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Speakers
As usual, there were far too many speakers to see and hear. I
noticed again this year though in the high end audio area of the
Venetian, that the acoustics of the smaller meeting rooms were
terrible. They are virtually square with really high ceilings,
so that makes for a terrible listening environment. You’d figure
that the manufacturers of these very expensive speakers, cables
and amplifiers etc would bring some acoustical room treatment
material (bass traps, etc) to make their products sound better,
but no, in the few audiophile rooms I went to (about 10), I
walked away from all of them less than impressed. In addition,
many of these manufacturers are listening to material and
artists that I’ve never heard before, so I have no reference as
to how this equipment sounds. For example, a couple of rooms
were playing music by a solo instrument, be it a flute or
bassoon. I’m sorry, I listen to a lot of different genres of
music, but a solo instrument recording isn’t amongst my CDs.
From around the corner of one room, I heard Michael Jackson’s
‘Billie Jean’ being played, so I raced around the corner ...
only to find another one of these square meeting rooms with no
acoustical treatment, so frankly the bass sounded terrible. I
didn’t go to Alexis Park where all of the rest of the high end
audio was being shown, there are a number of reviews online
about the $10,000 speaker cables, $50,000 amplifiers and
$100,000 speakers. Here are some fun pictures though of
equipment that I’ll never own.
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