As I try to think about where this system lies along the mid-fi -> high-fi yardstick  - there are so many systems (I hesitate to say speakers, because I think many can be cured with a little remedial system engineering) that are mid-fi on steroids. Oh yes, they have a lot of bass, and an impressive amount of detail. But they are just a Best Buy system at heart. Does a piano sound like a piano? When more than 3 entrustments are playing at a time is it all mixed together like mashed potatoes?

Most of you know the several brands of speakers I am thinking of - but they are also expensive and people do not like being told they have been had - so I'll be nice and not mention names, just this once :-)

I think we should put Odyssey at entry-level high-fi. In my opinion, it certainly sounds no LESS real than these other 'trophy' systems.

Last year, they weren't playing music and we just took a photo of their monitor there in the upper right, like the other show reports seem to be doing this year.

The Channel D folks objected to my impressions of their rooms, saying I had only been in there '10 seconds'. 

I seem to have to say this every report:

It takes only a second or two to recognize damaged sound, and a lifetime to explore great sound. How long does it take you at Circuit City to recognize that the sound is not to your liking? Is ten seconds about nine seconds too long?

Now, how long does it take to find what the weaknesses are of the best amps in the world? Best speakers? Best CD players? Are people still looking for their weaknesses?

As for this particular room, how is a person going to tell how well their new approach works? The listening experience is so compromised that these guys could have a concept here that will revolutionize analog playback and no one would be able to hear it.

Like the Upgrade Audio room, you have to rule out listening for changes in small details, subtle changes of tonality, subtle transitions of the note attack and decay, details in the bass, etc. etc. To me, those are the important things! Its what we pay the big bucks to reproduce.

We weren't blown away by the sound in this room. The little Acoustic Zen Adagios are still our favorites at this point - I mean, $4K for a true high-fi speaker? Hard to compete against that.

I usually like the systems with these Intuitive Design speakers, and this was not exception. With their granite cabinets and whatever else they must do infernally, they have few contributions and deadening from the speaker enclose and let a lot of the energy of the music through.

The sound was very liquid and warm. Speaking of warm...

We had the same problem in our room - with 10 to 25 people in the room for hours on end, it got really hot. I would turn on the air-conditioning and Neli would turn it off. I'd turn it back on and ... well, it was just like home.

But seriously, I do not enjoy music as much when I am uncomfortable physically. Maybe others do  not care about heat and care more about the noise of the air-conditioner. But in any case, I left here without hearing much of the sound because it was uncomfortable for me, there. I was probably already more warm than other people because I was moving through the show fairly rapidly and carrying a 100 lb camera (well, more like 10 lbs, but if FELT like 100 lbs).