I was also at the show on Friday.
and Saturday.
and Sunday.
The Outlaw display was one of the first I visited on Friday. The wait was not too bad.
Regardless of the relative lack of expense, the system on diplay in the Outlaw room (950 processor, 7100 power amps) with Atlantic Spekaers was the equal of any other home theater (at least audio-wise) at the show. This is quite a feat considering the low cost of he Outlaw electronics. The combined cost of the 950 and 7100 is much less than what a pair of some people's interconnects go for. The new lower price of the 950 is very tempting.
As is my tendancy, I judge a sound system's performance primarily with music.
Music systems that impressed me:
The Innersound (electrostatic speakers and amps) sounded very clear and non-tiring. Electrostatic speakers do that for me. Thats why I have 2 pair of them (Acoustat 2+2s and 1+1s) in my system.
The Avantgarde trio speakers sounded very relaxed. These horn loaded speakers are very efficient (something like 105dB / watt at 1 meter ...) and can play loud without strain.
The Sony display used a new, not yet available, flagship multichannel SACD player with DSD bitstream feeding a multichannel (up to 9 channels) digital integrated amp that maintains the the DSD bitstream right up ot the output filter, where the conversion to the analog domain takes place. The speakers used were Wilson Watt-Puppies, I think. The music being played sounded very good but was pre-release and so was not available for purchase.
I heard the JM Labs grand utopias with Béryllium tweeters, the big Pipedreams and smaller Pipedreams, the big Dynaudios and many others. For some reason, direct radiator driver spaker systems did not "do it" for me.
Many displays had turntable signal sources, some had, as in the case of Sony, SACD/cd players. Others had DVD-A players. I have to admit that Digital (SACD and DVD-a primarily) can sound musically satisfying and has clear advantages of convenience and multichannel capability, not to mention longevity. On the other hand, vinyl still can give the latest technology (SACD and DVD-a) a run for the money in the two channel sound quality department.
From a musical reproduction, there was a good amount of high quality sound at the show but I cam away feeling my home system, costing vastly less than many high-end single components such as a turntable, a monoblock power amp or whatever, would not be embarrassed.
Video is a different story, though. I have a Sony KV36-450XBR direct view CRT type tv that I bought 18 months ago. It can display a nice picture. After the show, not as nice as I thought prior to the show.
After seeing what is available at the show, I am lusting for a BIG high definition picure. In my heart-of-hearts, I know that a 42 to 43 inch plasma display will not do it for me. It will take at least 50 inches of plasma lovin' to please me. Or LCD or projected. At least 50 inches.
Samsung had some excellent looking rear projecton TVs, especially for the asking price. The Sony grand wega rear projectors looke awesome, too.
On the front projector front, I have not been really interested in them. I did see a Sony demo that showed off three of their projectors. An $1800 model had 800 something by 480 resolution and looked impressive for the price. A $3000 model had 1300 someting by 700 or 800 something resolution. This more expensive model had better dark levels and, IMHO, was worth the extra money. The best, a high-end oriented model not available yet, nor is the price set, had 1900 something by 1080 resolution and was VERY impressive looking in the relatively short demo.
The big plasma displays still have the "WOW" factor. Plus, in my small apartment, the possibility of hanging the display on the wall is very attractive.
On Friday at the show, I was given a ticket to a showing of X-Men 2 at the Sony Metrion theater. The movie was shown on a projector using Texas Instruments DLP technology. The movie ticket was compliments of TI.
X-Men 2 was, in my opinion, much better than the first, which I really enjoyed. One thing that struck me was that the projected image was not as sharp as I might have expected. Maybe is was a lack of resolution in the DLP projector in combination how large the image was. From where I was sitting, the image took up about a 45 degree hoizontal angle of view. While the lack of sharpness did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie, it is something that I would be concerned about in a potential equipment purchase.
I attended a couple of seminars. The first, on Friday, was about SACD. A panel of about 7 people, from magazines and small recording labels, told why they like SACD. I was hoping for some sort of technical discussion of DSD and such, but the seminar was mostly content-free, in my opinion. The seminar can be summed up as: "We are music producers and we like the sound of SACD".
The other seminar, on Sunday, was about flat panel TV. Another mostly content-free event. There was a little technical content: phosphor burn-in was discussed, for example. The seminar can be summed up as "We produce or sell flat panel TV: buy now, please".
I would really like to see some of the seminars geared towards those who do have a technical background. After all, we are dealing with pieces of technology.
San Francisco has a few decent eateries. Quite a few. Beings I live about 40 miles away, this is no revelation to me, but it is still nice to verify the fact in a tasteful way in person. Instead of driving up and paying to park the car, at about $20 to $30 per day for the four days I was up there, I took the train into the city and walked, used mass transit (which I think is quite good in S.F. in spite of budget problems) or took a taxi to where I wanted to go.
The show was a real blast. I am looking forward to the next time it comes to San Francisco. I might even attend it in another city. I wonder if there are plans for holding it in Hawaii?
Paul
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the 1derful1
[This message has been edited by Paul J. Stiles (edited June 10, 2003).]
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