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?
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?