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i'm reading below where an inmate, and sure there are others, spent at most a few minutes in rooms (in order to get to all the rooms). how effective/workable is that? folks complain about manufacturers not putting in the time to tweak or treat a room but what about listening audiophiles who can't spare more than a few minutes per room?
H.F.N.
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Some rooms feel good to be in and some don't. I spend time in rooms that feel right. There are a lot of rooms that are just not worth it at a given show. Might be great gear but not working on that day in that room. My posts are below a couple of days back. I say yes you can tell a lot in the first five minutes. Usually the first thing I learn in five minutes is the guy running the room is deaf (like all the Harmon rooms). We move up from there. Jeff Joseph was very inviting and a great listen. All the Wilson rooms sounded great WHEN they were playing decent music. I know Dynaudio always sounds great, I spend no time there as I know should I get to that funding level they will be on the A list. I think the most interesting thing is reading posts praising rooms I hated or me praising rooms someone else hated. What is up with that. I know I am right so, um, I must be right :)
P
My speaker building site
While I sit here waiting for the phone to ring!!!!!!!!!!
This is all about building relationships and meeting people and finding gear that turns you on. I could not tell a lot about the nuance between the Magico and the Wilsons. I could hear a difference but I learned (as if I did already know) they are my top rung (along with others) and if I get to that level I now know I will take a harder listen to these. From that perspective these shows are worth a lot to the mfrs. It also allows one to get visual with the geat we see in pictures every month.
P
My speaker building site
The evaluations are not fair at all - but I don't think they're being OFFERED as fair evaluations. You would need to spend more time with each system, have a SPL meter to get levels close, and play familiar music or better yet the same track for each audition. Shows are just not set up for this. What I want to know from the show-goers is who brought the coolest gear, who's over the top, and who is fun and engages the attendees.
I usually take casual listening impressions with a grain of salt. But when audiophiles say they get stuck in a certain room and the more tracks they hear the more they realize the sound in that room is "right" - well statements like that tend to get more of my attention.
Cheers,
Presto
"I usually take casual listening impressions with a grain of salt. But when audiophiles say they get stuck in a certain room and the more tracks they hear the more they realize the sound in that room is "right" - well statements like that tend to get more of my attention."
This is kind of what happened to me at RMAF this past weekend. Because there were so many rooms I wanted to get to, if I went to a room and had an immediate and positive reaction to the sound, I spent more time in that room. This was the case with a number of rooms, e.g. JM Reynaud, Quad, Harbeth, Joseph Audio, EAR, and others. These were also rooms I visited more than once.
On the other hand, there were a few rooms where I disliked the sound so much that I didn't feel that spending any additional amount of time was going to make a difference. Not fair perhaps, but time is really an issue at RMAF when there are so many listening choices and a relatively short amount of time to get to those choices.
All in all I thought this was an excellent show. The only real negative for me was that there were less vinyl and CDs for sale this year.
As there a so many rooms at RMAF and no way that one could visit all of them in the weekend, what we do is identify the rooms we want to visit in the show guide each morning at breakfast, including planning the floors they are on, and that way we can spend the time we want in those chosen rooms.
Of course, there are those rooms that catch your attention just by walking by and unfortunately those rooms that sound so bad that only a few minutes are all that's needed and that free's up time to explore other rooms which sometimes reveals some real gems like the PrimaLuna USA room we visited on the last day which turned out to be one of THE most musical rooms of the show regardless of price.
~
There are of course many factors that need to add up to good sound in a random hotel room. At RMAF more than a few exhibitors scored and more than a few didn't. I heard a lot this year but also missed probably half. Even if the assumption is that the rooms are, with the exception of the big salons, equal, then there are still factors other than the gear at play that can mask good equipment. However, a room that sounds bad, for whatever reason, isn't going to show me much. I can listen through a lot but unless it is something that I'm predisposed to care about why waste time and in some cases, my hearing? There is little to be learned from bad setup. You can't even tell if it's the gear usually, right? Day one I spent more time than I might have in one room listening to smaller monitors hyped for their great bass. To me it was flabby, unbalanced, set up in the wrong position, too loud for the space and almost comical. I liked the people though and spoke to them a bit about it, thinking they might just not hear it. I came back the next day anticipating an improvement, was told they didn't change a thing, and saw that "Stereophile " LOVED it. Maybe I don't know squat, but I'd rather spend that wasted ten minutes poking my head into ten other rooms with the hope of hearing something better. At the end of the show I walked into a room that despite being the darling of some other forum had such low mid bloat that I just could't stay. It took me two seconds to hear that and five seconds for the exhibitor to read my face and apologize for the poor bass. I smiled, thanked my host, and left. But to get back to the original posters original point, isn't it an even greater disservice to exhibitors as a whole to not have a chance time-wise to discover the really good rooms because you fritter away listening time in poor or mediocre rooms hoping that miraculously the sound will come together? If they're "nice" people meet them for a beer later to talk, but don't waste show time being polite if there's more to explore.
W
didn't go to RMAF this year but have been to other big shows in hotel rooms. If a dealer/mfr is not going to take the time to make their system sound like anything then they are wasting their time and $ but it is their's to waste. I think they would be better off packing up and leaving if they could not get their gear to sound right in a room. Static display would make me walk out as fast as I walked in. What is the point? Hit and run show goers works for me. Hey, if the sound doesn't knock you out in the first couple minutes then it's on to find a room/gear that does. Life is too short and there is a ton of gear out there to listen to.
If you hear rooms that sounds bad you can't assume that they really are that way. It may be the amp speaker or just components that don't work well together. Now if I were a manufacturer in a room I would at least put my components together and make sure they sound good before the show. I know this would be hard to do because manufactures borrow and share with other people. If the room sounds good when you walk in you can assume they will sound even better in your home.
That inmate spent 5 minutes in the Quad room.
Bill
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Its upto you.
Bill
Good points, but then there are times when you go in a given room and the sound is just flat, or uninvolving. Sometimes you enter a room and there are many people milling about with everyone talking....not a good listening environment at all.
Then there are rooms that draw you in because of what you hear, even in the hall. Those tend to be the rooms I most enjoy.
Unfortunately, many rooms at shows are a crap-shoot, even with experienced manufacturers and presenters. Stuff happens.
I'd say that any audition (except for headphones) in almost any environment outside of your home has limited value. Showrooms are for show.
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