Rocky Mountain Audio Fest

[atomicAdam]

So - I might be going - who else?

[Geoffcin]

Cool!, one of the best shows out there. Say hi to Paul McGowan for me. His PS Audio is based in Colorado.

[atomicAdam]

Yep I am all booked up to go.

Anyone else from AudioReview planning to attend?

-adam

[Mr Peabody]

I wish :)

[woofersus]

I'll be there. Can't wait! :3:

[atomicAdam]

RMAF is Awesome!

I got photos so far - but don't have right USB cable to hookup to laptop - going to have to try to get one.

So far I've been to:

Zu Audio & Luxman - def rockin sound - they styled the room after mad men. 70's looking amps - sparkling green Soul Superfly (http://www.zuaudio.com/loudspeakers/soulsuperfly.html) speakers

Win Analog w/ Rockport sounded great. Very liquid, detailed, dynamic.

Wilson Sophia 3 (http://www.wilsonaudio.com/product_html/sophia_intro.html) - best sound i've heard so far. Most realistic. They are amped by Rega Osiris (http://www.rega.co.uk/index2.htm) - about $20k for the pair.

More to come with photos when I get the right cable.

I'll post a link when I get things posted (hopefully tonight) in the reviews.audioreview.com blog.

[atomicAdam]

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/medium/IMAG0044.jpg
(photo off cell phone)

Brian Ackerman was kind enough to allow about 30 of us from the hi-fi media into his home tonight to hear the Lansche CUBUS loudspeaker ($80,000) driven by the Sovereign Director Pre-Amp ($15,000) and Glory Amplifier ($18,000) with Stage III cables. An amazing system. Detail and dynamics were fantastic. Highs walked a thin line between smooth and realistic. Bass was kick'n. (no one played hiphop - I think it might break audiophile ears) - but even at these prices this system lacked a certain mid tone grunt and the bass tended to BOOM even though it was retardedly fast.

More to come and with better photos on reviews.audioreview.com.

You can also follow on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/audioreview) and FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/people/AudioReview-Adam-LaBarge/100001733053513).

[blackraven]

Those Soul Superfly speakers seem to have that Dr. Who Dalek look to me.:crazy:

[atomicAdam]

Here is the Zu room. Only good image I have at this point, I'll try to get another tomorrow. It is a great theme - Zu Soulfly speakers with Luxman SQ-38u tube integrated amp & D-38u CDP - though this was being played via a Peachtree DAC off a Mac.

I might have to get a Mac Mini soon.

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/medium/Zu-SoulFly-Luxman.jpg

[atomicAdam]

Amazing Sound. Amazing.

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/medium/audionote-uk-marten.jpg

http://gallery.audioreview.com/data/audio//500/medium/audionoteuk-marten.jpg

[poppachubby]

Great stuff Adam...more!!!

[dean_martin]

I read part 1 of your report. You need more coffee! Only one cup between 4:00 a.m. and 10? C'mon, man. Get wired for sound!

[atomicAdam]

I read part 1 of your report. You need more coffee! Only one cup between 4:00 a.m. and 10? C'mon, man. Get wired for sound!

Dood - last couple weeks have been hell. So I've been getting very little sleep.

Wifie had to make an emergency trip back to Taiwan, we are in the middle of moving, so now I am in the middle of moving, working on AudioReview stuff, working on reviews for Dagogo, trying to climb 6 days a week (2hrs at a time) and get in my 4 mile run everyday. I just swamped - and the thursday before my trip was so crazy. I ended up leaving my luggage in the new house, friend came over to pick me up - we had to make emergency run to WallMart (don't like that place too much) to get new cheap luggage - it has just been crazy.

Anyways - I'm going to go for a lunch time run and start working on part two soon.

[atomicAdam]

SO WHO WENT? WHAT DID YOU THINK? WHAT DID YOU LIKE? WHAT DIDN"T YOU LIKE?

come on folks - i can't have been the only person on the AudioReview forums to have gone

[woofersus]

I went, and it was great, but since I was an exhibitor this time around I don't want to comment on other rooms. Unless maybe they are so much more expensive than what I sell that they aren't really competitors or are selling something completely different than what I do.

I will say that I thought more rooms sounded good this year in general than last year - even a few things I really don't care for sounded less bad. ;) It was interesting to experience it from the other side and get to know some of the things that exhibitors go through and the obstacles they face in making the room sound its best. Definitely a few lessons for next year.

In any case, if any of you checked out room 542 and heard the Melody AN211 and ACA Trinity speakers, please go easy on my fragile ego. :biggrin5:

[dean_martin]

Dood - last couple weeks have been hell. So I've been getting very little sleep.

Wifie had to make an emergency trip back to Taiwan, we are in the middle of moving, so now I am in the middle of moving, working on AudioReview stuff, working on reviews for Dagogo, trying to climb 6 days a week (2hrs at a time) and get in my 4 mile run everyday. I just swamped - and the thursday before my trip was so crazy. I ended up leaving my luggage in the new house, friend came over to pick me up - we had to make emergency run to WallMart (don't like that place too much) to get new cheap luggage - it has just been crazy.

Anyways - I'm going to go for a lunch time run and start working on part two soon.

I was just thinking that by 10:00am I've usually had 4 cups of coffee. That can't be good. Anyhow, hope things calm down for you. I'm looking forward to the rest of your report - it's always good stuff, especially the pics.

PS-The last time I was in Denver, I missed the show by two weeks. I had no control over my schedule though. I did get to hit some excellent audio shops in the area. First time I heard QuickSilver amps and huge Maggies was on that trip.

[atomicAdam]

I went, and it was great, but since I was an exhibitor this time around I don't want to comment on other rooms. Unless maybe they are so much more expensive than what I sell that they aren't really competitors or are selling something completely different than what I do.

I will say that I thought more rooms sounded good this year in general than last year - even a few things I really don't care for sounded less bad. ;) It was interesting to experience it from the other side and get to know some of the things that exhibitors go through and the obstacles they face in making the room sound its best. Definitely a few lessons for next year.

In any case, if any of you checked out room 542 and heard the Melody AN211 and ACA Trinity speakers, please go easy on my fragile ego. :biggrin5:

Sorry - though I was on the 5th floor a couple times I think I missed the room. I'll check out the gear though online.

It would be interesting if you could write up something on what you did go through as an exhibitor. I would be very interested in reading something like that.

[woofersus]

Sure, I can take some time later and do a little write-up on that. I'm busy trying to plaster info about the gear all over the place (including my own website) at the moment since much of it was new. As of now, all of it (the new stuff, anyway) is headed to various reviewers, so I'm sure you'll hear more about it soon.

[woofersus]

Ok, so for whoever is interested, this is my take on being an exhibitor at RMAF for the first time.

First, there are a lot of exhibitors showing new gear. These sorts of shows are as much about catching the attention of reviewers and publications as they are about sounding good to the public, so it makes sense to debut new gear there. An unfortunate side effect is that frequently there is a race to get stuff finished or shipped across an ocean in time for the show. Hence, break-in can be an issue. If you don't believe in burn-in, go to a show like this and listen to a bunch of rooms that have brand new gear on Friday, then go back on Sunday. The difference can be staggering. In our case, we had 3 brand new items with us that had been delivered the day before heading to the show: A Melody AN211 integrated amplifier and a pair of Melody MN845 mono amplifiers. The MN845's are a new halo product for Melody and we were eagerly looking forward to showing them. Unfortunately, after getting everything set up we discovered there was a problem with one of the big monos, so we couldn't demo them OR the tube preamp we'd brought. That left us with the AN211, which none of us had ever heard before. Thursday night it sounded decent, but was a touch thin and with a dense soundstage. Friday was better, but the sound continued to change every few hours until the next day, and while probably 80% of the change was done in the first 10 hours or so, it wasn't even done settling in as the show ended. In the end, we were all pretty impressed with the amp and the room sounded better than I had hoped, (and better than the new speakers sounded in my home a few weeks prior with a different amp) but people who visited us on Friday heard something very different than people who visited on Saturday afternoon. We also had something that DIDN'T get done in time, but that's another story altogether.

The next issue facing exhibitors is music selection. The number one challenge during the show is trying to bring as many people as possible into the room. We found that some of the "safest" musical selections did little to draw people who weren't already on their way in. On the other hand, there are some people who really like snooty audiophile music and won't come in if they hear a guitar with distortion at all. One guy even complained to me about "distortion built into the music" when he came in at the very tail end of a song by Muse that I had rather enjoyed. He also complained about the playback software on my laptop, asked us to shut of the air conditioning and close the door, then handed me a cd of organ music that turned out to be completely flat and dull sounding. Maybe it's exciting when you can reproduce that 9hz bottom note or whatever, but we were showing stand-mounted speakers that only went down into the 30's. What can I say? You can't please everybody. I also played some requested Miles Davis at one point, which was nice, but there was a fairly shrill sounding woodwind instrument that came in after about a minute and as I realized I probably had it turned up a little too loud for that material, somebody took two steps into the room, put his fingers in his ears, and stormed out. (he was being a little dramatic - it couldn't have been more than 88db or so in there) We played a little of everything, and I thought much of it sounded quite good, but there were a few missteps. My advice is that if you have even the slightest inkling that the reason a room sounds bad is the music choice, either ask them to play something of yours or skip past it and stick your head back in before moving on to another floor.

Adding to the balancing act, we found that if we opened the door and people could hear the music a little as the walked by, more people came in. However, this didn't do the noise floor any favors. There were some rooms around us that played music VERY loud, and there was quite a bit of bleed at times. Add to that the sound of people in the hallway and occasionally the A/C (we were using tubes and it was crowded, how do you just turn it off the whole time and let the room be 89 degrees?) and it can be a fairly difficult place to evaluate gear even if the demo is done well. That's more of a difficulty for the attendees I guess, but while the big name manufacturers may get the benefit of the doubt in tough conditions, newcomers like us have to win people over from scratch.

For many, the power supply in the hotel was really tough. Fortunately we had a really great power conditioner that kept everything pretty stable, but regardless of what you think about fancy power cords and conditioners and the like, many exhibitors had a really tough time keeping amps biased correctly. There were multiple rooms wired to a single 20A circuit as the hotel just wasn't designed for that kind of use, and the draw was really high.

Some other manufacturers have a lot of trouble with acoustics in the room, but to be honest I think that's usually more a symptom of speakers ill-suited to the room. Our speakers were small enough that with a little toe-in to minimize first reflections and some bass traps in the corners it was fine. Noise floor was a much bigger issue.

Finally, the whole thing is just incredibly rushed. You fly or drive in and have less than a day to lug all that stuff up the room and get it sounding its best on Thursday, then you have the hectic nature of the show, all the socializing that takes place after hours, (this his how business gets done, after all) and the same rush to get it packed up on Sunday evening. It's tiring, back-breaking, (depending on your gear) expensive, (especially for those that have gear shipped to the hotel) and there's a lot of pressure to get that good review. Frankly, it's almost as rushed for the average attendee. I don't just mean trying to see every room. (which by my math would allow for 4.9 minutes per room if you don't take lunch or ever go to the bathroom during show hours) I mean hearing your 30th room of the day and being able to evaluate it. It's not your ears so much as your brain, which is complete mush at that point so that it's tough to really say what sounds good and what doesn't, or if it would in your home environment. The best you can hope for is to get some ideas for your shopping list and then find another time to evaluate more thoroughly - whether it be later in the show, at a dealer, at a fellow enthusiast's home, or in your own. If you set out trying to find your favorite speakers at RMAF you'll probably be disappointed for all of the above reasons, but it IS a great place to see the incredible variety of what's available to you.

I would say that the whole thing turned out fairly well for us. While we didn't generate the forum buzz we might have hoped for, we did get impending pro reviews set up for nearly everything in the room, and at least 90% of the room's visitors had nice things to say about the sound - most of them seeming genuine. ;) I have to say, though, the most gratifying thing of all was the great feedback from our industry peers. When you develop your first product you spend a ton of money and then hope it's as good as you think it is, so when the Emotiva guys piled into the room and beamed, or the Aperion guys from down the hall checked in and had really nice things to say, or Bill Baker of Response Audio said he was blown away by the appearance of the huge Melody monos, it makes you feel like maybe you're gonna make it. Of course it still needs to translate into sales, but having a compelling product is the most important thing.

Now we just have to make adjustments and do it again in CES! :14:

[atomicAdam]

I can see all your points, especially being rushed. I'm sorry I missed your room. I'll make sure to see you at CES.

I think most people, who don't have their heads up their ass, tend to know you can only get so good a sound from a show, and that really it is just there to get your interest peaked in certain things.

Speaking of which....

[Trinity]

Adam,

It was great to have met You & Your Boss.

Here's a picture of our room at RMAF.

Stop by our room, 30-331, during CES. :)

[atomicAdam]

Adam,

It was great to have met You & Your Boss.

Here's a picture of our room at RMAF.

Stop by our room, 30-331, during CES. :)

Thanks Hugh -

I will. I've got the Melody amp plugged in and burning away. And my boss has learned to use it as well. :)