Since I live nearby, I’ve been to many of T.H.E. Shows in Newport Beach, CA. This offers an opportunity to listen to many systems at different price points. And there’s the added benefit of having the owner/manufacturer in the room to answer any questions. The best part is that it serves as a point of reference for how my system compares to others.
These shows are very costly for a company to attend. With shows spread all over the country, smaller operations just don’t have the marketing budget. For those that do, many manufacturers figure out how to make their gear really sing in those hotel rooms. Sometimes, they don’t find the best set-up until the last day. My favorite way-over-my-budget room is MBL. In small, medium and large rooms - each time, it’s a treat.
I also attended the recent LAAS. To avoid the crowds, I arrived first thing on Friday morning. This allowed me to sit in the sweet spot w/o waiting. The trade-off is not knowing if the system is dialed-in yet. I first went to MBL. They kicked me out until it was dialed-in. :-) Then, I visited the High Fidelity cables suite - with two smallish rooms. One room looked as if they had constructed a mini-nuclear reactor with their top-of-the line cabling. It was hooked up to their prototype amplifiers and prototype speakers. Rick Schultz said that the system had been powered on for only 24 hours. But, the full-bore magnetic magic wouldn’t really kick-in for 5 days or so - about 2 days after the show was over. So, early on the first morning of the show, that room was still a work-in-progess. Still, I suspect that Rick’s customers, in this high end L.A. market, were very pleased that he made the effort to be there.
Next door was TAD. They had a brand new production model of a monitor for $12.5K. It’s not even listed on their website. Absolutely, stunning! Those little speakers put out a very big, lusciously detailed sound. I didn’t know that a small cabinet could put out such a full range sound in fairly large room. Curiously, they were using a High Fidelity Reveal power cable for their electronics.
Next, in an even larger asymmetrical room, was GamuT speakers. The imaging was way off. The vocalist was very diffuse. I mentioned to the rep that speaker placement needed adjusting. He said that’s the way the manufacturer set it up. Huh?
Found my way to the Positive Feedback hospitality suite with the Tekton DI’s. Super friendly people. They were demo-ing 3 affordable speakers - two of which were monitors. The rep said that the DI’s had just arrived and were not broken-in. They were hooked up to brand new Schiit electronics. The DI’s sounded clean and detailed - but, not enough meat on the bones - for my taste. When I changed seats from center front row, to center second row, (about a 3 feet difference), the sound changed considerably. Not more meat, perhaps more reverberant. So, my take on the DI’s is that the set-up was a work-in-progress - especially, early in the morning on the first day.
The show offered many amazing systems - and some less so. It was fun and informative. Eventually, I returned to the MBL room - where they had kicked me out earlier. It was worth the wait. They had their 101E’s powered by their ’smaller’ switching amps. It was as if the Steinway was actually in the room. Tone, harmonics, resonance, dynamics, decay - all of it. Stunning!
