Volume and Bass levels at LA HE Show

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.

I went into the Mbl room and asked them to play a piece on the Pope music sampler CD. The gentleman from Mbl asked me how high I wanted the demo. I told him very low, so he pushed the volume control down what seemed like a tiny amount if at all. I asked him again to lower it way down and he told me that this was a demo room and he would not do that. Therefore, I have no idea as to the ability of his
equipment to play in real world rooms or how the speakers sound when not pushed. I left the room as soon as the piece concluded.

Hi Marty,

When I said "everyone should stop pretending" I meant manufacturers and exhibitors, primarily. They should stop pretending that their rooms are for competently evaluting equipment because 95% fall far short of the level.

To a certain degree, it's not their fault and there's not a lot they can do under the space, cost, and time restraints. Most have finances that are only a tiny fraction of Lamm, Wilson, McIntosh, etc. And those that fly in from across the nation or interantionally probably have a hard time shipping/storing enough room treatments to assure good sound. Especially, since most will never see their rooms until hours(or day) before the show opens.

As a result, I went expecting mostly poor sound from previous show experiences and allowed myself to be pleasantly surprised by the few surpassed that low threshold.

***"At this show, I found the SPLs extremely unpleasant and left almost every room after a few minutes."****

Interesting, there were a lot of rooms that I missed, so there's a good chance I didn't make it into the ones you are talking about. Any in particualr that you can remember?

I have to admit that I am guilty of encouraging more than a few exhibitors to to crank it up to louder levels than most middle-aged audiophiles enjoy. A few rooms, we literally sent people scurrying out like a grenade had been thrown. But, Hendrix, Tool, Neil Young, Radiohead, Zepplin, etc. are meant to be played loud for full effect. Besides, those exhibitors admitted they were dying to "Get the Led Out" for a little while.

***"Further, I found that the bass problems drained the fun out of party music (for me, anyway)."****

I found that worst problems tended to be in the smallest rooms. I don't know if you made it to the Continuum Audio Labs room at the very end of one of the wings on the 3rd floor, but the were demo'ing a $99,000 Caliburn turntable, Cobra tonearm, and Castellon rack system with probably an equal or greater amount for the rest of the equipment. Yet, they were in the smallest room available at the hotel.

Their audio system was probably spectacular, but even at moderates levels the room was far too small for what they were trying to achieve. The small 8th Nerve room treatments probably helped a lot, but that wasn't enough. They would have needed full sized ASC tube traps stacked two high throughout the room and then thre would have been no space for chairs.

I made a remark to a friend that many exhibitors/manufacturers would have been better served by simply showing their products without ever turning them on. I spoke with many, many, people who left the show with seriously negative impressions of equipment they were interested in. A common statement was "I came looking to get that piece, but now I would never buy it".

That's really too bad because no one should ever consider these convention setups any indication of a component's potential.

****"I went into the Mbl room and asked them to play a piece on the Pope music sampler CD...Therefore, I have no idea as to the ability of his equipment to play in real world rooms or how the speakers sound when not pushed."****

How would you ever derive a component's ability to play "in real world rooms" when busy hotel's have very little to absolutely nothing in common home environs?

Show conditions are generally bad and not really a good place to audition products. It's a means for manufacturers/dealers to show their new items and generate interest in them. Auto Shows are a better example of this because you only get to see the cars, not drive them and evaluate their performance.

We all try to make a reasonable presentation, but it's very difficult with poor power, noise from all the other rooms, fitting all the gear(& people) in a small room, and dealing with many other unknown variables.
We were givin a diagram of our room layout before the show, but when we arrived...it was nothing near the diagram, and had one day to set it all up and try to make music...all things considered, most manufacturers do a pretty good job.

The loudness issue is personal preference...personally I like to hear things at their natural level...so a cello sounds like a cello in a live performance, etc. At the show, we handed the listener the preamp remote and let them choose the volume. But when you have 15 people in a room, the music being played and the level will never suit everyones tastes.