|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
76.25.11.220
A lot of nice equipment on display here. A few thoughts:1) These events are not ideal for listening to equipment; the rooms are seldom optimal.
2) It would be better if each vendor had two rooms: one for people to listen, and one for them to talk about the equipment in the room--too many times you wanted to listen and someone was talking instead, or you were trying to listen but several people in the room were talking.
3) Whether something sounded good depended on several factors: the room, the setup, the volume, the choice and quality of the music. One vendor was playing a record that was so scratch that it was actually embarrassing. Impossible to equate all of these factors across rooms to really come to any firm conclusions. At best, one can find a piece of equipment that warrants additional attention.
4) I do wish there had been more vendors that had their equipment on display apart from the listening rooms (as they did for records and CDs). It would be nice to be able to interact with representatives in this way.
5) One of the best aspects of the show was all the hands-on opportunities there were for listening to headphones. This certainly seems to be a booming market right now.
Despite these issues, attending is enjoyable and a nice way to spend the day.
Edits: 10/09/16 10/09/16Follow Ups:
a rather amazing group of equipment that i got to hear at Steven Norber's house (a bit off campus). he only had a "static display" in mono at the show itself but at THE Show Newport, a full demo room.
it all looks rather non-descript but the sound is another animal. why Steve didn't have a complete display at RMAF is a question that i did not ask.
keep your ears open at future shows.
...regards...tr
Thanks! for sharing- slapshot
Totally agree as it seems that these types of events are good for looking at gear but not necessarily for listening to it. Some of these systems featured $2000 speakers driven by $10000 amps using cable that cost's more than the speakers is not real world.
This was my 9th or 10th RMAF. I've lost count. Given the construction issues at the Denver Tech Center Marriott I assumed that this year's show would suffer. In my opinion it did not. In fact I think it was one of the best in recent years.
One of the things that made it so enjoyable for me was the diversity of the music being played in the rooms. I heard far less of the same old recordings. Those of you who are show veterans know which ones I mean. I found myself using Soundhound quite often to identify what I was hearing. I now have a long list of recordings to track down.
Another improvement was apparently made necessary by the construction in the hotel: instead of having the majority of the exhibits in two separate locations in the hotel, most of the exhibitors were in the tower. That made it possible to just go to the top floor and use the stairway to just walk down to each floor. This greatly reduced the wait time for an elevator.
As usual, there were some rooms which I didn't think sounded so great and others which sounded wonderful. For those that I thought were really good, that would include Ryan Loudspeakers, the Zesto room and the Acoustic Zen room. There was a lot of vinyl being played. Most of the exhibitors I visited were accommodating to visitors who wanted to play music they'd brought with them assuming their system supported the format.
I heard MQA files for the first time. I thought they sounded great but it's the kind of thing where I'd have to hear comparisons of the same file in different formats to make a better judgement.
I attend these shows for a number of reasons:
1 - To experience hardware to which I'd otherwise have no access.
2 - To hear music which is new and desirable to me.
3 - To be able to talk to designers and dealers about the products and the industry in general.
4 - To experience a sense of community.
This show provided all three and it did so very well.
Great post! I hope i get to go soon.
I have an MQA capable DAC, the Mytek Brooklyn, and have listened to a few MQA tracks doing A/B comparisons.
My conclusion:
The Brooklyn sounds really great on all formats, from Redbook to DSD and MQA.
I cannot tell a difference between 96/24 and MQA that is not obviously mastering changes.
I like DSD a little better than PCM.
I've never had the opportunity to attend but the co-founder of the event, Al Steifel, came to my home years ago to spend the day listening to some very special speakers with his Renaissance mono block amplifiers.
The amps were unique and incredible-sounding but after the short period of amazement we spent the rest of the day just listening to music and becoming friends. I think it was less than a year later that I was shocked to hear he died quite suddenly and far too young.
Each year when I see the show reports I'm reminded of our brief friendship and the music lover he was. That certainly has to qualify as one of the Circles Of Heaven.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: