January 2012

Harman Mobile Showcase visits Blue Moon Audio 
Interview By Anthony Nicosia

  About a month ago, Len Kinsey (pictured with his wife above), the owner of Blue Moon Audio, approached me asking to arrange for a new Mercedes Benz to be displayed at his audio salon. Knowing that I am an audio reviewer for Enjoy the Music.com as well as a sales manager at a local authorized Mercedes Benz Dealer he figured to grab my interest on two levels. For you see Len had arranged for a one day event of the Harman Mobile Showcase to visit his store in Pacifica, California on December 10th, 2011. It was to be an event this beautiful town by the sea had not seen before and he hoped to attract local audiophiles from within its boundaries as well as surrounding towns.

The Harman mobile trailer houses two good sized product demonstration rooms. One is a 2-channel audiophile listening room, the other a premier multi-channel home theater display. The Mobile Showcase comes equipped with high end products from Mark Levinson, JBL Synthesis, Revel and Lexicon, all for your own personal listening enjoyment. Just to give you an idea of the size of this thing, the recommended space allowance for both tractor and trailer is 90 feet in length, 30 feet in width (when both sides expand into showrooms) and 13 feet 6 inches in height. Not bad for a “portable” display. As for the Mercedes Benz, it was a 2012 E350 sedan with the Premium 1 Package featuring a harman/kardon LOGIC7 sound system with a Dolby Digital 5.1 HD Radio Receiver. While nowhere near as nice as the show going on inside the trailer, for a car factory audio setup it was quite impressive indeed.

Being that Blue Moon Audio is so very close to my home, I often find myself sitting with Len enjoying a good conversation while listening to music played back on both new and/or used audio gear. While he carries a good lineup of new products (Cary, MIT, Parasound LINN, REVEL, Mark Levinson, Chapman, Tannoy, Audio Pro and Kimber Kable) his store is also packed with high end consignment equipment which I love searching through for good deals. My most recent purchased being an Audio Research VT50 tube amplifier that now has found a cherished spot nestled within my main review system. Blue Moon Audio began 1 1/2 years ago with the idea of bringing fun back into the audio salon and Len and his wife Shuk-Kei have done an excellent job of making people feel welcome to just drop by for a listen and an exchange of ideas. Hopefully more stores will pick up on this concept so our hobby can grow while continuing to remain fun and profitable. It seems every time I drop by someone new is engaging in a casual exchange of words with Len. Before long we all wind up putting on our favorite tunes to admire both the performers and Lens latest audio setups.

The following pictures were taken early before most of the towns audiophiles had decided to venture over to check out the display. My wife’s birthday celebration was to take place that evening and I was not about to tell her my day would focus on audiophile events and not her special moment, so my time there was limited to the early morning hours only. Beating the rush though did allow me to get to converse with the event coordinators from Harman and Ron Rouse in particular who was quite helpful. Looking at the pictures you will see there was some serious gear inside the audiophile room and the setup over in the home theatre area was equally impressive. Pictures alone do not do justice to these setups as their sound was inspiring to say the least. If the Harman Mobile Showcase visits your hometown do not miss a chance to experience it as this was definitely an event to remember. The other pictures are of two of Blue Moon Audio's display rooms, focusing mainly on their new gear.