Road trip to demo $10,000 speakers

@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.

Here’s a little video about the Focal Kanta 2, it’s pretty impressive for the price they’re asking for.
https://www.upscaleaudio.com/products/focal-kanta-no2-loudspeakers-pair

At Command Performance, they have three main rooms.  Heard the Dynaudio Contour 60, Devore 0/93, and Kanta 2, in each of the rooms.  I liked the Kanta best of the three, though it didn't make my shortlist.  YMMV.