Here's my impressions from Friday. For the record, this was my first time listening to a lot of this gear and my own "reference" is by no means high-end (that is, high-cost). This is all from memory, and I tried to cover two hotels as best I could in one day. Meaning I skipped a lot of stuff and went to rooms who's gear I'd heard of before (mostly). I went to a few other rooms, but these are the ones I remember clearest.
First FloorSonyThese were good, but not great. The midrange and treble didn't particularly impress me, but they were solid enough down low. Kind of boring after a while, but the dynamics were still good. I felt like these should have sounded better in such a large room. Especially with those Pass monsters driving them. I actually asked the rep why they weren't using Sony amps to drive them and he wiggled out of the question quite aptly.
AyonCan't remember their sound too well. I think I was too distracted by the crazy valve amp in front of it. Either way, I remember explicitly thinking that the bass was not as impressive as it should have been. With a 14" woofer in a large cabinet, you'd think it'd have more clarity and impact.
Second FloorAudio ResearchIIRC, the Audio Research room had a pair of Wilson loudspeakers in it. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it sounded good.
Third FloorJansZenI'd heard good things about these before, but they
really impressed me. I got to sit with the rep (David) there for maybe a good 20 minutes and I was the only one in the room. We had a good talk and he let me pick from all sorts of music he had on his laptop. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at high SPL was frickin' awesome. Super revealing, you can hear all the noise and distortion on that track. Norah Jones sounded excellent as well. I think I was detecting a bit of the vocal "dryness" that people talk about with ES, but it was still good. Probably more of an artifact from being born and raised on dynamic drivers so far. The first track he played, I noticed there was an ever so slight imbalance, that is, the center image was shifted off maybe half a meter to the left from where it should have been for me (I was sitting front and center). I looked over at his laptop, and I'd noticed he had put down the right channel down a few ticks to compensate for the fact that he was listening one chair over so that the image would be center for him. I mentioned that and he swung it back over so it was center for me. So yeah, imaging was very precise.
Transients were quick, bass was big when it needs to be, imaging was sweet. David was really cool too and we bagged on high-end audio a bit before I left. I think these were my favorites of the show.
KEFI thought the LS50 monitor was a very good little speaker. I bet it would sound great in a near-field desktop setup. I don't remember the model # of the floorstander that they had in the other room, but it didn't impress me as much.
Fourth FloorOnda LigeriaThese Latvian blokes had quite a pair of speakers. First impression was how kick ass the bass was. This might have been the only room where they weren't afraid to play some heavy electronic music. The funky woofer reflex system as well as strange placement in the room delivered some room shaking bass. Didn't seem boomy at all to me. Overall sound was very "juicy" so to speak. Kind of an opposite to the JansZen's which were super-revealing throughout the midrange. No deficiencies, just a bit more polite. Runner-up to the JansZen from wha
t I heard at the show.
Audiowood | Glow-AudioThis room had some good sound playing as well. It's easy to write them off as trendy audio crap, but I liked the sound myself. Maybe I'm just tuned to listening to full-rangers more now. Audiowood makes the "designer" turntables, Glow makes the little valve amps and full-range/coaxial loudspeakers. Might seem unimpressive compared to the other sound systems in the building, but it's a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else who's trying to blow my eardrums out. Overall, the system had a very polite and clean sound. Couldn't detect any of the "full-range shout" on these coaxials.
I talked to both these guys quite a bit. We had a good discussion about full-range drivers and stuff. He agreed that my own FE126En was a good sounding driver, which made me happy to hear.
He went on quite a bit into the design of his loudspeaker. Again, I find it's nice to talk to reps that are technically informed instead of marketing drones.
MartinLoganThis might have been the first system which I actively disliked. The midrange was meh, didn't have anything close to the clarity that I was expecting. Bass response seemed totally incohesive and "out of tone" (does that make sense?) with the panel. And when I stood up to leave the room, I took one step and it was like someone flipped a LPF at 1kHz. The same effect existed with the JansZen, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced. I don't see how anyone could live with that in their own system.
EmotivaI tried their theater room first. Wasn't impressed really. Seemed too bassy and lacked detail. Since the room was dark, I actually didn't realize there were rear channels hooked up until I turned around. So didn't get any sense of surround sound while listening. The next door room had some cool gear being showed off (that huge xformer was thing of beauty) but I didn't stick around too long to form much of an opinion on the system. Sounded ok. I think they were running some B&W speakers though.
Fifth FloorBenchmark | Studio ElectricThis was a good one. Plenty of kick in the bass for such a small speaker and still really coherent everywhere else. Overall, a fun sound. They were playing some live Clapton so I think that helped. I wanted to try the Benchmark unit with the HD650 that they had hooked up, but the room was much to loud to form any opinion.
Tenth FloorTADThey had a nice big room set up. Speakers seemed polite through the midrange but still had great detail. Dynamics were ok, could have been better for a speaker of that size. Or maybe it was just the larger room that was throwing my brain off.
Atrium [Didn't have much time to spend in here, outside of Headphonium]
VanatooThey were very good, but I wasn't going crazy over them; sorry guys. I couldn't help but compare them to my own Overnight Sensations actually. Good bass and a bit withdrawn in the upper-midrange. But the OS have better bass and were stronger with the dynamics. Midrange is more fun to listen to with the OS as well; thick and well-rounded in comparison to the Vanatoos I think. Maybe it's not fair to compare a $150 DIY kit to a finished $500 speaker with so many features, but meh. That's what I took away. Still sounded better than a lot of other stuff, especially given the price.
AudioEngineThis was a fun one. The three reps here were probably the youngest at the show. Had a good talk with them. They got a pretty bad room in the Atrium away from everything else. They all looked tired and were joking about leaving to get beers and shit talking hig
h-end audio in turn. The A5+'s sounded pretty good, but were easily out-stripped by the Vanatoos in terms of bass extension. Still a good speaker IMO.
