How long has Albert been working on his room/system? I know people know this but the vendors have to set up a statement system in literally a few hours and then people start coming in to the room. It's not by vendor choice, it's the hotel and show policies and procedures etc. Forget whether the components are broken in, they just got done getting bounced around by a trucking/moving company and it takes at least 24 and more like 48 hours to settle in, once they are set up and turned on. And then hotel power, which is very questionable at best.
Speaker placement in the room, which in a private room usually takes me MONTHS to get the best results, must be done in about an hour. Depending on the sizes of the rooms this could or not be an issue. For example in the case of the Focal room the room was a giant room. Then you have to take into consideration that you are going to have maybe 50 people in the giant room at once, so speaker placement must accommodate this requirement first.
Also, what is Albert's room size? The CES Focal room must have been 30' or 40' wide by 40' or 50' deep.
Anyway, to compare a room that is set up in a few hours with who knows the length of time that equipment has been broken in etc., is fairly amusing imho.
With having said the above, I personally thought that a few of the rooms that I was involved with, with literally a few hours of set up sounded better with the EXACT same equipment that I have had in my room, which I have worked at for months. I learned that I have my speakers WAY too far out into the room. I got back from the West Coast last night and listened to my set up and was not pleased vs. our rooms at CES. I moved the speakers back towards the back wall like we had the speakers set up in LV and I heard more similar sound that I grew accustomed to in LV. Point being.....who knows???? It could go either way.
The Gina table was actually on my short list but AF-1 more so, went with the later.
