Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers

Mike;  I am late to this forum and see that you have already been overloaded with advice and, a lot of it seems pretty good too.  However, let me suggest to you one important aspect of critical listening that no one has mentioned, and that is your own state of mind. Your interpretation of what you hear is highly subjective and WILL change when nervous. So ( i am smiling when i write this ): "take a mild sedative, enjoy yourself and go with your gut.  Your judgement really is better when calm.  Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Gifted Listener, Command and Deja Vu are all great places to stop and listen--very friendly and attentive, no high pressure sales tactics.  Of these, Command probably has the widest array of gear. 

But, it is Deja Vu that is the utterly unique experience.  Much of the gear they have that is really interesting is made in-house or made in Italy by a designer/builder that works exclusively for them.  They make gear to order.  Of the regular commercial brands of speakers, they probably sell more Audio Note speakers than any other brand, next would be Harbeth and then probably ProAc.  There have been quite a few buyers that have come in to audition the "regular" commercial gear that they sell, and after hearing their unique house gear, have gone crazy upgrading to these unique products.  The custom speakers are mostly built around vintage drivers and parts (crossovers are built using very old vintage parts), although recently, drivers from G.I.P. Laboratories have been used in their most expensive and exotic designs.  Many of their custom speakers are below $20 k.  

@skyscraper 

The demo would be Joan Baez Diamonds and Rust - it was a demo favourite back then. 

Bring your own music. 

You may may be challenged if your reference is Dalquist DQ-10.

The best speaker will sound good with everything. Listen carefully for driver integration. If you are aware there is a tweeter or a bass woofer then simply move on. A good speaker won’t draw attention to any frequency range - it should just sound like a musical instrument playing in front of you. 

Be wary of coloration and resonances even if subjectively pleasing.

Sheffield Labs drum track is an excellent work out. If it sounds like a real drum set in the room then the speaker has passed the test. Any speaker you buy should convincingly pass this test.

skyscraper,

Tidal is a music streaming service via Internet. Many people here (Audiogon) use it and seem to be satisfied with music quality. It does contain fairly large collection of music, but most of what I wanted was not there.


I mention this as, a few months ago, I went through a few shops in Washington, DC area bringing my two CDs. Wherever I went, they brought an iPad (that is how you interact with Tidal) and asked what I wanted to hear. At first, I asked for a CD player, but it happened that nobody had it already hooked up. They did offer me to come at some later time when they would set it up. You are going for a shorter trip so you may not have that much time to waste. Call ahead, that is all I can say.

I would smoke a doob for the mild sedative--music always sounds better with a little bit of cannabis...providing it's legal of course--which it is on the "left coast" and Colorado.  Might try TAD ME-1's.