Hi!
We are very proud of our achievements at the HE shows, having made the "Best Sound At Show" list at every show where votes were tallied, and having captured #1 Best Sound At Show for the last two years. The RM33si won this award even though we were in a small room, with only 9 seats. The line to hear them stretched down the 10th floor hallway. Never before has a $7499/ pair speaker won this award, beating out speakers as much as $120,000 per pair! The fact that we beat out the mega-systems displayed in rooms that could seat up to 50 people at a time is pretty amazing. We did spring for a larger room at HE2002, and
hoped that the lines would be shorter, but once word got out about the Pearls, people were once again waiting in line to give them a listen, and ultimately voted the Pearls as "Best Sound At Show".
As for Dolpin's claim of "handing out voting cards and pencils" at the HE shows - here's what actually happened. Around 6pm Saturday at HE2001, I discovered that a number of people in our room did not have ballots, so I sent one of our people down to the lobby to get some in case some people still needed one. I did ask if people had ballots on Sunday, but we did not even think to ask until Saturday night, when the show was well past its attendance peak.
I notified the HE show management about this, and they made sure at HE2002 that everyone had ballots, so there was no further problem.
As for "Heavy Campaigning" - we don't do it, simply because heavy campaigning for votes at a Hifi show is not likely to be effective. There would probably be a backlash of people who would be bothered by such tactics that would result in the loss of some votes. We do urge everyone who visits our room to vote, and remind them of the importance of their opinions at this show. We emphatically do NOT tell people WHO to vote for. If they wanted to vote for us, well, who are we to disagree?
Strangely enough, I've seen advertisments claiming to have "Best Sound at CES Show" and "Best Speaker at CES" without attribution. It would appear that other mfg's have seen our ads, and decided that they could make similar claims as if they were honored with some sort of voting award at the CES show. There is NO such voting at CES. Those in the know will see through those claims. We take our claims seriously, and have no need to exaggerate the honors bestowed upon our speakers. (Including "Joint Speaker Of the Year 2002" for the RM7si signature Mk2's)
When you go to listen, try to audition the Pearls and the
new RM33si Limited Edition...you might just find out why we've won so many awards.
Jeff Joseph
