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CA Audio Show at the Oakland Airport Hilton

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on July 29, 2017 at 20:57:38

These are just a few pics from yesterday. Ivan303 and I were there both yesterday and today. Ivan's take yesterday was that the tonal balance in many of the rooms was tilted up too much toward the bright side, but, today, we noticed that a couple of exhibitors had repositioned their speakers, and there was some improvement in the sound - at least in a few rooms. This is the first year to my knowledge that the show has been held at the Oakland Airport Hilton, and it seemed many of the exhibitors were still getting the acoustic "lay of the land" in each room. It seemed to me that music sources were mostly vinyl or computers - I think I saw only a couple of silver discs (of whatever persuasion!) being played.

We also very much enjoyed talking to the staff at the Reference Recordings table. Keith Johnson, Cookie Marenco, and Marcia Martin held a panel discussion in one of the conference rooms. Tim De Paravicini had presented a fascinating earlier talk and put in a cameo appearance in the panel discussion too. We just saw the last 15 minutes of Tim's talk, but we really enjoyed it. It was also great to see Professor Johnson again, explaining in further detail how he goes about making such wonderful recordings. (We had seen him speak a couple of years ago too.) In view of what oldmkvi has said about the numbers of microphones which Reference has used in the sessions he's participated in, it was interesting that Prof. Johnson said that not all the microphones which are set up during a recording session are actually used - some of them are there to be used just in case of an emergency! I also talked with Marcia and was delighted to find out that some of the Reference titles which heretofore have been available only in various 2-channel formats were actually recorded in MCh, and some of these titles are going to be released in their multi-channel guise - yeay!

Unfortunately, I often forget one of the cardinal rules of picture-taking: hold the camera steady! (The camera in this case is my cell phone.) Why am I posting here rather than on General? I don't really know - it's just that I've posted about this show here in the past, so general inertia is a good enough reason for me!

This first picture exemplifies "lifestyle" audio equipment. Yes, these are speakers - made by a company called Napa Acoustics, which, despite its name, is headquartered in Fremont, CA. Would these appeal more to women? (Is it sexist to ask that? LOL!) My wife's reaction was just, "Weird!". But they certainly brighten up a room:

The next photo shows the "High Cellini" speakers from Acapella, a German company. They feature "spherical horns" and ion (plasma?) tweeters. (Better not get too close to them, or you'll get a headache!) I thought they were excellent sounding units - as they should be for over $55,000:

I've gotten interested in baffleless speaker designs over the past couple of years, and there were a couple of companies demonstrating these types. Spatial was showing a model at the low end of their range ($4,000 - $5,000, depending on cabinet finish), which has recently been improved with a new dipolar compression driver, being driven by a 35wpc amp. (A couple of years ago, I saw their predecessors being driven by a 7.5wpc tube amp.) I thought they sounded very clear and solid (in fact, I really liked them a lot), but every time I stepped into the room, Clayton seemed to be playing "little girl with guitar"-type recordings (always a favorite genre of audiophiles!), and when I asked to hear something classical, he chose Vivaldi's A-minor Violin Concerto, Op. 3 No. 6, which was hardly the most demanding selection for a speaker! I couldn't recognize whose performance it was, but at least it wasn't HIP! I was hoping to hear Spatial's new X1 design, but they're not showing that model until the RMAF this fall - darn!

For some reason, the next picture appears upside down in the preview, so I apologize if it does so in the posted message too. This is another company making baffleless speakers, Pure Audio Project. The wrinkle with them is that their design allows for modularity in the make-up. Shown in the photo is a fairly large design (I'd guess about 7 feet) which goes for about $10,000 - pretty reasonable for a speaker of this size. In this room, and indeed throughout the show, we noticed people taking selfies next to the speakers! In truth though, these speakers did not sound quite as solid as the smaller Spatial speakers in the other room did - at least to my ears. Of course, I'm sure there would be many who disagree with this assessment, because these PureAudios do have a wide ranging sound which can be quite impressive.

Ah! Now we're right side up again! I'll end this post with a shot of the Von Schweikert / VAC room - I believe these babies run about $250,000 (sorry if this is incorrect - it's third-hand information). As you might expect, this was a big sound, with impressive front-to-back dimensionality too, although I wasn't entirely convinced by the left-to-right continuum - could have been the recording of course, rather than the speakers. The selections I heard were a couple of opera choruses with full orchestra - certainly more of a challenge to the speakers than the selections I heard in most rooms.

Although I plan to attend for the third day tomorrow, I'm not sure I'll post anything further - it just depends on other demands on my time.

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