California Audio Show this weekend (Aug 15-17), SF Bay Area take note

[DanRubin]

The show is at the Westin SFO in Millbrae, a very good venue for an audiophile show and very accessible wherever you are coming from.

 

I'm an active member of the San Francisco Audiophile Society, which will have a hospitality room at the show (Room 358). We're putting together a couple of systems with member-loaned equipment. Of potential interest: a pair of Meyer Sound HD-1 active monitors, along with more modest stand-mounts from KEF, Harbeth and Pioneer. Plus, I have great taste in music. :-)

 

If you're in or near the Bay Area, please come to the show. And if you come to the show, please stop by Room 358 to say hi and have a listen.

 

Dan

[gmgraves]

The show is at the Westin SFO in Millbrae, a very good venue for an audiophile show and very accessible wherever you are coming from.

 

I'm an active member of the San Francisco Audiophile Society, which will have a hospitality room at the show (Room 358). We're putting together a couple of systems with member-loaned equipment. Of potential interest: a pair of Meyer Sound HD-1 active monitors, along with more modest stand-mounts from KEF, Harbeth and Pioneer. Plus, I have great taste in music. :-)

 

If you're in or near the Bay Area, please come to the show. And if you come to the show, please stop by Room 358 to say hi and have a listen.

 

Dan

 

 

I'll be there Friday and Saturday for sure. Possibly even Sunday...

[gmgraves]

I'll be there Friday and Saturday for sure. Possibly even Sunday...

 

 

Heard the best audio today that I have ever heard in my life!

 

One of the ballrooms at the Westin Hotel near SFO airport was demoing a pair of Sound Labs ESL full range speakers called the Majestic 945PX. These speakers are 106" (8.9ft!) tall by 40" wide (3.3 ft!) and the speakers are so transparent, play so loudly, so cleanly with bass that is absolutely subterranean, that the result is difficult to describe. To say I'm ruined for my puny Martin Logans would be an understatement. You guys have got to try to hear these speakers!

 

Saw Chris Connaker today at the show, and we had a brief but nice chat.

 

Also joined the San Francisco Audiophile Society today. They look like a nice bunch of lads....

[Vic Damone]

Meyer Sound Labs has a room tuning method for performance stage projection called Constellation that allows a venue to tune the room for a lecture and re tune the room for a rock concert in a matter of minutes. It's explained in much more detail on their site.

 

If I'm not mistaken Zellerbach Hall was recently equipped with the Constellation system.

[Mike Mcsweeney]

Heard the best audio today that I have ever heard in my life!

 

One of the ballrooms at the Westin Hotel near SFO airport was demoing a pair of Sound Labs ESL full range speakers called the Majestic 945PX. These speakers are 106" (8.9ft!) tall by 40" wide (3.3 ft!) ....

 

I had to google...wow

 

I will take your martin logans if you upgrade if you want to sell them for a song and dance...

[gmgraves]

I had to google...wow

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14136[/ATTACH]

 

I will take your martin logans if you upgrade if you want to sell them for a song and dance...

 

 

Wanting to upgrade, and being able to upgrade are two different things. First and foremost is the cost $40,000/pair. Not the most expensive speakers in the world, surely, but out of my range, nonetheless. Then there's the room. I'd have to punch holes in my ceiling to accommodate speakers that are just a smidgen shy of 9 ft tall. So, I won't be upgrading to the Sound Labs for, well, forever, basically!

[PorkChop]

A handwritten sign outside one of the rooms said something like, "Bring your own music or we'll be forced to play Diana Krall."

 

That embodies my gripe about the style of music generally played at these audio shows. No vendor I visited could accommodate playing music off the USB stick I was carrying.

[wgscott]

A handwritten sign outside one of the rooms said something like, "Bring your own music or we'll be forced to play Diana Krall."

 

That embodies my gripe about the style of music generally played at these audio shows. No vendor I visited could accommodate playing music off the USB stick I was carrying.

 

Now I wish I had gone.

 

With AudioDoctor.

[gmgraves]

A handwritten sign outside one of the rooms said something like, "Bring your own music or we'll be forced to play Diana Krall."

 

That embodies my gripe about the style of music generally played at these audio shows. No vendor I visited could accommodate playing music off the USB stick I was carrying.

 

 

Well, I took a USB stick and a CD (I would have liked to take a high-res (24/192) DVD-A of some recordings I've made, but I knew that the chances that anybody could play such a file was between zero and none at all). I found one stall, just around the corner from the registration area that could play my USB stick, but they were demoing headphones and headphone amps only. Oh, and the Audeze headphone booth could play my memory stick too. But mostly, if you wanted to audition something you brought, it had better have been on a Red Book CD or you were pretty much out of luck!

 

I certainly hope you got to hear the Sound Lab speakers. I've never heard my own big-band jazz recording sound so startlingly REAL!

[Stereolab42]

A handwritten sign outside one of the rooms said something like, "Bring your own music or we'll be forced to play Diana Krall."

 

That embodies my gripe about the style of music generally played at these audio shows. No vendor I visited could accommodate playing music off the USB stick I was carrying.

 

Yeah. Way too many rooms playing music that was badly-recorded, bizarre, or just too plain low a volume. This included the $40k Sound Lab speakers, which were kind of blah, while one of the best-sounding setups was a pair of $200 bookshelf speakers positioned around a chair playing Yes. I came away with a deep appreciation that while you can buy expensive audio equipment, you can't buy taste or common sense.

 

If I had to pick one winner it would be the Eficion speaker room, something I could actually afford (if I was in the market for a non-headphone setup, which I'm not).

[elcorso]

Well, I took a USB stick and a CD (I would have liked to take a high-res (24/192) DVD-A of some recordings I've made, but I knew that the chances that anybody could play such a file was between zero and none at all). I found one stall, just around the corner from the registration area that could play my USB stick, but they were demoing headphones and headphone amps only. Oh, and the Audeze headphone booth could play my memory stick too. But mostly, if you wanted to audition something you brought, it had better have been on a Red Book CD or you were pretty much out of luck!

 

I certainly hope you got to hear the Sound Lab speakers. I've never heard my own big-band jazz recording sound so startlingly REAL!

 

Maybe they are afraid of virus from USB sticks!...

 

BTW, were not playing the new Martin Logans?

 

Thanks,

 

Roch

[PorkChop]

Way too many rooms playing music that was badly-recorded, bizarre, or just too plain low a volume.

 

My lowlight: Passing the SF Audiophile Society room with Pink Floyd blaring gratingly through some KEF LS50 -- like it was trying to fill a concert hall. Ouch!

 

Pleasant surprises:

 

- Constellation Audio room with Magico speakers

 

- Wyred4Sound had some Martin Logan motion 15's sounding quite good, and they were on a show special for $499! If I was in the market for another desktop/bookshelf speaker I would have grabbed some.

 

- Olive One. Impressed with its versatility and user friendliness.

[gmgraves]

Yeah. Way too many rooms playing music that was badly-recorded, bizarre, or just too plain low a volume. This included the $40k Sound Lab speakers, which were kind of blah, while one of the best-sounding setups was a pair of $200 bookshelf speakers positioned around a chair playing Yes. I came away with a deep appreciation that while you can buy expensive audio equipment, you can't buy taste or common sense.

 

If I had to pick one winner it would be the Eficion speaker room, something I could actually afford (if I was in the market for a non-headphone setup, which I'm not).

 

 

Believe me, the sound Lab speakers were anything BUT Blah, but I'll tell you this, if they were playing something that sounded blah, it would stick-out like a sore thumb on those puppies! I heard a lot of terrible sound from those $40,000 Sound Labs, because they played a lot of junk, but had you been there when I was there, and heard my Stanford U Big Band recording, you would NOT be saying that they sounded blah. The truth is that the better the playback chain, the more merciless it is on less than technically stellar material!. Unfortunately, "less than stellar" describes most commercial recordings these days - even when they pretend to be Hi-Res.

[gmgraves]

Maybe they are afraid of virus from USB sticks!...

 

BTW, were not playing the new Martin Logans?

 

Thanks,

 

Roch

 

 

No. They had no Martin Logan ESL speakers there at all, just a single pair of M-L bookshelf speakers (Motion 15s) with the Heil Air-Motion Transformer for mids and highs.

[loop7]

I really enjoyed the Sound Labs speakers and the Marantz CD/SACD player they used was just stellar. I also thought the Sony ES speakers and Pass amps playing DSD was fantastic. I heard the second movement of Mahler Symphony No. 2 (SF Symphony) - so good.

 

I'm a customer of Music Lovers but, once again, their room (Wilson Audio) was WAY too loud. Not sure how a headache inducing system is attractive.

 

I find it interesting how some rooms encouraged people to bring their own music and others discourage it.

[DanRubin]

My lowlight: Passing the SF Audiophile Society room with Pink Floyd blaring gratingly through some KEF LS50 -- like it was trying to fill a concert hall. Ouch!

Glad to see we made someone's list.

[PorkChop]

Glad to see we made someone's list.

 

Nothing against your group....it just struck me as too many dBs for that particular speaker. Maybe someone happened to be testing amplification handling at the moment in time I passed through.