The rooms are a little small here at the show’s Sheraton Gateway Hotel – at least the one we are sleeping in, with unusual accoustics in both upper mids and upper bass areas.

Nice art-deco color scheme though…

It is very cloe to the airport. Out the window of this side of the building, and there are only, really, two sides being tall, wide and thin like this, you can see the airport on the other side of a large parking garage or two:

In the distance there, one can see planes, and planes taking off… rrrrrrrummmmmmbbbbbllllleeeeee

Yep, just like the Alexis Park at CES in Las Vegas…

Except a little more humid and less trees 😉

And LAX is a wee bit busier than the Las Vegas airport….

Noise floor? We don’t need no stinkin’ noise floor. “We got the rrrrrrrrumble baby!” [spoken in Telly Savalas’ voice (Kojak, the Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Hereos…). No? Then try Vin Diesel’s voice 🙂 ]

It is in L.A. this year.

We will attend. We will listen. We will photograph. We will report.

The HE 2006 show report home page is already setup.

We will, as always, try to post a bunch of pictures and commentary daily during the show.

After the show it will take a few days, but we will try, as always, to continue to make the Audio Federation show reports bigger, better and more honest than any other show report on or off the net:

* The largest number of photos, in 3 different resolutions (500 x 500, 1000 x 800 and 1500 x 1000), each with an animated and/or manual slideshow option… and more.

* Like both room-by-room photo montages as well as long, floor-by-floor marathons.

* Like more commentary on what things actually sounded like – not through rose-colored ear muffs, but what the roomsreally sounded like.

* Like more about what it felt like to be at the show – the emotion, the smells (not usually so good), the crowds….

We want the show report to be the next best thing to being there yourself!

Stereophile has graciously offered our readers a $5 off deal on tickets to the HE 2006 show. To save the 5 bucks, go to Home Entertainment 2006 to register and enter the super secret passcode “audiofederation” when you sign up for tickets online.

While checking out the location of the hotel, it appears to be right next to the airport…

PRO: We will be able to get to the hotel, from the airport, in finite time, i.e. before the show is supposed to be over

CON: The cultural amenities near most airports is necessarily, uh, minimal.

PRO: We will likely be able to locate the hotel just fine, even in the midst of one of the biggest cities in the world

CON: Depending on wind direction, it will either smell of airplane exhaust or we will hear the music only between airliner take offs (Hey! Shades of Alexis Park at CES in Las Vegas, may she rest in peace).

OK, I exaggerate.

I think.

Just being a small town boy, myself, these big cities are both more intimidating and more exciting than they are for many people who are more used to them.