Audio Federation

May 15, 2017 by Michael

Audio Federation at the LA Audio Show 2017

We will be at the LA Audio Show 2017 this year previously called T.H.E. Show Newport which was in Irvine. 😉

Setup is June 1 and the show opens June 2 and ends on June 4th at 4:00pm.

Acapella Audio Arts’ La Musika integrated amplifier

This is a new hotel for this show. Which I guess makes sense since this is kind of a new show, though it takes place in the same Greater L.A. area on the same dates as the old one. We all loved the old hotel – great service, decently solid walls and high-ceilings [which made the technique of bouncing the camera’s flash off the ceiling not work quite as well as it does in most hotel rooms]. And the energy of this hotel, being near the LA Airport vs. the previous being near Newport and the beach… well, the LA Audio Society has a lot of energy – they will just have to step in and lively up the place 🙂

We will be in room 534.

Speakers: Acapella Audio Arts Cellini High.

Amplifier: Acapella Audio Arts La Musika integrated

Digital: Audio Note CDT-5 transport and DAC 5 Signature

Rack: HRS SXR 3-shelf

Cables: A mix of Acapella, Audio Note and TBD

The Audio Note CDT-Five transport on a wonderful Spring day in Palo Alto

It has been a year since our last show, missing RMAF [ho-hum. Sorry, but after 10 years of showing every year that show is just… ], and CES too.

Shows I miss? The old CES / THE Show Alexis Park Las Vegas. More fun. Higher quality. More exuberance. More weird. More exhibits. But fewer newbies (I think) so the newer shows have at least made it possible for more startups to exhibit].

Hoping this new old stock show is spectacular! See ya there, or, if you can’t make it, we hope to try a livestream photos approach to the show report this year – more about this in a few weeks.

in LA Audio Show 2017 0 comments

May 11, 2017 by Michael

The MQA Controversy

The MQA controversy is bound to create some winners and losers in both manufacturing and for us audiophiles.

For example, LINN has a very strongly argued case against it:

MQA is Bad For Music

The Computer Audiophile has details about how MQA advances the state-of-the-art in some respects:

MQA (for civilians)

And over at HiFi+ they report that MQA might not even be lossless:

HIGHRESAUDIO TO STOP OFFERING MQA

And small manufacturers agonize over what THEY should do, and must pick sides:

ZWEIMANN AUDIO on FACEBOOK

MQA has funding and is making a bold move, but… I have a feeling things are moving so fast, that just about the time that MQA might start making an impact on the regular listening public, something new will already be replacing it.

What wins these days seem to be those things that go viral, not needing a heavy hand like the old format wars of days-gone-by.

But, who knows… not me. This one I am sitting out and taking a wait-and-see wake-me-when-its-all-over approach 🙂

March 28, 2017 by Michael

Audio Federation at CAS 2017

[Yes, we are going to Newport 2017 this Spring as well, and I’ll post where we will be when the powers that be (Neli) tell me the details :-)]

Here we are in the wonderful world where there is a show that is only 20 minutes away. 🙂

Although CAS skipped a year, it is back in force and we are signed up for one of the larger rooms on the first floor of the building where the vast majority of exhibit rooms will be.

It is now in Oakland, at the Hilton, with plenty of parking and rooms that do not have air conditioners or heaters where equipment is supposed to go [unlike most of the other shows, shows where you eventually just learn to sit on the thing while plugging cables into the back of the gear].

This is the hotel layout and where the rooms are located.

This is the room we are in. The front wall backs to the outside. So we will not disturb anybody if we play it a little LOUD [unless, however, our neighbors on the other side of the rear wall are too loud for our listeners to bear . in which case we will flip the room the other way. ]

Hmmm, maybe we should just put the system on the long wall, on the left, also an outer wall. You know, there is hardly ever any choice when we setup rooms about where the system should go. This is a such wealth of choices here [we, (well me anyway, haven’t talked to Neli about this recently), have been looking more favorably at long wall setups than we used to. Letting the sound breathe on the sides helps clarity and macrodynamics, and clarity OF macrodynamics :-)]

We’ve been wanting to go to this show for years and years. Every year we would talk and talk about it. One or the other of us would always not be able to make it. This is awesome.

in Acapella / Audio Note / California / CAS 2017 / News 0 comments