Personal highlights from yesterday:
Headphone related:
1. Smyth realizer at the AIX vendor booth on the 4th floor. Almost missed it. Very impressive, both the multi-channel HD recordings and the sound through the realizer (don't even remember what the phones were)
2. I love the look of the the Woo firefly.........very cool design. Woo had very nice suite once again (but I am a stax 009/BHSE guy so I am officially not in the market for myself any more, so I didn't listen as much as I did last time). Firefly might be a good starter for my daughter going off to college next fall.
3. Quad headphones were very underwhelming and totally goofy looking. No acoustic isolation in a crowded room so maybe they are better in a quiet environment.
Other stuff: (I always find it hard to evaluate components since the sound has so many unknown variables, but...........)
1. I seem to love ribbon tweeter based speakers much more than any other type (a new realization). Raidho speakers in two different rooms were fabulous.
2. The Kaiser speakers (also with a ribbon tweeter) were also wonderful.
3. Vivid audio G1 speakers were also great sounding to me.
4. Again this year, the Bricasti DAC sounded great with Harbeth speakers.
5. The new Sony 4k TVs are fantastic. They had the $25k 85" set in the corridor and the picture is mind-bogglingly fantastic. Sony also announced 65" and 55" 4k sets last week with the lowest price around $5,000 if I remember correctly. Hopefully this will trickle down to something reasonable in a couple of years, around which point in time I'm certain my JVC LCoS set will have an unfortunate accident and need to be replaced
6. Audio Doctor had a new speaker from France, a company called Waterfall. It sounded great, costs about $7k and is gorgeous with the box all in glass! Stunning looks.
7. Sony speakers were very nice in their room. Sony was one of the only rooms playing real music (not audiophile approved 2nd tier musicians) that I love and at sane volumes.
Misc. other:
1. In the sound by singer room with the medium sized Raidho speakers, the Danish representative of Raidho used vertical stacks of tall twigs (from Ikea I'm told) for room tweaking. He had one placed a couple of feet outside and in front of each speaker and a couple of others around the room. Very organic room tuning and not as visually ugly as most tuning devices.
2. Can someone tell these people to stop playing so freakin' loud in small rooms. A number of rooms with mega-buck systems were WAY too bright and too loud (in their defense, as more rooms turn up the sound, there is a positive feedback mechanism to drown each other out).
