Yesterday I used the 50mm f1.4 lens for shooting for most of the day. It is a pain to have to stand accorss the room to take pictures with the thing – but when a picture is taken with it, correctly I mean, it is amazingly sharp and just stands out of the monitor like it was ‘real’ or something.

A good number of those 50mm pictures were a little too dark – I am still learning to use that lens (well, the camera too. I really am an avid audiophile with the desire to take pictures of what I think is really cool and beautful – but little skill at this point). But some look pretty good…

Spent too much time at diner at the La Baguette D’ivoire ‘Fine Asian Cuisine’ about 5 blocks from the hotel. Very good mix of Thai and Vietnamese and Chinese. Yummy. No website, (514) 932-7099.

Got back at midnight and had time to process and put up only a few new pictures on Day Two’s dailies. Try to put some more up now….

It was much busier here yesterday. By 11:00 am you had to wait to get into most (90%)rooms, waiting until the next swell of pople left and you can swqueez in,to slowly move your way to the top as more people left.

For the impatient this doesn’t work very well. You really have to pick and chose a room(s) you want to hear and ‘stake them out’ – spending the time to nab that center seat in the sweet spot.

The sound of most rooms has settle down to what it is going to be (except for the rooms where they plan on switching speakers – for examle I was tld that one of the larger rooms will switch the Rockports in for the Avalon Eidolon Viision speakers).

THAT room, …had difficulties, apparently trying to make Avaon sound ‘Impressive’ b rnning them with a BIG VTL amp, and amp whch IMHO has no purpose but to put out large amounts of power, incapable of handliing microdynamics, or more than a few notes at a time for that matter – so the overall effect is one of a ‘compressed and muddled shouting of music’. These people carry excellent product lines – wish they had used a different amp here. These are great speakers – and I guess it is good to know just how bad they CAN sound.

The BIG all McIntosh room, with the lovely big amps and towering linearray speakers, also had difficulties. Tonality is way off here and over there, dynamics are uneven, most notes are starting early or late, and ending in simlar dissarry. Sounded MUUUUCH better in LAs Vegas on the big Dali Megalie speakers.

The other two big rooms downstairs we dissagree on. Neli is more forgivving of he faults of the Jadis-driven Pierre Gabrial speakers room, and I of the Sim Audio Moon-driven Dynaudio room. So more later on this maritial disagreement we we return to iron out this discrepency in good judgement on her part… 🙂

Got to hear and take pictures of most of the rooms today. I think we missed about two rooms per floor – mostly because they were too crowded to get into right then. Quite heavy traffic for the first day, seems to me.

The day started at 10:00 am and finished at 9:00pm, but we were pooped at 7:00pm and decided to go eat. Tonight we walked over (no huffing this time, it was only 3 blocks) to Cuisine Indienne. If you like Indian food, this is an excellent restaurant – we have had Indian food at literally 100s of places across the country. Not spicey, unfortunately, but very good.

The sound today was pretty good, but most systems were still just warming up. My expectation now is that there will be a number of ‘good’ sounding systems, but nothing ground breaking or magical.

Key points from the first day’s ‘dailies’: It sounds like the Fidelio people really know how to set up a great show system. The Berning amps can really drive difficult speakers. Little Cabasse speakers seem to be quite good. The Vivid Audio speakers are yet another speaker to join (well, join is not the right word, but it is late) the ranks of speakers that have very, very little box coloration that I can hear.

Sleep. Uh… After the city police and fireengine sirens calm down yet again….Sleep