I have avoided venues like you suggest and will likely continue to do so as I do not feel they are reasonable venues for serious evaluations. The rooms are poorly designed for listening and the setups seldom, if ever, optimized - its just not feasible. The listening sessions are necessarily short and never uninterupted. Making a judgement under conditions like that is simply not useful.
I do however recommend that people who are serious about the answer to the question that you pose come to my home (all are invited) and evaluate my system in the manner that I feel is correct for this kind of evaluation - no excuses are needed or offered. I have posted every single evaluation that people have offered on their experiences. I think that you will find the answer that you are looking for in those evaluations, however if these are not enough then the answer will certainly be found by a visit here. Many very serious audiophiles have made this journey, some from very far away. I have posted ALL of these on my site.
I have been to a few different shows in the past and I always laugh at the setups. Horrible rooms, horrible music, smelly guys sitting in chairs with their eyes closed (What is that, Meditation? and take a shower please!!!)
Enough people have posted about 2009 RMAF already that has me concluding they are a joke. When you show off 100K speakers, you should be able to allow for user content and more importantly you should be able calibrate the speakers for the room AND treat the room!!
Very few of those events are about accuracy IMO or audio science so why bother. Its an Ego stroking afair amongst many that are very disconnected from reality. The best rooms I have ever experienced are always the DIYers rooms (If any exist) because those are raw, honest and humble products.
Audio shows are not the best listening environment, that's for sure. But calling them a joke seems harsh to me.
Perfect they are not, but they do have some huge advantages. There is no store were you will find anywhere near this number of products. Just the chance to actually see and hear some of these rigs is rare. And going from room to room let's you hear how different so many are. And how much the same so many others are. I find the quick comparison handy.
I don't believe that most of the attendees expect perfect conditions. Most understand the limitations. They are at the show to hear things they've heard or read about, and to discover new stuff. And to have fun! Most rooms welcome your CD or vinyl. And many rooms are treated. Some rooms are packed, some are empty. And it doesn't always follow sound quality.
We don't live in a perfect world, audio shows are not perfect. But I've had visitors in Denver, Las Vegas and Montreal tell me over and over how glad they are to attend. They aren't happy with most dealerships, or can't find one. Shows serve a useful purpose for the listening public and for the industry as well.
My 2 cents.
Perfect they are not, but they do have some huge advantages. There is no store were you will find anywhere near this number of products. Just the chance to actually see and hear some of these rigs is rare. And going from room to room let's you hear how different so many are. And how much the same so many others are. I find the quick comparison handy.
I don't believe that most of the attendees expect perfect conditions. Most understand the limitations. They are at the show to hear things they've heard or read about, and to discover new stuff. And to have fun! Most rooms welcome your CD or vinyl. And many rooms are treated. Some rooms are packed, some are empty. And it doesn't always follow sound quality.
We don't live in a perfect world, audio shows are not perfect. But I've had visitors in Denver, Las Vegas and Montreal tell me over and over how glad they are to attend. They aren't happy with most dealerships, or can't find one. Shows serve a useful purpose for the listening public and for the industry as well.
My 2 cents.
Very interesting thread. Just one comment. For studio monitors 2 reasons for low freq extension. Some music has a lot of content below 40 hz; synths and low freq synthesis added to regular bases and bass drums, and low Freq noise (rumble) that the engineer needs to hear so he can get rid of it, even if no one else would hear it (which some do) it eats up a lot of headroom.
A dedicated LF system will still allow efficiency where needed and a reduction in IMD for the midbass and up.
Chris I think you are considering this question on more of a total system level, where (as I understand it) it's a comparison at the component level (drivers).
Thats a fair POV. Im just saying they are a joke to me nothing more, Im definitely aware some people do enjoy them. I wish I was one because like you said its the only place where we can hear some of the more exclusive speakers.
I guess my point with respect to the thread is that Pro Audio really has no need to go to these shows. Their vision has nothing to do with impressing the hi-fi crowd either, since the hi-fi crowd has little concern with measurements or high SPL, extremely low distortion designs.
In the end If someone wants the best HT speaker setup then they should really consider Pro audio type designs. 99% of the consumer stuff out there doesnt come close.
As I see it the largest difference between the two are sensitivity and power handling looking at general purpose pro drivers. Both "types" can give you excellent results however with a well set-up Pro driver system you get both a sensitivity and a power handling advantage over the other the typical "hifi" driver set-up. As I see it there is no advantage to hifi drivers.
Rob🙂
Agreed I like the way HE systems sound as well. An HE set-up within an HT system is lot's of fun. The exaggerated dynamics, for dramatic effect, in the soundtracks really comes to life and hitting 105db is a cakewalk for the Pro drivers. Well withing their power dissipation curve with no real chance of any audible power compression.
Rob🙂
Are we talking about HT or hi-fi? Normally I would say there is a large difference which may perhaps change with Blue-Ray and better quality recordings.
Both music and HT.
Two weeks back I heard my friend's PHL based system again, and without a doubt it is one of the two best systems I have ever heard. It imaged, had a wealth of detail, exceptional dynamics and SPL capability and made every single other audiophile driver based system I have ever heard sound anaemic and constipated by comparison.
Ditto. Except that it sort of reads that pro drivers exaggerate dynamics, where my experience is that they actually go by far the closest to reproducing them properly.
That was not my intention. The point I wanted to get across was that the exagerated dynamics that are found in movie sound tracks used for dramatic effect are more easilly reproduced by an HE HT set-up.
I don't see it that way at all. If the system can do 5.1 DVD-A or SACD well there is no reason at all why you can do 2 channel stereo on the same system. With this topic it doesn't matter what your sources are.
Rob🙂
I thought as much, but that was how it read first time to me and didn't want others to think that's what you meant.
Sure you will get some serious HT systems that can do a good job with music also, my experience is that normal HT systems are optimised to create maximum noise in movie soundtracks but sucks when it come to SQ when listening to music (talking mostly about listening to acoustical instruments). DTS and AC3 decoding is another problem.
Does PHL stand for Personal Home Loan? 😀
Surely it matter what the use for the system is, the optimum hi-fi system and the optimum HT system (for watching movies) may differ a lot.
Cheaper, and some not so cheap, "pro" drivers use cone break up to achieve some of their efficiency in the midrange, i.e. loudness efficiency.
Good hi fi type drivers do not have this loudness effect, and some people interpret this as sounding "flat".
People often use cheap six inch p.a. drivers for the midrange in three way systems, (eminence alpha for instance), citing the advantage of efficiency, and the whole thing ends up sounding like what it is, a cheap p.a. system.
The pro drivers that can play with efficiency and fidelity through the midrange tend to be rare and expensive.
rcw.
Good hi fi type drivers do not have this loudness effect, and some people interpret this as sounding "flat".
People often use cheap six inch p.a. drivers for the midrange in three way systems, (eminence alpha for instance), citing the advantage of efficiency, and the whole thing ends up sounding like what it is, a cheap p.a. system.
The pro drivers that can play with efficiency and fidelity through the midrange tend to be rare and expensive.
rcw.
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