While going over what I thought were the better sounding rooms at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I realized something.

Most of the rooms excelled in one or another particular category of sonic preferences, but were only average, or so, in the others:

Sweet: Intuitive Design + Amber Wave Audio

Impressive: FM Acoustics + Acapella [MBLs, duh, Wilson + BAT and Classic Audio + Atmosphere. have too many problems, but notice how the most easily accessible and impressive rooms garnered most of the attention on the forums?]

Sophisticated: YG Acoustics + Krell + DCS [and Apogee]

Enjoyable: Odyssey

I think this also makes sense from a show reporter’s duty to try and convey what various people would like had they heard everything and were able to rule out the, uh, not so prefect rooms more quickly.

I am trying to get a Linnie to tell me why and how he likes his system – so we can add / understand this category of preference that some people have. Not sure any Linnies will talk to me anymore after the last report, but… we’ll see. It can’t just be about brand loyalty and a few good components… Then again, this is the only thing going for about half [optimistically] of the lines out there, so maybe it is for Linn too. [Hmmmmm…. boy, a lot of lines are popping into my head that this is more than obviously true for….]

————————–

Are we nuts to say nice things about equipment that we do not get free to ‘evaluate’ for 6 months, a year, forever? When these manufacturers do not pay us $500 to $3500 a month to run ads?

You would think so to look at some [but not all!] of the ‘professional’ show reports out there.

We have thought [mostly Neli 🙂 because she thought it was funny. Me, it just did not seem like it was going to help the situations any], over the years, about giving out ‘Q-Tip Awards’ to various rooms because we thought they needed encouragement to improve the sound of their room. You know, a kind of not-all-that-funny Worst Of Show list of rooms. [But you have to admit, many rooms are just going to sound terminally bad because of the way they set them up and the way chose their components. Assuming they care, of course, they could use some honest feedback about what someone else thought they did right and wrong].

But perhaps we should really give them out to various reporters / reviewers, not exhibitors. Of course, we’ll probably get even less coverage of our rooms than we do now.

It still won’t help them be more honest or get better ears… but in the interest of accurate show reporting, perhaps it does make some sense.

[Oh, and I am sure all you industry people are going to speak right up on this one, huh? 🙂 But seriously, the rest of you people, you can comment at any time. Really. Don’t have to register anymore or anything. Easy and Free. We know you are out there 🙂 Do you prefer giant treatises or photos? Never mind, doesn’t matter, we got both – we [me, ugh] just did another component swap workout here and should have new photos up here today or tomorrow.]