Home Entertainment 20011

Show Report

All the Vermeers in New York:
A Fractured View of
The Home Entertainment 2001 Show

by Clark Johnsen

 

They cannot.

They are worse than off-the-rack, ready-to-wear suits.
They never fit right, and proof exists before our very ears:
Hundreds of thousands of dollars dumped on this sorry exhibit.
And poor Harry gets blamed. Well maybe he should be! No less
than others, has he promoted this false paradigm of system
assembly.

The true paradigm? Call it, Clark Johnsen's Rule for Audio:
Spending time on a system, earns better sound than spending money.

Let me pose a riddle here: How are most systems at these
shows put together? No, not carefully. The right answer: over
the telephone! Economic motives constrain most exhibitors to
"go in" with others and often the particular wares have never
been heard together before by anyone. A loudspeaker maker may
prefer some exotic tube amplifier, but it's Cojones Labs who
can foot the bill, so Cojones it is. Cabling generally gets
left to whoever will provide the lengths, but rarely broken-in
needless to say, and front ends more often than not are generic,
at least with digital. Vibration isolation remains nearly
nonexistent, although some attention is paid these days to AC
supply and attempts are often made to assuage room acoustics.

All well and good, but here in the Harlem Suite exhibitors
optimistically assume that leaving everything to Harry's sound
judgement will overcome all difficulties. Not only does that
not suffice, it fails miserably and turns everyone involved
into laughingstocks. A lesson learned, perhaps.

Things may be worse than I think, however. Frank Doris
(on the Phonogram list) writes, "The sad truth is, I don't think
a lot of showgoers know what good sound IS, or how well a good
high-end system can sound." Damn! He is probably correct.
An even more trenchant view is uttered by Duane Goldman, the
Disc Doctor: "I'm personally more than a little tired of people
making excuses for playback systems costing tens of thousands
of dollars whether analog or digital. In general I get more
enjoyment from our (highly tweaked) 1926 Victor Credenza than
most of the set-ups at these 'high-end' audio shows. Analog
even at its best has never rivaled live music, digital to date
is a poor second and unquestionably not a reference point unless
you're soliciting ad copy for a magazine or have insufficient
neural pathways."

Yikes! Don't quote me, I didn't say that!

 

Ever onwards

Hey! Let's see a couple video exhibits! I can't stand
too much, however, their sonic boom already pervades the hallways
and it will be worse inside. Yes, Viktor Khomenko, you're my
first choice because I know you love film and BAT gear probably
can't sound bad even in home theatre. Plus, the speakers are
Avantgarde Trios. And, oboy! The musical example that serves
as prelude (from Missa Criola) has those speakers singin'!
They sound amazingly real, better far than I've ever heard
Avantgardes before. The video clips further demonstrate that
they can play powerfully loud, nor does Avantgarde surround
sound disappoint, but the movies shown simply do not convey
the artistry of music despite the elaborate multi-channel set-up.

And here I must assert, further, Clark Johnsen's Rule for
Video: All the best movies are in mono anyway.

OK, Krell. Everyone says this place looks the best and
you won't hear a peep of disagreement from me. The presenter
seems big on the fact that Krell have their hands on the whole
chain except for the projector, although Faroudja Labs make
the Krell video gear. Where this demonstration trumps all
others, is in playing a sequence of interlaced and progressive
scans, DVD and HDTV. All very instructive, and the sound is
dandy. But the picture, on the best source, is truly sumptuous.
Only upon later inspection and questioning, however, does one
learn that the reference source is ... tape! That's right, they
cheated a bit. I should have known, as years ago I predicted
the demise of DVD because it cannot contain HDTV, a manifestly
superior medium. But with the arrival of wireless digital,
and the manipulation that provides, I am no longer certain what
shall happen next, except that consumers will be made to feel,
as always, that their current collections are inadequate. Yes,
I do still predict the demise of DVD as we know it today.

 

Winding up

How many rooms I have bypassed because of boomy, muffled
sound -- descriptive of incorrect polarity, poor vibration
isolation and/or mistaken attempts to impress the geeks -- I
cannot say, and I surely missed some otherwise excellent stuff.
That's triage! Right now my personal Best Sound award goes
to my very-first-visited Art Audio / Soliloquy / Gill Audio
/ Acoustic Zen room. Not to say it was best in every respect,
but altogether I was thoroughly taken. And a brand new award,
Hero of the Show, goes to Aurios. I only want someone to tell
me please why they work under loudspeakers.

But wait! Hold the presses! What have we here? GamuT?
Great sound from out in the hallway, and now I recall, a John
Marks recommendation too. "The entire range of music", their
literature states. Well, hello Ole Christiansen. From Denmark,
eh? Well, sir, see how my own name is spelled? 'Sen too!
smiles, laughter all around... this guy is great! Who says
we Danes are all moody? And the sound! Clean, clear and (O
hateful, ubiquitous audio word) musical. Yet, solid state:
with GamuT's "SINGLE MOSFET" design, power outputs even of
several hundred watts are achieved with ease. Ole charms me
first with an impossibly ravishing slow movement from K.466
in.a live Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra performance by Katrine
Gislinge on a no-longer-available CD which I wistfully attempt
to slip into my pocket. Then, working up steam, Ole pops a
Champagne cork (on CD) to demonstrate transient response and
I'm looking around for the flutes. (Champagne glasses, that
is.) Very impressive! The speakers are by Gradient, not ole's
own, but the lot are imported into America by Fanfare's Victor
Goldstein.

 

Click here for the next page of this report.

 

Click here to see a
complete listing of show exhibitors.

Click here to see our 1999 show coverage.

 

Copyright^© 2001 Clark Johnsen