NYC Show

Several months ago, those who put on the show maintained there will be a far bigger, better show next year. I'm not completely sure why that would be the case, but those involved seemed to view this as a dry run.

If they were intending to use this as a gauge for future interest, it seems misguided. NYC is the largest venue in the USA, able to easily draw from an area that extends from beyond Boston to the north, down through Philadelphia and even Baltimore and Washington DC to the south. In other words, put a show together that people will want to attend, and they certainly will.

Then again, I believe we've reached the point of saturation with high-end audio shows. So, like RMAF, apart from one that can really get traction going forward, what's left over will perhaps come off as leftovers.

I was also there yesterday.

I didn't expect it to be that good a show, and that turned out to be the case. In fact, I think it was the weakest of any that I've attended. The venue itself was poor - antiquated, dirty, hot, and the 8th floor smelled horrible. Where I was (thankfully) wrong was that I figured it to be banged out beyond belief, as this was the first high-end audio show in the Northeast since 2007. Instead, the show was lightly attended. The problem was the configuration of the rooms was such that even a few people overwhelmed things.

There were a few good sounding rooms - the Rogue/Eggleston, Nightingale, the Danish Jetson's television looking (Davone) speakers driven by Italian (Absoluta) solid state amps, Joseph Audio, and Pass Labs/Kef were a few of note. There was something most definitely wrong with the MBL setup, as I've heard these components sound night and day better, and there just was no get up and go. Disappointing on a personal level was the fact that the Atma Sphere dealer, an exceptionally nice guy, wasn't playing the amps when we arrived, and when we returned maybe two hours later, they still weren't.