I think you all might enjoy Pez’s show report (I did):
Day 3 is forthcoming.
We seem to hear more or less the same things – although perhaps reaching different conclusions sometimes… 🙂
Still not awake….
We decided to drive back last night instead of this morning. Got in around 2:30am.
I took 3246 photos. First the dailies will be completed, with the 1 photo per room overview. That should be up after get back from we driving back down to the show to have lunch with Mike Latvis. [well, we enjoy our time with Mike THAT much, OK? Yeah, yeah, The silliness of it strikes us as well. ]
Then we will do the full, archival quality report. That will be fun, for me, because I get to see what all those close-up photos show that my eyes do not have the ability, nor time, to see and enjoy at the time they were taken.
[OK, head still spinning. Yep, I will let Neli do the driving this morning].
Just came on.
Do we dare power back up the system?
… are up on Spintricity.
I was emailing with Yoav of YG Acoustics about Spintricity earlier this month and he mentioned that the Japan Audio Show was the same time as RMAF this year.
Well, I did not realize it falls on EXACTLY THE SAME 3 days:
We hope to get some photos of this years show in Japan, but the scuttlebutt is that many exhibitors at that show discourage people taking photographs… can you imagine? A show with a policy like that would make me feel… nauseous. 🙂
Traditionally, everyone who drives to RMAF, including us, wants it to be early October (or Sept) because that means that the probability of snow is less. Loading and unloading in the snow, trying to get over the snowed in mountain passes to the show – it just ain’t all that much fun.
But next year RMAF is on Oct. 15th. Oh boy oh boy.
But at least it would allow people to attend both shows if they want to.
The Audio Note M9 Phono preamp is still at the shippers… and 2 of the HRS M3 platforms are still coming in to a different shipper – but hopefully by driving all over Denver we will have everything together for our 9030 and 9026 rooms at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2009.
Everything except… a turntable for the big room. With the arm not arriving until tomorrow in Denver, with the crates to take the rack we would use for the turntable not arriving until tomorrow down in Denver – it is just too much…
Also, we really wanted to use an all Nordost ODIN system – although we love our 10 meter Valhalla (which runs from the rack with turntable that we usually have near the rear of the room) and we even had it converted to balanced for this show – it would just not be the ODIN.
So this means the entire system will be in the front of the room. This means going up in front of everybody to change a CD. It means just one source so we can’t swap quickly between them, leaving some time where No Music Is Playing.
So it sucks. But we hope the small size of the resultant system, it ability to be optimized with the 100% ODIN, and our better dispositions because we are not dead tired from lugging tons of equipment around – will all be of benefit to the overall show experience in our room.
Hope so, anyway.
We will be doing live reporting from the show – as usual. If they take the internet out of our exhibit room we will just make them Put It Back. Hopefully a few new features we added to Spintricity will let me put up more than the maximum 26 photos – which is usually all I have time for [which took about 1.5 hours]. I am hoping to double that… maybe even more than double.
We’ll see…
[OK. Here are the official list of features. Pretty impressive.
See the full brochure on Spintricity.]
o One gain stage from DAC to output with fully discrete Class A circuitry
o MDAT™ signal processing technology
o Provides 2x DSD upsampling for SACD and PCM playback
o Preserves phase, frequency and dynamic integrity of waveform
o MDAC™ discrete dual differential D-to-A conversion circuit
o MFAST™ technology for instant signal acquisition, jitter-free performance
o High-isolation resonant mode power supply for silent, green operation
o Exclusive aerospace-grade composite laminate circuit boards
o Silky smooth Esoteric™ drive
o Sculpted, brushed aluminum chassis
o Low resonance, internally braced design with thick, machined sole plate
o Available in silver or black
o LCD display with four brightness levels and a display-off setting
o New precision-machined aluminum multifunction infrared remote control
o Remote-controllable polarity inversion performed in the digital domain
o PCM inputs via AES/EBU and Toslink
For those of you with a monitor wider than 530 pixels…
Audio Note PALLAS interconnect
Several videos from CEDIA 2009
Milan Show coverage by Audiophile Bob
Milan Show coverage of Audio Note by Dave Cope
Our first exhibitor in the Online Audiophiles Show: Kevin’s Place
(we will put up the ‘turned on’ series of Emm labs XDS1 photos and some Nordost ODIN photos in the next day or two. And then it is off to RMAF!)
OK.
I am not sure what good it will do. And it is not like I think the entire Audiophile press is corrupt – which I don’t.
But we have been the only ones doing a show report that talks about the sound for a long time – and, like the very very few honest news programs out there that have actual real facts [you know, from Reality] and lots of bad news – people just do not know what to think about our ‘odd man out’ show report so to speak .
I think the parallel is the Miss America contest [or Miss Universe, or Mr. Universe for that matter, although Schwarzenegger in his day was the clear winner]. An audio show for 99% of the press and attendees is a Miss Universe contests with no ‘talent competition’.
She walks out in a bathing suit, people vote on looks and their preferred measurements, and that is it.
At an audio show, people vote for what they think sounds best with respect to their preferences. That’s it. A beauty contest that is all about the eye of the beholder.
It is like a car magazine where everyone takes a test drive and they all vote based on appearance and their experience about which is the best car. Who cares to talk about what the car will be used for. Or safety. Or reliability. Or price/performance. Or suitability for the average person. Or maintenance costs.
It is a very shallow ‘opinion’ by someone with no vested interest – they will not have to marry Miss America nor purchase the car with their hard earned money.
Yeah, so maybe the press is populated by shallow people and shallow people read what they write and all is as it should be in a shallow world.
So where is the place for people like us, and I sincerely hope, some of you?
People who want to know what is the best – REALLY, HONEST TO GOD. People who want them ranked and their weaknesses and strengths pointed out in a clear, straight forward manner.
I mean, audio is so much easier than cars. A car might be ruled out by many people because the driver’s seat is just too uncomfortable for some unknown reason, that the head room is just 1/2 inch too low, the suspension is just a wee bit too stiff.
Things like this is audio: the speakers too heavy to get up the stairs, the design requires too much space and your room is too small, whatever are easy and obviosu for us all to deal with AFTER we know which is the better speaker and which is not.
Given a kind of an average over types of sound, a sound that is not so over the top in some areas that it will be off-putting to most people, what room sounds the best. It will have very high if not the highest marks in what makes a good sound reproducing system – and doesn’t do anything so bad that invalidates all the other high scores.
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OK. Two thought experiments.
1.
Imagine an art show occurring in the Marriott. Each room has works by a single artist.
The press does not know the names of the artists. One of the rooms has a few unknown pieces by Picasso, a few unknown by Leonardo Da Vinci and the rest of the 100 rooms or so have art by local artists, some of which advertise in the magazines the press represents – so they are familiar with and know the artists and recognize their work.
Who gets best of show? What percentage give best of show to Picasso and/or Leonardo?
2.
Same art show. The names of the artists are posted on the doors to each room.
Who gets best of show. What order are the best of shows after the first 2?
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What does this mean?
It means that show reports are by and large useless [and I would expand this blanket statement to reviews as well].
The only cases where they are useful is when a reporter (when they have the ability to understand what they are experiencing) gets really excited about something they see [hey , that local artist COULD be the next Picasso].
As someone who came from the outside, thinking that as press I should report an accurate and honest account of what things sound like, well, I was the first one at the time (and I was clumsy and inexperienced) – and still the only one now.
A lot of people read the show reports, but they do not really like hearing bad news. Those real new channels only get 1%(?) of the listeners, and that is for presumably the same reason. Sure, I could accuse all the bad sounding rooms of being terrorists – and probably get my own cable channel – but I doubt if I could do it and keep from cracking up [laughing I mean :-)] at the blatant absurdity of this world.
So, do I continue bring bad news to people about how things really sound? It is not really ‘bad’, it is just that there is usually some bad and some good and some ho hum. It is not all BEST EVER like people have been trained to expect by the press.
Or do I put the real poop here in the blog, and let the masses see and learn about what is at the show without any independent coverage on Spintricity? I do like helping the ‘small guy’ get the word out – one of the reasons I do not talk much about the sound in their rooms unless it is actually better than expected – and this approach of segregating the show report would probably help them….as Spintricity show reports would probably get even more visitors that would then see the small guy’s wares.
A little rambling, I know.
But, as you might expect, this is a subject that I think about quite a bit.
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Summarizing:
*Preferences of the reporter have no place in a real show report – some sound is REALLY better and some is not for 90% of the listening public
*99% of the Press does not do their job
*Every system has some things it does not do perfectly
*Most people do not like to be reminded of reality
*Some people, however, will suffer facts in order to make informed buying decisions.
*All people are so inundated with lies and hype that they do not know what to believe
*Our show reports, now on Spintricity, is the only one [although Stereophile does darn good] to cover the small manufacturers
Our goals are two-fold: bringing audiophiles and manufacturers together (especially small ones, Musical Fidelty does not need our help). And to help our readers make informed buying decisions.
Perhaps these are best served by bifurcating the show report, putting analysis here on the blog, and leaving Spintricity to focus on helping connect audiophiles with cool equipment.
Opinions anyone?
When I wrote last year’s report, I had just finished reading the Watchmen graphics novel. I really liked the way the Rorschach spoke, and it was with his voice that I wrote the commentary of the report.
In the graphic novel, he was still a wacko, but he had this kind of cool, clipped, adverb-less way of speaking that I thought would be great for describing the rooms at the show. The movie -which I finally got around to watching – didn’t really capture the voice very well.
In any case, I meant it to be kind of CAMP and a tongue-in-cheek kind of over the top detective-speak more like Joe Friday than the Rorschach character in the movie.
The feedback I got however was that it did not go over like that with a lot of people,and I apologize if it seemed rude or psycho.
Maybe if I put up a little Joe Friday icon next to each comment, people will get the humor of it all….
It really was fun to write. Leaving out adverbs. Cool. Quick. To the point. Neli says still mistakes in XDS1 post. Argh. Perhaps kill self first. Then fix post.
