T.H.E. Show Newport 2015

[GaryG]

T.H.E. Show Newport was held over the weekend. I attended two days and here are a few pictures and some thoughts.

Martin Logan was represented by LMC Home Entertainment (Mike Ware). Peter Soderberg Worked the first two days before he had to head out to San Antonio. LMC had two rooms. Since this was the first time he was showing here and he was registering late Mike was only able to get two smaller rooms at the end of the hall on third floor (310 and 312). The Neoliths were in room 312 with a pair of Sonus Faber monitors in room 310. The Sonus Faber's were a limited edition (30 pair produced) priced at $60,000. They were beautiful and sounded really fine but still $60k for a pair of monitors? Well they are a limited addition.

T.H.E. Show was nearly a disaster. Mike is a dot the i's and cross the t's kind of guy so he called the shipping company on Wednesday to verify that the Neolith's were in Los Aneles. The shipping company verified that they were. Were is the operative word. They "Were" here however when Mike went to pick them up he discovered that the beautiful red Neolith's that had been to CES "were" now on a train headed to Chicago. This was Thursday and the show stated at 10:00 AM on Friday. Mike got on the phone and rumor has it he could be heard 3 floors away screaming "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH". It turns out that the pair that had been at the Munich High End show last year was in Lawrence KS. They had been brought up to current standards (still different than production but indistinguishable sonically). The shipping company, at their cost, overnighted the two crates at 600+ pounds each from Lawrence to L.A. Pete had them up and running 11:00 AM and dialed in by noon.

Gary

 

[GaryG]

As you can see there is not much room behind the speakers and it appears as thought a potted plant is being used as a bass trap! Yep it's a show and you can't always get ideal conditions. Pete made some adjustments, dropped the bass 8 dB and unbelievably they sounded really good. You can see 2 MC1.2KW's for the left and there was another pair for the right channel. Mike knows how to make me smile. Unfortunately it is a hotel room and there wasn't enough power at the outlets and the Macs were left starving. Even so the sound was impressive.

I would say that under the conditions the number of visitors coming to see the Neoliths was strong.

There was very bad lighting for photography and I didn't take that many photo's but I will post what I can.

Gary

 

[GaryG]

I never thought you could get this tight and I wouldn't recommend it but even with this it really did sound good and visitors left smiling:



Gary

 

[GaryG]

Down on second floor Brian Berdan (Audio Element in Pasadena, CA) had three nice rooms. I bought my Sasha's from Brian. Brian brought me here to introduce me to Luke Manley from VTL. I have talked with Luke on the phone before but this was my first face to face meeting. Here you can see some VTL's and of course some Wilson Audio Speakers.

View attachment 17979

Gary

 

[GaryG]

Brian's specialty is with turntables. Here he has the ClearAudio "Statement" and at $199,000 (for a record player) and I don't think that includes a cartridge. There is no end to this hobby




I was quite surprised at the amount of vinyl that I heard at T.H.E. Show. So I put the 180g Beatles "White Album" to help me write this.


Gary

 

[GaryG]

ESS - My upgrade-iris began in 1974 when I purchased a pair of ESS Heil AMT-1a's with a 10 inch woofer and the Heil air motion sitting on top. This also started my love of dipoles. The Heil unit still looks the same.



Dr. Heil's patents have long expired and you can now find some of his technology in a number of speakers including MartinLogans "motion" series.

 

[GaryG]

As I said, there was a lot of vinyl being played here. When I walked into the gamuT room they were playing a vinyl copy of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". This is one of my standard test tracks for sound stage. They play the refrain "And the colored girls go..." twice. At first it sounds like they are at some distance singing "do ta do ta do..." and you can here them finish strong at the mic. I note how far back they start and how wide the sound stage is when they reach the mic. Try this at home, it's fun. The monitors also sounded very nice.



Gary

 

[twich54]

Gary, thanks for the updates / reporting of the show !

 

[GaryG]

I found only one pair of B&W diamonds being used.
Perhaps that's because the diamond tweeter is fragile and expensive to repair

Here is a picture of mine after the cleaning lady bumped it with a mop handle. The diamond diffuser just crumbled. To repair the entire tweeter unit must be replaced at a cost of $1200.



It took almost six weeks to get the new tweeter in. I took some spectral measurements of the broken tweeter an found the spectrum to be fine if you were on axis but dropped rapidly as you got off axis. So I toed the speakers in more and waited for the replacement.

Gary

 

[GaryG]

Quad's anyone. They had some rare old vinyl that they were quite proud of. I know very little about cartridges but that was what they were selling.



Gary

 

[bonzo]

As I said, there was a lot of vinyl being played here. When I walked into the gamuT room they were playing a vinyl copy of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". This is one of my standard test tracks for sound stage. They play the refrain "And the colored girls go..." twice. At first it sounds like they are at some distance singing "do ta do ta do..." and you can here them finish strong at the mic. I note how far back they start and how wide the sound stage is when they reach the mic. Try this at home, it's fun. The monitors also sounded very nice.

View attachment 17985

Gary

There was a lot of vinyl at Munich as well, and sounding much better than digital. Lots of techdas

 

[Joey_V]

I found only one pair of B&W diamonds being used. Perhaps that's because the diamond tweeter is fragile and expensive to repair.

View attachment 17986

Here's a picture of mine after the cleaning lady bumped it with a mop handle. The diamond diffuser just crumbled. To repair the entire tweeter unit must be replaced at a cost of $1200.

View attachment 17987

It took almost six weeks to get the new tweeter in. I took some spectral measurements of the broken tweeter an found the spectrum to be fine if you were on axis but dropped rapidly as you got off axis. So I toed the speakers in more and waited for the replacement.

Gary

can't see the pics.... can you post again Gary?

 

[Joey_V]

Down on second floor Brian Berdan (Audio Element in Pasadena, CA) had three nice rooms. I bought my Sasha's from Brian. Brian brought me here to introduce me to Luke Manley from VTL. I have talked with Luke on the phone before but this was my first face to face meeting. Here you can see some VTL's and of course some Wilson Audio Speakers.

View attachment 17979

Gary

View attachment 17983

How were the Sabrinas?

 

[GaryG]

How were the Sabrinas?

The Sabrina's are very much Wilson Audio speakers. These were in a good sized room and they did a good job of filling the space. For those who like the Sophia's, the Sasha's, the Alexia's they will find the Sabrina's to be a very good speaker. Since these were connected to VTL's they were warm. Very nice sound.

I know there is a problem with the pics and I will get them and more up when I get a chance. I am in Los Angeles but my internet is DSL and bad DSL at that. I get less than 900K for my upload speed. Yes here it's measured in K. In Vegas I get 50M. In Bangkok I get 100M at home. But in LA from our Location we measure our speed in K.

 

[GaryG]

There was a lot of vinyl at Munich as well, and sounding much better than digital. Lots of techdas

Funny about that. Near the end of the show I was so impressed with the vinyl that I dropped by the Audio Element and told Brian after I settle on amps we can talk vinyl.

Gary

 

[GaryG]

Eye Candy

 

[amey01]

View attachment 17993

Eye Candy

The ultimate eye candy really.

 

[GaryG]

I dropped into the Boulder amps room. They were using Focals and the sound was dreadful. The room was too small. The room was too hard with no treatment and the volume was to loud for the situation. I know both Boulder and focal and what should have been very good was instead verily bad. I dropped by the Focal room and they sounded marvelous.

 

[GaryG]

Audio Research was paired with, yes, more Wilsons.

 

[bonzo]

Funny about that. Near the end of the show I was so impressed with the vinyl that I dropped by the Audio Element and told Brian after I settle on amps we can talk vinyl.

Gary

Brass and violins and depth on violins is really. They also have a different bass. There was a 15k Euro German TT called Dr Schick that was slaughtering the Scarlatti all the time in the Western Electric room at Munich. There is a guy called Marty in NJ who has a highly rated room among audiophiles. His TT is a Goldmund Studio, used price was which is 3 - 4k USD. He puts it on a vibraplane. That is the cheapest set up I have heard that sounds awesome, without having to spend silly money on TTs.