by Michael

The Room, The Room, Boss

[Fantasy Island….]

OK, we like the custom room design folks that we have met, and they seem to be doing a thriving business, and there is nothing wrong with that….

But I feel so OFTEN like putting up an ad right next to some of the dealer et. al. ads I see that have photos of their rooms whose appearance makes them come seemingly from ‘the outer world’ [Dune, the movie]

“New High End Audio System!
* Brand new technology, works in any room of your existing home!
* No need for for remodeling, hammering, dust, construction workers, their dogs and cigarettes and trash!
* No “long stream of cost overruns” heartburn.
* No agonizing choices between Brown1, Brown2 and Brown3
* No ackward moments of senility revealed when you have to pay extra to have the bluegreen painted over that looked so good last week.
* No choices between painting over the gray that was painted over the bluegreen and Prozac in order to avoid the depression the gray is inflicting.
* No disturbingly unhealthy choices between having windows and just having a peephole.
* No need to sink your money into something that you will have to leave behind when you move.
* No need to spend Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars on something for your house that for the average buyer will actually lower its resale value!

Save some money and buy instead your dream system, and spend the rest on your significant other. Might we suggest the Marten Coltrane Supremes and Audio Note M10 pre and Lamm ML2.1 amps and Emm Labs digital and HRS MXR rack and….?”

Let’s see, if we run that in Stereophile and the Absolute Sound….what do you think the response will be? 🙂 🙂

Anyway, the dedicated custom-designed room hype is here and quite strong and I am sure this will rankle some folks – as going against the prevaling winds as the experts have mapped them always does, no matter what the industry.

Sometimes, it seems like we are ‘going nowhere awfully fast’. [Scotty, Star Trek]

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Humor / Philosophy 2 comments
 by Michael

CEDIA EXPO 2006, CEDIA 2007, CEDIA 2008

We just learned that CEDIA 2007 and 2008 will be in Denver as well as was 2006. Wow – for some reason we just assumed that CEDIA would be traveling to another city next year like it always does…

So, expect a show report from us again next year. I noticed engadget.com is now starting to post larger pictures… but no one posts show reports like we do. They are a little hard on the computer and network, but easy on the eyes 🙂

We posted a number of links to our show report in various forums:

AVS Forum in the Ultra $20,000+ section and Home Theater Forum in their special CEDIA section people seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

On Audio Asylum no one seemed interested. On Home Theater Spot they deleted my chatty post and banned my login from the forum. No accounting for taste, I guess.

We had a good time at the show. Looking forward to next year, in fact. Just like audio shows, the demonstrations are way better than what you can get at your typical dealership.

Neli did run into someone with 2-channel envy at the ReQuest booth. After telling the guy what we did for a living, he apparently went on and on about CD-changers this and dead-SACD that… so much so that Neli just had to walk away without getting to ask any questions about their music servers. Yeah, we also think ultra high-end 2-channel audio is more fun than selling turnkey-software boxes that are running head-first into the free-open-source software-on-linux (and begrudgingly Windows) movement …. no matter how much people try to convince us (and themselves) that it aint so 😉

Anyway, one thinmg that the show has done is infected us with a desire to upgrade our video here at AF. And even more, to set up a HT system where the sound doesn’t impinge on the enjoyment of the movie – in fact, it may even ENHANCE the enjoyment! [ironically enough, huh?].

in CEDIA 2006 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 3 comments
 by Michael

RMAF 2006 is coming right up…

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest – the Denver High-end Audio Show – is coming in about a month, on October 20, 21, 22 2006.

We will of course be exhibiting at this show, as we have the last two years. Same room too, end of the hall on the ninth floor in the large suite: room 9030.

What is not ‘of course’ is what we will be showing – but we are PLANNING on showing the following:

* Marten Design Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers
* Audio Note U.K. Kegon amplifiers
* Audio Note U.K. M10 preamplifier
* Emm Labs DCC2 and CDSD Signature Editions CD / SACD player
* Brinkmann Audio Balance Turntable with Titan cartridge and Lamm LP2 phonostage
* HRS MXR equipment rack and assorted M3 Isolation Bases
* Nordost Valhalla interconnect (10 meter run from preamp to amplifiers)
* Jorma speaker cable
* Sunyata power cords

The rest of the equipment rackage and cabling is still TBD. We might also bring another digital source – but we are running into rack-space problems (the M10 is a 3-box preamplifier).

Question: How many billions of hours have audiophiles spent trying to figure out how to place all their components on the seemingly always too few shelves of their equipment rack?

In attendance, besides Neli and I and Steve, local customer and invaluable assistant, will be:

* Dan Meinwald – Importer for Marten Design and Jorma Design
* Laurence Blair III – Importer for Brinkmann Audio
* Leif Olofsson – Marten Design
* Jorma Koski – Jorma Design
* Peter Qvortrup – Audio Note U.K. (next door in the Audio Note / Audio Federation room, room 9026)
* Mike Latvis – HRS (Harmonic Resolution systems)
* Steven Norber – Edge Electronics

If, for some reason the Supremes do not get here in time, we will exhibit with the Marten Design Coltrane loudspeakers.

If for some reason those are also not available, i.e. they get sold, we would probably exhibit with the SoundLab U1 loudspeakers.

If the SoundLab upgrade has not come back from the factory by then, we would then exhibit with either the Kharma Mini Exquisites or Audio Note U.K. loudspeakers (or most likely BOTH).

Which is OK, as these speakers both sound as good as the others – they just do not fill a room that size quite as easily – and, you know it is true, many people go to shows to be WOW’d, and not so much to hear great sound (we try to give them both 🙂

The above is subject to change, of course. For example, we will probably take a backup amp : either the EDGE Signature One or Lamm ML2.1 – or both if everybody but me (who has to carry these down the 45 steps… and back up again after the show) gets their way. :-O

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / RMAF 2006 / Show Reports 0 comments