CES is almost upon us. I finally registered and found out that they are now charging $100 for attendees registering after Halloween. Neli of course registered months ago. Maybe this $100 charge will reduce the number down from 140,000 to, oh I don’t know, zero? Maybe not, though.
This year I am again going as a member of that sneaky [you bet] subversive [I wish] group… the ‘press’… who seem to get in free. Who knew?
Will the economy keep people away? I have no idea. We are going – but I am not sure if we are going to show anything this year.
Our show report will be different this year. Well, it is different just about every year – but here is how it will be different THIS year.
The Magazine
Most of the photos will be in the magazine, in a format that is very modern in its use of web technology. At this point, we are going to have one page per room, with all their photos and with one photo super-sized to fill the window. So you people with giant 24 and 30 inch monitors, or who surf the web on your front projection system – you will get the real, sun-glasses ARE required, sensory overload impact. But you people with smaller screens won’t miss a thing either – because everything will scale down as well as up.
And hopefully we will have an intuitive zoom mode – so that we will ALL now see how to operate the buttons on the front panels of all the gear at the show 🙂
The commentary will be thought-provoking, and analytical – but not detailed and critical. That part of the show report will still be on Audio Federation’s website.
Why not put the critiques of each room in the magazine’s show report?
Well, for one, yes, we want to have advertisers put ads on, and link to, their room’s page [and our ads are permanent – like real magazines – they get paid for once and they stay there – they won’t just disappear next month if the advertiser stops paying their monthly fee].
Another reason is that most people in this hobby – hate to say it – do not care all that much about the sound at shows. They have been ‘told’ that the sound at shows “can’t” be any good. Blah Blah Blah. So, a $10K system that sounds slow and dull? It is the shows’ fault. A $500K system sounds slow and dull? It’s the shows’ fault. [someday we’ll have to write something on how audiophiles have been programmed to think certain things – and by who.. or is that whom?]
The Audio Federation Show Report
…Will have one photo per room and a critique of the sound in the room – when it is worth commenting on.
As far as I know, we are the only ones, in this whole blamed world, who actually write something that gives some idea of what rooms actually sounded like [though there is Larry Borden, a little bit, sometimes, and Trelja, though mostly reaction instead of analysis]. It might actually be fun if more rooms sounded interesting….
