. rarely make or break a system.

These are really ways to refine a system and get the most out of it as one can. But at a show – this level of attention to detail is appreciated, but systems can sound good at shows with cables and racks that we would not be caught dead using here.

* It is the amp / speaker combo that determines in large part what the system will sound like. This is what Makes a system.

If this ain’t right – well, might as well go home. Luckily a lot of combinations do work.

Sure would be nice though for some exhibitors to realize that their combo does Not work and try something different one of these years.

—————————–

Shows are one great laboratory where one has a lot of experiments running at once – about 233+ of them.

OK, I’ll add to this list if we come up with some more lessons learned. A lot of the lessons have to do with training the ear – learning how things sound… low efficiency speakers, different kinds of solid-state amps, different kinds of speaker cabinets, different kinds of cables and… on and on.

The thing, for me, at this years show was being able to tell if the exhibitors paid attention to the details of system configuration. No, I probably couldn’t do this blind, but with the help of looking at a system, I think I can now hear how there are fewer problems in some systems, that they played with things enough, optimized things to a point where a lot of the things wrong with other people’s systems – things that one just accepts at a show like room problems, vibration-induced congestion, etc. were reduced quite a bit if the exhibitors spent some time on system setup.

Again, this didn’t Make or Break the system, perhaps, not going to turn a sleeper system into a Standout, but it did make the systems more enjoyable – and more likely to get on the Best of Show list when perhaps otherwise they would otherwise just be mediocre and kind of annoying.

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Ever Present Vibrations and Their Deleterious Effects

Thinking about vibration and the effect is has on electronics, and cartridges, a question came up.

If vibrations from the sound of the system affects the sound of the system, negatively, as we all know it does [vibrations cause the wires in electronic equipment to move, and since they are often in some kind of magnetic field(s), these vibrations generate electric current in the wires that has nothing to do with the sound. Egro: noise]….

…then what about other vibrations?

Especially second story vibrations:

1. Here, we have wind that vibrates the house a lot
2. People walking or kids playing
3. Vibrations from the refrigerator motors
4. Vibrations from other people and elevators when in an apartment building.

And even ground floor vibrations:

1. Passing traffic, especially when the listening room location is near a busy road.
2. Some people have big freezers and furnaces down stairs, and sometimes the vibrations of these are transmitted though the foundation.

Anyway, our main listening room is upstairs, and I wonder how much higher a noise floor we have hear because of environmental vibrations.

Hard to test, because when it is really windy, and the house is shaking – it is also very noisy just from the noise of the wind.

Similarly with large trucks, that might be a mile away, but we can hear them [it is quiet up here] and once in a while feel them, especially when they use their exhaust brake [which is illegal up here, but if you gotta slow down, ya gotta slow down….]

So, there are indeed probably deleterious effects from environmental vibrations, causing a raising of the noise floor, but the noise from the things causing the environmental vibrations raises the noise floor itself, and even higher than that caused by the vibrations it causes, so it is probably not worth worrying about [i.e. if kids are running around, pounding the floor with their little feet, they are probably screaming too ;-)].

Not worth worrying about? Whew! OK, good. Neli! We can go on with our lives now. Such as they are….

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy 0 comments
 by Michael

Press as the Public Relations Arm of Industry

There are a lot of pieces and parts of the show report – kind of sprinkled in amongst almost 2000 photos – and even I forget where I said what.

But one of the themes this year was influenced by a ‘Cranky Geeks’ episode (online or special TiVo download) that crystallized, for me, the problem with most reviews in our industry. Although Cranky Geeks was talking about the software industry – it applied equally well to ours [and the Washington Press Core as well, but let’s not go there].

That is that the press is serving as the Public Relations arm of the Industry. The corporations. They take press releases [well, in high-end audio, we don’t need no stinking press releases – so our reviewers have to do more work], massage it, and spit it back out as a review.

Thinking about this off and on during the last few weeks as I do the kind of laborious task of juggling CES photos, I think that there are telltale signs of reviews that are really just PR – that really just server as pages for the industry to link to, to serve as an incentive for the industry to donate free equipment to get more of, a safe place to advertise on.

And those signs are that it reads like PR.

PR, like your prototypical salesperson, never, ever, ever say anything bad about what they are selling. Nothing that can even be *slightly* construed as negative about the piece of equipment.

Now reviewers are famous for putting in clues that seem like they maybe might be a hint at what they really think about the component.

But, think about it. All components have a sound and have issues. .

So most reviews are like describing a car crash by saying over and over again how great the car was – and about what songs were playing in the car at the time of the crash.

Anyway, I grew up respecting the press as being honorable, reporting what was really happening, very often DIFFERENT from what the official spin was about the events. Now it is all in support of making more money. Not making waves.

And the only reviewer who I have any confidence in that they actually write real reviews is Mike Fremer.

Sure, he ignores his prejudices, and ignores how badly his poor sad room affects the sound, and ignores the fact that much of his system equipment is flawed and affects what his results are going to be. So he ain’t perfect [and he has some anger management issues – or at least, he should learn to count to ten before posting. I know. I know. Many people want me to count to a billion before posting]. But I think he is the best we got. [Which is saying a lot about the state of the press industry here, huh?]. And I think he has been getting better.

HP hasn’t written a real review for years and years. Art Dudly, Srajan are runners up – and they may be just as good as Mike, but I just don’t read enough of their reviews, especially of equipment that I am familiar with that have easily agreed-upon issues.

As far as the other reviewers go, as far as I have time to read their copy – uh, well, there is really no reason for me to go farther.

I haven’t met Mr. Fremer, nor Art Dudley and have no specific desire to do so [I emailed once or twice with Fremer about 6 years ago]. I have met Srajan at shows when he used to go to shows here in the U.S. [and he is the only member of the press that acknowledges we exist – all the others try hard to ignore us because we encroach on their (abandoned, as this post testifies) domain] but he doesn’t review stuff I am familiar with – and I instead mostly end up reading his editorials.

Anyway, to wrap this up – it is not like reviewers, in general, are any more a**holes than the rest of us – in fact, of the few I see at shows, most of them are just like the rest of us. It is just that I see the responsibilities of being a reporter differently than they do.

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Reviewers / Show Reports / Sounding Off 8 comments