Paul usually doesn’t write in ”1st person” on our website, but, his recent trip to the 2010 CEDIA show left him with many thoughts, impressions, and reflections.  So, he started writing:

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The other day, coming back home from my first CEDIA* show, CEDIA 2010, in Atlanta, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of equipment I’d seen, not to mention the complexity of some of it.   (“A lot of it starts to blur” as a very smart person put it to me, after a couple days of walking the Atlanta Convention Center).  Yet, I was rather underwhelmed by most of what I heard.  Only two demo’s impressed me at all:  One was a demonstration of a new wireless system that has the potential to make home theater audio setups for the average viewer / listener easier and more flexible at the same time.  Clearly, this system improves the sound at a listener’s location automatically and easily, compared to little or poor setup, and it can even follow the listener (or at least the remote) around the room, if desired.  Very cool!  But, while the (optimized) sound was acceptable, I did not walk out thinking “wow, great sound”, I walked out thinking “hey, very handy (and of other possible executions of the technology)”.  There is a difference there…  The one “impressive audio moment” at CEDIA 2010 was the end of the Harman demo:  Most of said demo was distinctly disappointing, given the cost of the components involved, but the dynamics in the material from the movie “Sherlock Holmes”, on an 11 speaker system that included the JBL “Everest” system for the mains, were VERY impressive.  More on that demo, later.    Aside from those two demos, soundwise, everything else was… (?)  Ugh.

*Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association:   http://www.cedia.net/

I ended up with “seats 26D and E” to myself, on the flight back to St. Louis, which gave me a little time to consider how I can presently be listening to what I am at home, and be so disappointed at most of what I heard at CEDIA — more so than at other shows I have been to in recent years?  I have been going to large consumer electronics shows for a long time, so I realize the circumstances are not good, and that an exhibitor has to work hard and well, in most cases, to create good demos.   Most don’t even try.  (More on that, below.)  But, CEDIA would seem to me to represent a little different slice of the action – a higher level slice, for the most part – than, say, CES, where you see “everything”.  I mean, what is the cost of an average installation by a CEDIA professional?   I was expecting to come home from CEDIA feeling a bit “wow’ed”, and maybe even a bit “cowed” by the audio side of at least a few demos.  With the exceptions noted above, it appeared no one was seriously trying.

Now, by way of explanation, I mentioned listening at home, because that system is pretty modest.  Between customer projects, in our living room I presently have a set of old ROR type G’s, which now have ALL the drivers replaced by non-original drivers which are largely “of convenience”:  The woofers are some shielded units with decent, though not outstanding performance — I picked them mainly because I had them, and I needed shielded drivers in the cabinets.  The tweeters are surplus Tonegen tweeters with a little less efficiency than the originals – they are very good in their own right, but not quite efficient enough to really keep up with the aformentioned woofers.  Again, they were picked as much for their shielding and “they fit”, as much as anything else.  Additionally, the very simple crossover left in the G’s definitely needs some work to integrate the above drivers better.  But I’ve been holding off on that until I can modify the cabinets for more efficient tweeters… or maybe just turn them into 3-ways.  Placement in the room?  It is “non-optimal”, a good part of the time, I would have to say.  (Usually, some other project has dibs on the best locations.)

In other words, these old ROR’s as they now exist probably don’t even meet the minimum requirements I would set for anything I would do for any but the most cash-strapped PR Audio customer, because I have not reworked the crossovers, and I know the drivers, while good, are not a great match for each other.

The best speakers I have been listening to recently have been those I’ve worked on for customers — which are usually out the door a day, or sometimes much less, after I get them completed.   Oh, and lest I forget, I had the wonderful opportunity to get an extended audition of the Thiel Audio CS3.7′s, at Thiel Audio, not quite a year ago.  The CS3.7′s are possibly the best dynamic (cone / voice coil) speakers I have ever heard, at least when it comes to sounding “like music”, at moderate levels.  (I know that’s a cliche’, so I’ll come back to that thought, too.)  Several months before the Thiel demo, several of the speakers I heard at the 2009 Lone Star Audio Fest sounded pretty good to me too, though, to be honest, not quite at the level of the Thiel’s.  (Thiel of course has the advantage of honing their demo room far more than can be done in most show situations, and, I suspect the 3.7′s are at their best in a fairy good size room, which Thiel has them set up in, at their factory.)

Yet another factor is that unless I’m working on something, I don’t get the opportunity to spend many hours every day listening to known “good” speakers.  I’m just too busy, and listening to LMS sweeps or WT-Pro tests of individual drivers doesn’t really count!

That got me thinking…  Many years ago I got into the habit of simply listening to the way things around me sounded.  Sometimes the object of my attention was music, but often it was just the sound of natural or man-made sources around me:  Conversations, footsteps, the piano at my Mom’s house, water running, birds, vehicles, trains (yeah! especially trains, when I’m pulled up right at the crossing!), ice cubes being dropped into a glass, a horse going by, my brother playing his 12 string acoustic guitar, people’s spoken voices…  That doesn’t mean I can discern the difference between two species of warblers, or different diesel engines the Illinois Central Railroad might be using, unless I deliberately compare them beforehand.  That’s not what I listen for.  Instead, what I listen for is “how do real things sound?”  And, I know I do this almost subconciously, much of the time.  (It probably accounts for my somewhat “distracted” look, sometimes!)  Hmm…

Well, eventually I arrived at my Mom’s, where I crashed for the evening, as I had a few things to take care of for her, and myself, the next day.  I don’t think I was analyzing how her voice sounded, too much!  Plus, I had a couple “weird stories” about the trip to tell. 

The next day, I went to church with Mom, and, as usual, I was marvelling at the wonderful acoustics in “our” chuch, how great the mini-grand piano sounded, how exquisite our small (but doesn’t sound like just a few voices!) choir manages to sound in that space, the purity of the voices, carrying me away…  I have always known that the sound quality in our main sanctuary is something special, and I once again realized how lucky I have been that, given my lifelong interest and work, I have had such a place to listen to purely acoustic music, from time to time.  It’s another benchmark, you might say?  I have truly been blessed.  Thank you, God!  (Not to mention the architect of the building!)

At any rate, as I drove home later, a realization I’ve had in the past came back to me:  The “reference” I carry around in my head is not a particular set of speakers, my stereo in our living room, or even any one type of listening circumstance, as described above.  I suspect that is good.  But, is it typical?

Back to my narrative –

At home the next evening, I decided to sit down with some “goodies”:  A new DVD I’d ordered came in, and a CD I’d picked up at CEDIA was at hand.  I really wanted to see / hear them, and, not only that, I was wondering what my ears would tell me about how my “ok” system at home sounded.  Was I being too critical, at CEDIA?

The DVD was/is (don’t laugh!) “Uriah Heep – Acoustically Driven”.  It’s a not quite “unplugged” concert they did a few years ago (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHaSS5Y8Nvs for a sample.)  So, I’m watching and listening to it, and thinking, “ok, I know I’m familiar with the CD of this concert, and I like most of the material, but, gosh, even with the easily heard limitations of these speakers, running off a pretty good Denon DVD player, and a fairly decent Yamaha HT receiver, two channels only– this sounds better than any music I heard at CEDIA.”  It was (is) not more detailed, wider range, more dynamic… but… I found myself really enjoying how it sounded.  The audible illusion that I think was intended by the group, the producer and engineer(s), really was there.  “Music”.  That’s definitely a rarity for a “live” CD or DVD of a “rock” group, unplugged or not.  What I did not hear was what I said to myself about 5 seconds into the demo of the $23k(?) Revel Salon2 speakers in the Harman display:  “Well, these sound like speakers.”  Put another way, I was acutely, and I do mean acutely aware that I was listening to a reproduced voice, not an actual voice, over the Salon2′s.

Ok, granted, I know how to “tune out” the old RORs’ major faults.  And… program material certainly has a bearing.  Not only did I want to like the Heep DVD, I was reading the liner notes, and found:  “In order to retain the dynamics of the performances, I decided against any form of artificial compression or enhancement to the final master.  The tradeoff is slightly less volume on the disc, but we feel this is a price worth paying…”  And “we all wanted to preserve the feel of the occaision as much as possible.”  (Pip Williams – producer)

Well, Pip, you did one heck of a good job.  I sure would like to watch this DVD with the audio playing on the Thiel 3.7′s someday!  I know they’d be 100 times better than my old ragged RORs!  Shoot, for that matter I’d like to hear this on the Salon2′s, to give them a 2nd chance.  Maybe the demo material they were playing was part of the problem, or maybe their setup in the display / demo was faulty?  (If so, shame on Harman!)  But, even on my simple 2 channel system, with questionable speakers, and moderate price electronics, I can sit back and start listening, and next thing I know I’m smiling, and “there”:  Being carried away by that beautiful flute, with the warm strings in support, on “Golden Palace.”  Yeah!

The CD I picked up @ CEDIA is a 4 song demo of the group “Give”, made available by “Salon Son & Image”.  To quote from the website: 

Official Disc
SSI 2010
The SSI is presenting Audiophilantrope, its 2010 reference recording with Give Band from Montreal. A World Folk music style, recorded and mastered at the world famous Guy St-Onge’s studio where sound performance is a priority.

The disc is sold for $10. To order your copy, please contact us at: info@salonsonimage.com

http://www.salonsonimage.com/en/events/disc.html

This is a wonderful recording!  Again, maybe it’s all the source material — I’m sure that’s part of it — but nothing I heard at CEDIA can even touch how this sounds on my current modest system in my living room.  And I can’t wait until a certain project I’m working with others on bears fruit, and as an offshoot probably will generate at least one system very close to being as good as those Thiels — maybe even better in some ways.  We shall see!

On a somber note, though, I have to wonder:  What’s going on with these companies and their products, at CEDIA?  Is the desire to recreate stunning Home Theater movie experiences in the home, or the devotion to the “technology” overwhelming the ability of even expensive speaker systems to reproduce realistic sounding music?  Or is a show like CEDIA all about the sales pitch, or the most clever installations, and almost no-one really cares if any true-to-life sound is being presented?  Or knows how to?

Along this line, I would point out that, curiously, Thiel was at CEDIA, but was not demo’ing.  They just had a medium-small display out on the Convention Center floor, but no room set up for listening.  I can understand that…  A decent amount of space at one of these large shows, and taking several people along, is pretty expensive, and the circumstances acoustically, unless one spends a lot of money for a good setup, are not so good, either.  Plus, I don’t think Thiel had a whole lot of new product to show / demo.  But, even so, I wonder:  What if they were to have both a small floor display, and, say, over at the Omni Hotel (literally next door), have a room set up for a really good A-V demo, and invite customers NOT so familiar with their products to drop by.  It would not cost them all that much additional money, and they’d blow everyone else away.  Heck, during the day, exhibitors’ hotel rooms are just sitting there, empty.  Come in a day early to make sure the setup in the room is right, and maybe even have the room scouted out in advance.  The hotel might even be willing to help out.  I’ve seen this sort of thing done successfully at CES, years back, where exhibitors “out on the show floor” had their real demo’s “back at the hotel.”  Sure, if lot’s of other competitors do this too, the impact would be lessened.  But if no one else or almost no one else is doing it…

Now having said all that, Harman, I think, did at least try, and I really like the idea of their display in a semi that goes all over the country showing people their “stuff”.  Moreover, they did get one thing, to me, “right”.   Keep in mind that I have a lot of background with live rock music, and some background with a lot of other forms of music, and the dynamics of such.  I’ve also been around a few fairly impressive acoustic events — no wars or major volcanic eruptions though, thankfully! — and, again, I have that fascination with “real” audio / acoustic experiences.   Very few home speakers can accurately reproduce undistorted, for example, the peak levels of a drum set at medium range, or tympani in a large orchestra, much less what is depicted in many an action movie.

Conversely, and as I’ve mentioned, the setup for the 2nd half of the Harman demo certainly appeared to be able to knock one’s socks off:   It consisted of 4 large subwoofers, and two of the JBL $30k “Everest” speakers for the mains, as part of a 11 speaker setup.  (If I recall correctly, the sales rep called it a 11.1 system, but I’m not sure if that’s truly accurate, and my recollection might be incorrect.)  The Everest system uses a 4″ compression driver for the mids, and, as you can see, it certainly looks like it means real business.

The last selection of the Everest demo was a few minutes of a very dramatic scene from the movie “Sherlock Holmes”:  I had not seen it before, and, I must say, it got my heart beating a bit!  The low bass was not tremendously powerful, though I will also opine that it seemed like the mid-bass was not as grossly overdone in the soundtrack as is usually the case.  That was a plus.  Some parts were still rather unnaturally thumpy, but as the action built up, that was less noticeable.  What WAS noticeable were the tremendous dynamics from the upper bass into the mids.  The Everests sounded like they had literally unlimited dynamic range, especially in the mids, and that gave the scene a sort of “pull you into it” acoustic realism not often heard.  As I said, quite impressive, in that regard.  I’d love to hear a selection / demo like that with some JL Audio Gotham sub’s behind it.

Now I’m left with the question:  Given the choice of stunning midrange dynamics, or exceptionally good low end, which contributes the most “realism” to a scene like this?  In the past I was more of a “subs” guy, but now I’m not so sure about that!

If only there had been one or two really good music demo’s…

I’ll try to come back to this sometime.  Maybe I can add a little more useful info., or make it a little more coherent.  For now– 

Comments anyone?