My individual experience of THE Show 2015

M

MusicDirector

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It’s been about three years since I attended T.H.E. Show Newport and that first time it was not good for me.
Now, here I am 3 years later making a second attempt at it in no different position than I was at the first (still a non-audiophile, very limited income, etc.). However, this time was far and away better than the first, by miles!!!!!

I do not enjoy looking at gear, it usually depresses me and I’m just not super interested, I’d rather play music. However, looking at gear is exactly what I did, but this time with purpose and selectively.

I am not a professional writer or anything. Everything I say is only my opinion and personal experience at the show and nothing more.

I avoided the uber gear rooms (as pretty as some of it is), because it was not within the scope of why I was there and would have made me miss things I should not have missed. I still managed to miss the Salk room and wish I hadn’t, I wanted to hear those speakers too damn it!

I’m also not writing detailed reviews of gear I saw because again, I’m not a reviewer and not interested or that knowledgeable in capacitors, power supplies, diodes, dac chips, most specs and the rest of it, so I really can’t speak to it.
I’m only going to cover some specifics of some rooms I visited and not everything.
I’m also not going to but touch on maybe one let down because though I noted a total of two or three I really don’t need to go into them, do I? Besides, they were minor compared to the overall goodness of the show.

I noticed the atmosphere of this show was different. Not nearly as stuffy as the one I attended the first time. It seemed much more positive and that’s the way it should be in my opinion.
I was also not concerned about the room acoustics because in my case they were all better than I currently deal with at home, so I let the chips fall where they may on that.

I’m going to post in snippets as well because it will be easier for me than writing a whole experience of THE Show as I have already tried doing since returning home and have re-written over four times getting worse each time. (I have trouble getting my head around gear and the descriptions of it and all that).

So, here's number one
The Cambridge/Focal Aria room: The Cambridge gear is nice in my opinion. There were two pieces from the Azur 851 series and two from the CX line. The CX line is several hundred less than the Azur line and the dealer told me that it is made to help get more people into better gear. (I figure even if it’s slightly better than off the shelf stuff, we’ll take it. Hey, any help to get music with even decent sound quality to more people is welcome).
I never saw the Azur line in person before and I have to say it is much better looking in person. It also seems to me to be very well built. Nice thick aluminum casing, well done display and layout, very attractive in silver too. I can’t get into how it “sounds” because it’s electronics, not speakers and room treatment and I can only hear how speakers, rooms and straight amps perform sound-wise, but I had no complaints. I liked the Azur 851A integrated they were using as it has a dual mono config. I’ve never run into or heard dual mono integrated amps before and I really like the idea personally (I don’t know why yet or at least enough to explain adequately). The price point of the Azur line products considering the build, make them a good buy in my opinion.

More to come later.

~Eric
 
The Odyssey/GIK room: My first pair of really bad speakers I ran across in my opinion, were the new Odyssey Lorelie floorstanders. They are two-way ported, 32-22,000 Hz, 6 ohm, 89 Db sensitive and use beryllium tweeters and I found them exceedingly harsh. They were being driven by Odyssey Khartago mono blocks and source was a Symphonic Line CD player, but I don’t feel the electronics were part of the problem at all. In this particular case I strongly feel it was the speakers and the recording as it happened to be one of the most poorly produced/recorded CDs I know, (Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Maybe it was a bad copy, it certainly wasn’t a remaster. The vinyl version would have been far better). They could have at least chosen something different in that regard.
The Odyssey electronics seemed nice, at least cosmetically. It was hard to gauge the noise floor and all with the speakers being so harsh. They were also played quite loud, to the point of being hard to distinguish any gear issues. The prices for most of the electronics weren't too bad. The whole system could be had for well south of $5k on show special.

Emerald Physics room: The stars here were the new KCII speakers. The price was very reasonable, it's too bad the speakers were not that good to my ears and eyes. I found them to be kind of sloppy sounding and very sloppy looking. The imaging was lacking and unfocused to me. They sounded somewhat muddled (my ears were well healed from the Odyssey speakers by the time I got there). They also looked kind of thrown together, but I'm told they were just the demo models and the production ones were far better, so I'll give some credit anticipating that to be true. I do wonder though, why not put your best foot forward in an introduction and demo situation? Oh well, just my observation and opinion.
More later.

Yeah, I know these two were kind of downers and not slamming any makers,I'm just giving my opinion on what I heard with my ears and I want to keep it honest and fair. Brighter things to come.
 
Eric

The Odyssey speakers you heard were the first pair of a new model and were just finished up and sent to Newport from Indy on Wednesday. Other than the time on them for final voicing they were NIB. They were already paid for up front and were delivered in person to a member on Audiocircle from the area after the show was packed up. He has already commented on the other forum that they still need a couple of hundred more hours for the Beryllium tweeter to smooth out and the Revelator woofers to fully loosen up. Mike said the same thing about the Be tweeters in his Focal's. Klaus usually demo's with vinyl, but his VPI TT died at Axpona and the repairs were not finished yet. From what I have seen described in other places the shape of that particular room as opposed to the other room they had was a real challenge. Now if you are talking the room with the regular Kismet monitors that look like floorstanders then ignore what I said. It would have had the big banner hanging with a system price listed.
 
Jack said:
Eric

The Odyssey speakers you heard were the first pair of a new model and were just finished up and sent to Newport from Indy on Wednesday. Other than the time on them for final voicing they were NIB. They were already paid for up front and were delivered in person to a member on Audiocircle from the area after the show was packed up. He has already commented on the other forum that they still need a couple of hundred more hours for the Beryllium tweeter to smooth out and the Revelator woofers to fully loosen up. Mike said the same thing about the Be tweeters in his Focal's. Klaus usually demo's with vinyl, but his VPI TT died at Axpona and the repairs were not finished yet. From what I have seen described in other places the shape of that particular room as opposed to the other room they had was a real challenge. Now if you are talking the room with the regular Kismet monitors that look like floorstanders then ignore what I said. It would have had the big banner hanging with a system price listed.
Click to expand...

Hi Jack, yes, I was in the "banner room". Actually, that would be the GIK room.
Good folks at GIK by the way, if anyone is looking for room treatments. They are very friendly and honest. I have two of their panels on the back wall of my living room.
 
Eric

Yes the GIK people are good folks, I use their stuff too. As to the sound in that room, I don't have an explanation. That gear has been in play at shows for at least a year unless he sold the normal speakers and took another pair. Those are actually monitors with the stands built on and closed in. The bottom two thirds is sealed and has no effect. What you are describing sounds like a new pair of Be tweeters and those speakers are the original Kismet Monitors. I have the Lorelie's and they sound nothing like that. As to the music in my experience Queen is not particularly good demo material. Kind of like using LZ, all it demonstrates is the ability to play loud. But Klaus is if nothing else a 70-80's rocker at heart. Last time I talked to him on the phone he was on the way to a Grand Funk Railroad concert.
 
Eric - great job with the report! I asked you to go to Newport and asked if you would provide your thoughts. I know you were a little apprehensive, but you did a great job! Thank you.
 
Mike said:
Eric - great job with the report! I asked you to go to Newport and asked if you would provide your thoughts. I know you were a little apprehensive, but you did a great job! Thank you.
Click to expand...

Thank you Mike. I have a few more rooms to report. This is not easy...for me at least. It's like trying to learn a foreign language in 5 minutes. I don't want to put any makers off because they are all really nice, but I have to be honest in describing what I heard, but it's just my opinion and experiences, one person. I also don't know the back stories like what Jack was saying for instance and that can make a huge difference.
 
You're doing fine, keep it up. As to the Odyssey situation, I just happen to have known Klaus a long time and been a customer for over 15 years. Others here know other owners and reps.
 
Bummer that the Odyssey speakers were not up to snuff. They did themselves a huge dis-service by setting up harsh un-broken in speakers at a show. The Odyssey gear is at the price point you were attempting to review but due to the speakers, you had nothing good to say about the room/gear or how well the electronics perform at their price points.

My 15+y/o Stratos amp is still worth every cent I paid for it.

Thanks for the writeup and personal opinions of the show from a different perspective!
 
Shadowfax said:
Bummer that the Odyssey speakers were not up to snuff. They did themselves a huge dis-service by setting up harsh un-broken in speakers at a show. The Odyssey gear is at the price point you were attempting to review but due to the speakers, you had nothing good to say about the room/gear or how well the electronics perform at their price points.

My 15+y/o Stratos amp is still worth every cent I paid for it.

Thanks for the writeup and personal opinions of the show from a different perspective!
Click to expand...

I think Odyssey is outstanding at its price point, although I have never owned any.

IMHO it's almost impossible to judge individual components of a room's system at a show; you are hearing the system and the room, and trying to separate out what parts of each contribute to the overall sound is usually futile. An exception can be when a component can be switched in or out, like the Sonorus proximity room correction module in the HiFiOne and On A Higher Note rooms. In both those rooms it was clear that this made a "huge" difference; I put that in quotes because compared to things like changing cables, power cords, or even amps, the difference was huge, easily heard within one second of changing.

It's worth noting that this room correction system takes place outside the music signal path, so to all those room correction software naysayers (mep, me, etc) this one should be worth considering. The downside is the price; ~$12k, which does include set-up by the designer.
 
Shadowfax said:
Bummer that the Odyssey speakers were not up to snuff. They did themselves a huge dis-service by setting up harsh un-broken in speakers at a show. The Odyssey gear is at the price point you were attempting to review but due to the speakers, you had nothing good to say about the room/gear or how well the electronics perform at their price points.

My 15+y/o Stratos amp is still worth every cent I paid for it.

Thanks for the writeup and personal opinions of the show from a different perspective!
Click to expand...

I like the Odyssey gear and it was well within scope. I had nothing bad to say about the electronics either. I just couldn't speak to the gear because the speakers were overpowering and would not let me analyze the gear. I couldn't get a bead on the noise floor or anything. I though I mentioned that I liked the looks, sorry if I didn't.
I have no doubt at all that the electronic Odyssey gear is good though at it's price point. I just wish I could have dug deeper with it.

As far as the rooms go, all were better than mine at home, so I wasn't even considering the rooms in the equation. (I know one should though).
 
rbbert said:
I think Odyssey is outstanding at its price point, although I have never owned any.

IMHO it's almost impossible to judge individual components of a room's system at a show; you are hearing the system and the room, and trying to separate out what parts of each contribute to the overall sound is usually futile. An exception can be when a component can be switched in or out, like the Sonorus proximity room correction module in the HiFiOne and On A Higher Note rooms. In both those rooms it was clear that this made a "huge" difference; I put that in quotes because compared to things like changing cables, power cords, or even amps, the difference was huge, easily heard within one second of changing.

It's worth noting that this room correction system takes place outside the music signal path, so to all those room correction software naysayers (mep, me, etc) this one should be worth considering. The downside is the price; ~$12k, which does include set-up by the designer.
Click to expand...

True. Evaluating noise floor of an amp is easy enough though, but as to the rest of it, forget it.
Plus, at shows they aren't real keen on doing swaps and such and certainly not for non-audiophile, non-professionals like me. I wouldn't dare to ask.
I didn't get to those two rooms you mentioned. I'm always interested in room correction, but I feel nothing beats physical room correction.
 
MusicDirector said:
...I didn't get to those two rooms you mentioned. I'm always interested in room correction, but I feel nothing beats physical room correction.
Click to expand...

That's unfortunate, because both were in almost everyone's best 5; you should investigate this system further, in some ways it is ​physical room correction.
 
Jack said:
You're doing fine, keep it up. As to the Odyssey situation, I just happen to have known Klaus a long time and been a customer for over 15 years. Others here know other owners and reps.
Click to expand...

I don't think I went to his room if memory serves.
 
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