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March 1993 Stereophile Show

Posted by Luminator (A) on March 12, 2023 at 23:31:19

In summer of 1992, I was a senior at UC Santa Cruz. My friends ACS, KJ, and Scylla were sophomores at UC Berkeley. That summer, ACS, KJ, and Scylla (individually, not together) would accompany me to audio stores: Audio Excellence, dB Audio, Eber Electronics, Music Lovers Audio, San Francisco Stereo Plus, Sounds Alive, The Audio Chamber, Ultimate Sound, and World Of Sound. I think Berkeley's The Sounding Board and Sound Well were still in existence then, but the latter wasn't open, on the day ACS and I walked by.

At the time, ACS, KJ, and Scylla were still in their teens. Moreover, they were female. Thus, audio stores' staff either pretended that the girls didn't exist, or acted like they were alien, diseased, and/or radioactive. Also frustrating was that each store was small. So even if it carried a brand, it may not have had any demo models similar to the one you were interested in.

On September 1, 1992, KJ only had morning classes. So she took BART into San Francisco. I met up with her, and then we went to San Francisco Stereo Plus, where we bought an Adcom GTP-400 tuner/preamp.

When we brought that GTP-400 to my parents' place, the September 1992 Stereophile had this announcement of their upcoming March 12-14, 1993 show at San Francisco's Marriott Marquis. When the October 1992 Stereophile came out, I wrote a check for tickets to the Show.

On Thursday, March 11, 1993, I actually stayed over at Sachiko's off-campus apartment. She was my friend/classmate/study buddy. For an Econ class project, she and I teamed up. Early in the morning, I bought donuts for Sachiko and her housemates. It is located out on Mission, now called Ferrell's. I'm not sure if it was a Ferrell's, back in March 1993. But anyway, I went back to campus to attend a late-morning class. Our Econ class was in the afternoon. I needed to go home to San Francisco, so I skipped that Econ class. Sachiko attended the lecture, and took notes for me.

I took a city bus from campus to Santa Cruz's Metro Center. From there, I took a shuttle bus to San Jose's Caltrain station. I then took Caltrain all the way to the end of the line, San Francisco's 4th & Townsend. KJ met me there, and we took the 15-Third bus to Chinatown, her home home, and where we went out for dinner. So no, I did not attend the Stereophile Show on that Friday, March 12.

On Saturday morning, March 13, 1993, I made it to the Marriott. See, I was used to attending concerts with a 2-drink minimum. Since we were under 21, your hand got stamped, so that no one served you alcohol. So it was kind of nice that, at the Stereophile Show, your hand wasn't stamped :-)

As soon as I got my name tag, there seemed to be a "pinch me, this is too good to be true" vibe. Attendees were friendly. And for many, including me, this was out first time seeing this many vendors, and this number and amount of high-end audio products.

At one of the first rooms on the entrance floor, several attendees were happily singing the Unplugged version of Eric Clapton's "Layla."

I thought I saw Genesis' Mike Rutherford, but no, it was Roomtunes' Michael Green. Interestingly, that academic quarter, I had received a 24"-tall, 3-shelf Roomtunes JustaRack. I let Mr. Green know that the JustaRack made my Sony CDP-520ESII, Adcom GTP-400 & GFA-535 sound cleaner and clearer. He dimmed the lights, and then asked, "What do you want to hear?"

I suggested, "Joe Satriani," as I handed him The Extremist CD. Mr. Green, who was demonstrating loudspeakers with "tunable" cabinets, laughed, "No, I meant, how would you like this speaker to sound? By tightening or loosening, you can alter its sound."

The rooms were small. So if a room had big tube amps, it could get uncomfortably hot. But if they used the AC to cool the room, sometimes the AC's noise masked or ruined the demo.

In the early afternoon, Scylla met me on 4th Street. She ran a few steps, led with her fist, and sang, Joey Scarbury's "Theme from The Greatest American Hero (Believe It Or Not)."

I wrinkled my lips, and moaned, "Um, no, unfortunately, that's not what they play at these shows."

But oh ho ho! Scylla had bought some Tom's Cookies. These were used at the Clinton inauguration. And Scylla had blueberry white chocolate, which was Da Bomb!

Scylla and I had lunch. When she walked me back to the Marriott, she wagged her finger, and shook her rump to the "Neutron Dance." Yes, yes, yes, that is what high-end audio should be, but isn't.

On Sunday, March 14, 1993, I learned my lesson. Take the elevator to the top floor, and then work your way down. And when I did get down to 4th Street during lunchtime, Theta Digital's Neil Sinclair was taking a smoke break. I told him that, in a few months, I was going to graduate from college. And when I had the money, I was going to get a Theta DAC, most likely the DS Pro Prime. Mr. Sinclair mentioned that he was a drummer. He shook his head, and said that the key to PRAT wasn't bass. Rather, it was getting the POP of the drums and bite of the cymbals right. Go Neil Go!!! He then lamented that, something got lost in translation, that the correct sound of drums on CD wasn't making it to the preamp.

In the ballroom, some radio station was broadcasting live. IIRC, a pair of Thiel loudspeakers were used for monitoring.

Some record vendor had supplies of 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time In Eden, and Annie Lennox's Diva. But when I kept coming back, it seemed as if those supplies were still intact, i.e., no one had bought any of these titles :-(

I did see one guy buy an import copy of Peter Gabriel's Us. At the end of 1992 and beginning of 1993, the video for "Steam" caused all of the coeds to come out of the woodwork, and exclaim how they loved going to hot tub & sauna spas.

Speaking of vinyl, I don't recall the exact room. But one had a VPI HW-19 [not sure which iteration] with AudioQuest PT-6 tonearm. And it was tucked in a corner, difficult to access. Instead of using AQ tonearm-to-phonostage cabling, the guy was using XLO's Reference Type 3. He seemed embarrassed. But man, when he played some reggae, it was damn good!

The May Audio room had the little Totem Model 1 minimonitor. Here was one of the smallest speakers in the entire show, and it was that rare model which did justice to rock music. The staff had the good sense to play The Police. And then, a staffer bought Sting's just-released Ten Summoner's Tales. But he didn't open and play it, right then and there. Instead, they played Sting's "All This Time," which just might have impressed Theta's Neil Sinclair, had he been there to experience it.

I had already been in "high-end audio" since spring break 1990, my last days of being 17 years-old. But for me, the March 1993 Stereophile Show was a passage. It gave a glimpse of what could be achieved. There was just an optimism. The feeling was that, as we acquired better audio products, we'd get deeper into the music.

That March 1993 Stereophile took place a whopping 30 years ago. But its impacts, felt immediately, still resonate today. Even now, 2 or 3 people a year tell me that they, too, attended that show. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about sharing and enriching our experiences.

-Lummy The Loch Monster

Edits: 03/12/23

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