Home Entertainment Show in Los Angeles

The loudspeakers in the Berning/Stillpoints room were Peak Consult InCognito X. Terrific sounding room.

John Atkinson liked the room a lot. He also liked the Gamut room. It's nice to have one's ears validated by a pro. :)

Stereophile Show Report.

I too just returned. It's my first audiophile show and the experience was like seeing my bookmarks come to life. Great to see and hear so much stuff I only read about. For instance handling the Oyaide and Acrolink stuff... The carbon fibre wall plug is awesome.

Spread across four floors, it's a fun "little" show. (I am used to much, much bigger.) Today everyone was relaxed and low key, I suspect that things will get a bit more hectic over the weekend. What amazed me was that there was enough power in the hotel to run all this stuff!

Highlights for me included:

The Channel Island Audio room with the D200s running Von Schweikert 4jrs and the new 5s. Albert, Dusty and Jim Wang from Harmonic Tech were all on hand. I thought the room sounded tremendous and it was a crappy little room...

The Van Gaylord (ex Legend) room was nothing short of amazing with a $55K liquid cooled tube amp (literally immersed in oil) and their Legend Speakers. Really wondrous to hear.

Sonics by Joachim Gerhard debuted a new design that looked and sounded amazing.

The Chord Room had some of the slickest industrial design I have seen in this market - and the Neat speakers they were running with their 480w monoblocks were fabulous - as was their music selection.

Kudos to Rethm Speakers with an amazing 102db efficient set of speakers with amazing bass horn extensions that are built in India.

The Berning/Stillpoints room Tvad mentioned above was very interesting because it had been extensively treated by 8th Nerve Acoustics. It had the widest soundstage I have ever heard.

Finally - with a decidely more mid-market approach Aperion provided a stunning vision of HT of the future with a 7.2 system that came at you from every direction. Amazing cluck for the buck.

Surprises to me as a show newbie included seeing people shopping for records, the almost complete absence of subwoofers, the barrage of cable the size of hawsers and finished like jewelry... and the absence of computer source - IMHO Nagra won that hands down. Hot new trend is painting your speakers with high end automotive colors - Watt, Zu and Usher are all racing ahead with that sure to please approach.

Like a number of the posters, I went home feeling really good about what I had. And good about the people I met. Definitely a pleasant 4-5 hours though it mayy take you longer on the weekend.

Meanwhile I will be checking out the VTV Expo. Not sure who hijacked who (I can guess) but its an interesting example of splitting a small audience... I'll try post on that one tomorrow.

Just got back from the show.. As usual, a couple of good sounding rooms and a lot of very poor sounding rooms.
What stuck me as interesting was the consistancy of pricing.
Speakers typically between $4K and $100K with 90% costing between$10k to $50K. I was looking for the $1M to $6M pair but was disappointed.
Funny thing was, when I left in my Rolls Royce it began to seem like I got a bargain on the car.
IMHO the best sound was in the Lamm room. Mr Lamm was playing LP's on a great looking table from Metronome ( didn't ask price)and using the Sophia 2's, he had the most relaxing sound with better palpability and imageing than any other room I heard.
Gamut room was a joke, the system sounded fair considering the terrible room that it was located in. In all fairness, they did a great job with what had to be the worst room at the show.( I heard they good a good rate though; I would hope so)
Next year I hope the show comes back to LA... smog and all.

My wife and I had a great time at the show. Biggest surprise was that after listening to Wilson speakers 5+ times previously--and not liking them--we were felled by the Watt Puppy 8's. The most expansive, lifelike sound I've heard yet from Wilson. During one track with an operatic singer and piano accompaniment, I found myself holding back a cough so as not to disrupt the musicians. I love being surprised in that way, and there is simply no formula for achieving it. How do you put together a system with a goal of generating repeated chills up and down your spine? This one did it for us. Like I said, it was the biggest surprise of the show. We stood at the back of the very large room, and even the music of a solo bassist had the immediacy and energy of a live performance, pressurizing the room with an ease and composure that was outstanding. The Audio Research components mated beautifully with the speakers, and the room had been treated for the presentation.

We were also blown away by the Acapella La Campanella speakers, though not immediately. It took a few songs to adjust, and then we were completely sucked in. Most impressive was the excellent driver integration, and the high frequency presentation of the plasma tweeters. Like nothing either of us had ever heard. The highs had the attack of live music, but remained tonally rich with zero congestion. We played classical, jazz, a live rock album...they all shined.

Some rooms were a disappointment, but then again, listening in a hotel room with a one-day set-up schedule is far from ideal. All in all, the show was well worth seeing.

I took my daughter today to accompany and give me a non audiophile perspective on the sound quality in various rooms. She too thought most rooms were really bad sounding. Surprisingly the best sounding rooms had Wilson's in them except the ESP speakers room. Agree with the post above. Lamm room had the best sound( wilson sophias) run with gorgeous looking metronome front ends. Next in line was the watt puppy 8 in the Wilson room with very sophisticated, nicely attired, presentation from Mr Wilson himself and his son. Brooks Berdan room was also outstanding which had Wilsons Sophias I believe. Followed by room with ESP speakers. Too bad I was swating front row on the right channel where eveything sounded not right, but gave me the impession of live quality sound, if a bit distorted. So I am a bonafide Wilson convert- these speakers does deliver excellent sound. Other notable included AZ adagios that fiiled small room with very powerful non hi-fi sound. AR/ Vandersteen room was okay. Most pathetic room was the Acoustic signature TT (this not at fault) with some tower speakers ( make??)spaced like 20 ft apart. Sounded horrible. So was the Mcintosh room. Joseph Audios in wall speakers demo was a revelation. Small speakers, very good sound. But don't even come close to the Lamm Room. Learned a lot from the sound balance form the Lamm room.