Volume and Bass levels at LA HE Show

One thing at HE2006, regarding bass: Every room had the same "bass note." Maybe I should say node. The dreaded hotel room sound was in abundance but particularly, bass sound was uniformly compromised in the same way, and loading any of those rooms with high SPL disproportionately made the bass problems more acute.

There wasn't a single system at the show that could be considered heard optimally. But some vendors were careful to find the best possible placements in their rooms and overall I think this was the best sounding *in-hotel* exposition in a long time. Particularly good were the Verity/Nagra/Audion, and Verity/Audion/Sonic Euphoria systems in that multi-vendor room, and Zu's Definitions system, especially Sunday after further refinement of their setup mitigated a room node.

Another thing driving SPLs is that vendors are starting to use real music again, instead of audiophile dross/gloss. Rock is inching its way back in to demos. Johnny Cash was on in multiple rooms. Blues, 'Trane, John Lee Hooker, Bill Frisell, Miles, the Chets, Wilco, etc. When people are having fun, SPL tends to go up. More feeling, less analysis. How much can you analyze in a hotel room acoustic environment anyway?

Phil

See these vendors miss the point. Do we really want a system that can play loud? Of course not. So why do they try to tempt us with alot of loud noise? Makes no sense to me. Just put the volume at 1/4 and let the sytem sell itself. I image they try to overwhelm our hearing to numb it, and so we really think we are getting a great speaker/system. Makes no sense to me. I have a gigantic room and a 20 watt tube amp and only play it at 1/4 volume, maybe a tad more. Never at 12 oclock. I've never understood the theory or concept of loud music. At a show its a frickin turnoff and one should run past those rooms that do so.

213Cobra,

Man, was it great to have some real rock and blues played, finally. I found a few rooms where we were able to tear the roof off the place. Globals Acoustic's Audio Aero amps and WLM speakers - Cranking Tool, Neil Young, etc. and Zu was ripping Radiohead and other alternative bands.

It's too bad most "audiophiles" are anti-rock or any modern music. There is only so much Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Patricia Barber a person can't before their blood turns to sludge.

Audio shows are quite possibly the worst place possible to make any critical decisions about equipment, so maybe everyone should stop pretending and just get on with having a good time. Crank it up and let house start rockin'

Dark Moebius,

This went beyond "analysis" or decision making. I like a whole lot of different music, including rock music, played loud enough to disturb my wife. At this show, I found the SPLs extremely unpleasant and left almost every room after a few minutes. Further, I found that the bass problems drained the fun out of party music (for me, anyway). I guess you chalk this one up to dif'rent strokes.

I've never understood the theory or concept of loud music. At a show its a frickin turnoff and one should run past those rooms that do so.
Bartokfan (Threads | Answers)

High volume in some audio show rooms may be unintentional, or forced by surrounding rooms.

Have you ever been in a room with a lot of people who are supposed to be quiet, and a few start whispering, and then a few start talking quietly, and the whisperers next to the quiet talking people start talking quietly so they can hear each other, and then the quiet talkers begin talking at full voice because they can't hear each other over the people next to them. Gradually, everyone starts talking louder and louder until the room is cacophanous. I believe this is the same phenonmenon found at the audio shows. Not all the manufacturers intend to play at loud volumes, but they all eventually crank up the volume to drown out the sound from neighboring rooms.