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Re: Reasonable insanity

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In Reply to: Re: Reasonable insanity posted by Tony Glynn on June 10, 2003 at 12:08:46:

This reminds me of my first Sterophile show (MANY years ago), most rooms were playing very loud boomy music, except for the Vandersteen room. Richard himself was playing DJ at a nice little system with his just released 2Cis, all ARC electronics and a turntable (I don't remember what it was), he played vey good music at decent levels, I kept on coming back to that room to let my ears heal before venturing out again, it was like a breath of fresh air. (guess which speakers I wound up buying)
One dealer had this $150k system put together in a large room with lots of people packing in, it sounded all right but didn't play MUSIC, at one point they demonstrated their little "cheap" system (only $10k), THAT sounded MUCH better, it was real music.
One dealer DID have a megabuck system that sounded really good (all ARC electronics again and Thiel CS5.0 speakers), but that was the only one, all the other places that sounded good were relatively speaking inexpensive systems.
What I came away from that was, its much harder to make a mega-buck system sound good than a cheap system. I guess thats why I eventually wound up here in the land of "as simple as possible" audio.
John S.

Follow Ups:

Bass baby - badman 19:10:12 06/10/03 (1)
The inundation of ones skull with pounding bass at these shows gets really tiring. The rooms typically have strong bass reinforcement, and the exhibitors don't do a damn thing to naturalize the response. Not a one of my favorite rooms at HE2002 had a sub. The best (which surprisingly was actually chosen as best) I heard was the Joseph Audio room- which had bass, but was played at reasonable levels. Blue Circle was excellent- using bookshelves, again, at reasonable levels. Kimber Kable- likewise excellent, also bookshelves at reasonable levels. Triangle and Meadowlark both showed mid-size floorstanders played at reasonable levels- also good rooms. I avoided the HT demos.
The Pipedreams sounded terrible, as did the big Dynadio- Evidences, IIRC. Not overplayed when I went in, just the systems weren't communicative.
If and when I can afford a room, it'll have tubes and bookshelves. Just seems to be better that way at a show, as they're not so problematic in the bass, and peoples ears actually can listen to music and relax vs. the big overplayed systems.
- How about ProAcs ? - Ian L. 18:53:15 06/11/03 (0)
  None of my gear could drive them as far as the front door but I still think they're a great speaker. So I'm curious, How are they played at the shows ?

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