The vendors at the A/V show are supposed to be the most concerned with the proper demonstrations of their products, after all, they are trying to sell you something. Instead of the majority of companies making an extra effort to enhance their presentations, and a minority of companies being careless, the opposite was true. I make allowances for the hectic atmosphere and technical difficulties, but it seems as if half of the products were not ready for prime time. Perhaps cables were not broken in, or speakers were not broken in, but what does it say to you about a company that doesn't care enough to get the details together, or worse, employees that can't tell the difference between a good sound or harsh sound? I offer an example not from the show, but one that makes the point. I went to the Sony Style store in NYC last week to buy a few SACD's. They did not have a way to show customers all of the SACD's that were available, only what they happened to have in stock. A manager promised to mail me a list, and it never came. Furthermore, their flagship Home Theater room had an older model, non progressive scan DVD player in 4/3 mode when it should have been 16X9. Considering they will make the most profit from software, and should present their products in the best possible way on their own turf, this is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Sony basher, in fact I just got the Sony DVP-9000ES, and it surpassed my already high expectations. I am saying that the same kind of carelessness was evident at the audio show, and yes, many of the speakers did not sound very good. These manufacturers had every opportunity to get it right, and blew it. Don't be too hard on Trelja, he did us all a good turn by reporting his experience. If he wasn't tactful enough for some, or didn't take into account all of the variables that might have skewed a manufacturers presentation, the companies only have themselves to blame. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, talk about the Emperor's New clothes, who was fooled by "The Harry Pearson Room? Quoted from The Absolut sound..."it is clear that we now stand on the edge of a breakthrough to a new kind of realism in the reproduction of music in the home". His $236,000 system was
just plain wrong. Many great components were combined to create the clearest, hardest "sound reinforcement" type sound I have ever heard. It was as if you were at a concert with an extremely clear system, but subtlety, and true musicality were sacrificed to the god of bombastic presentation. Put simply, the sound hurt my ears, and a few other people's ears that I know.Here we had a Burmester belt drive CD transport, DAC and power conditioner,that costs $65,000, A Clearaudio $27,000 turntable rig, Conrad Johnson's Art 2 line stage preamp $16,000, Edge NL12 Amplifiers (aptly named),Groove phono stage($15,000), $53,000 worth of Nordost cables,VTL MB-750 power tube amplifier at $20,000 each ,Wisdom (?) Loudspeakers,$38,000, and it really offered very little in the way of real listening enjoyment! Amazing! This definetely proves that you can throw money at something, and it doesn't necessarily make for a good result, not to mention all the well meaning, pleasant, but misguided smiling faces on the presenters at this demonstration. Also, I must say that having the show on Mother's Day was a serious timing error! Thanks to all the members for posting their impressions of the show. I couldn't spend as much time as I would have liked to at the show due to relatives arriving from England.