T.H.E. Show Newport

gce

http://theshownewport.com/

I decided at the last minute to go to this show. Never been to anything like this so don’t know what to expect. Hopefully it will be fun and I’ll get to see equipment way out of my league and maybe some in my league.

Food trucks, albums and a car show to boot for only $15 at the door. I guess I’ll have to make a list of what I’d like to see/hear or it could get overwhelming.

txcoastal1

DSkip wrote: »

Hasn't this show already run?

Starts today

Yes make a list of the vendors you would like to see, then make your way around to others. Start early stay late. I really enjoy shows. Have fun

nooshinjohn

I am going to try and check it out on Sunday.

txcoastal1

We expect pics and highlights

gce

John, I'm going first thing in the morning when it opens so I can go through the albums before its get to crowded. Then look at all the stuff I cant afford.

Believe it our not the wife is going with so she'll be in charge of pic's and I'll be in charge of sitting in as many listening rooms as I can.

Skip, what does JWM stand for?

gce

Thanks, I'll make sure I find him.

nooshinjohn

Anyone want to meet for lunch on Sunday?

nooshinjohn

Just to confirm, the lovely Nooshin and I will be at T.H.E. Show tommorow from about 11am onward. The first beer is on me if anyone wants to join us.

Erik Tracy

Spent all of Saturday up at the show.

Got there about 9am, no lines, got my name tag, bag of intro goodies, room map and off I went with a friend that I drove up with from San Diego.

LOTS of rooms to visit - I can't remember all of them much less the exact equipment being demonstrated.

I resisted the temptation to spent too much time flipping thru the LP bins - I was there to listen, not spend the day with my eyes buried in a bin.

Memorable moments:
The Starke room with their tower speaker and multi-channel full Class A amp. Impressive full bodied sound.

A sweet demo room with Vienna Acoustic Towers, Lyngdorf int amp w/ room perfect set up to 100% correction, and a Rega P3 TT and Rega cart. Very nice.

Spatial Audio had their M3 dipole speaker set up - man that was amazing. They literally disappeared in the room and had great holographic imaging but with no narrow sweet spot.

Most bizarre demo was the Magnepan. A paper clock with arms was taped to the wall with an associate outside with colored sticker dots to assign you a time slot for their demo. We got there early enough to be whisked in without waiting.

We sat in a dark room listening to an unusual slice of musical selections that were manually toggled and gain controlled by a guy sitting at the side.

Nobody could tell what we were listening to and after my eyes adjusted there was just enough light to see a 3.0 setup which explained the rich center imaging.

The demo was over in about 10 minutes, and we were ushered out with no time for questions, just some passing out of some business cards and a comment about making an appointment later to discuss any questions. WTF?

The VPI room was another dark room demo with PF Welcome to the Machine playing on an unseeable system. So I left that fairly quickly.

The Spendor bookies were very impressive.

The ESS demo was hurtful - piercingly bright and unbalanced. Left that one pretty quickly, too.

And there was a lot of people at the ELAC room which I patiently pushed my way into and waited until a seat in the front row opened up. Gotta say that was a wow demo for the size and price for a pair of bookshelves.

Dropped by the Audio Note room and got their explanation of why their setup was corner loaded w/ extreme toe in. It was a nice sounding setup.

Gotta say that the choice of music in many rooms was a WTF head scratcher. Soft solo piano selections, or weird tick and pops of percussive instruments, and other such what I would consider non-demanding music. Like a test drive in a Ferrari but only staying in first gear.

I started to take pictures, but quickly tired of gear shots and trying to keep track of makes & models, so my apologies for this text only post.

gce

Great show and for me overwhelming. Sitting in each room listening for the sound I like was a challenge, because most of the rooms sounded so good but I think I know now what I want.

Next year we need to plan this so we all go together.

Here's some pic's...

nooshinjohn

Would have been nice to see you guys. The wife and I are heading out in about an hour.

gce

It sounded very good. They were spinning vinyl when I was there. The diamond tweeter is what I wanted to hear and it is a special tweeter. Makes me want the mini-X's a little more but may go up the 777's.

gce

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Would have been nice to see you guys. The wife and I are heading out in about an hour.

Next year we'll get everyone together. Don't miss out on the tri-tip sandwich with bacon and cheese!

Erik Tracy

DSkip wrote: »

How did the Usher Be-10 sound?

I thought they sounded ok. No, I take that back - they sounded quite good.

They didn't disappear though - even with eyes closed in the sweet spot, it still sounded like a pair of speakers.

Could have been the room, room set up, associated equipment, or all of the above.

There were other more impressive rooms at lower price points.

For instance, the Salk Song3 tower was very impressive, esp at the price (about 1/3 of the Ushers).

And at the other end of the price spectrum, in the Wilson room - pretty sure it was the Alexias...bleah.

But, that is just my lowly 2 cents worth.

voltz

check out the Spatial M3's for me John, after reading a review Marvin showed me from Stereo Mojo and a Stereophile review I been really curious of these open-baffles.

Now Eric just mention how much he like them too.

nooshinjohn

Too late V... Just got home and did not see your post. I was blown away by the MBL room, and those wonderful 101e's. Best room at the show IMHO. The TriangleArt room with the Reference SE and the Usher Mini 2's was also amazing. Nooshin loved the Burmeister room at first, but is now even more impressed with what we have at home!

I must say that my setup aquits itself very well compared to almost everything I heard today. Given that it will cost another 50k to get a 10 percent improvement, I think I will be standing firm on the hand I have been dealt by the Audio Gods.

If I do have a weak link in the rig, it would be the speakers, and the Ushers are the way I would go to fill the gap. That Diamond tweeter is amazing. The MBL 101's are the lottery winner choice however. I could have stayed in that room all day. My wife detected my getting emotionally drawn into some of the recordings. Just amazing...

Some pics to follow.

nooshinjohn

And here are some pictures...

nooshinjohn

For the coin, the Dancer's were amazing...

nooshinjohn

@voltz
For the coin, they were the biggest surprise of the day. No dsp on them either. Straight out of the box, they fared well IMHO to an Italian open baffle selling for over 20k. Cosmetically, the were rather bland, but they disappeared when I closed my eyes. I would gave snapped up the demo pair but they were gone ten minutes after the show opened on Friday.

gce

"DSkip wrote: »

What about those mini dancer 2's? Those should be an option as well and it looks like you got to hear them. The 777 are massive. You wouldn't believe how big they are until you see them in person. Even then, it's a bit underwhelming until you pick them up... Or attempt to.

The dancer 2's did sound good. I liked them better then the 10's but that might have been because of the room. I want to try and stick with bookies so the 2's won't work with what I'm going for.

voltz

nooshinjohn wrote: »

@voltz
For the coin, they were the biggest surprise of the day. No dsp on them either. Straight out of the box, they fared well IMHO to an Italian open baffle selling for over 20k. Cosmetically, the were rather bland, but they disappeared when I closed my eyes. I would gave snapped up the demo pair but they were gone ten minutes after the show opened on Friday.

Thanks john, I was afraid you would something good like that

Some year I may own a set of the M3's as I like what open baffles can do.

Erik Tracy

voltz wrote: »

nooshinjohn wrote: »

@voltz
For the coin, they were the biggest surprise of the day. No dsp on them either. Straight out of the box, they fared well IMHO to an Italian open baffle selling for over 20k. Cosmetically, the were rather bland, but they disappeared when I closed my eyes. I would gave snapped up the demo pair but they were gone ten minutes after the show opened on Friday.

Thanks john, I was afraid you would something good like that

Some year I may own a set of the M3's as I like what open baffles can do.

If I had a room that would allow for recommended placement (off the wall and sides), I'd be all over a set of M3's for the ridiculously low price. I thought they were that good.

voltz

^^^^
Cool after reading what you wrote about them earlier and it matched all the reviews I've found for the M3's it sure put a smile on my face! except now I want a set even more.

A few weeks ago I kept telling Scott (msg) how bad I wanted to hear these speakers.