Sonic Satori: Cheer & Longing
Adventures at T.H.E Show Newport Beach 2014
Show Report By Michael Mercer

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  We had a Head-Fier Breakfast on Saturday at the restaurant in the Atrium, and on the thread we had about 30-32 people on the list, so we got the whole back room. We were very grateful for that; getting that set up on Thursday morning! We had a lot to handle obviously, as that part morphed into 36-40 people. How Warren got me up and conscious at 8:00AM or whenever it was, and down there on-time, presented numerous challenges but I made it. We all had a blast geeking out or just cutting it up over silly shit. A huge shout-out to our friend Andy Regan from JH Audio for picking up the tab for us all! Pure class. We were all goin' dutch, and that was another surprise that kept me smiling the whole time. I had a couple solid goals I wanted to achieve this year. One was getting more Head-Fiers here, even though we ended up with a room full of em at last years’ panel, I knew the time-slot for our panel sucked this year, so I didn’t know how many would show up. But we ended up with a packed restaurant with 35+ Head-Fiers for breakfast! So that was uplifting and entertaining.

The other goal that I set at the top? Sharing a magical headphone listening experience with my good friend Deborah Wilson, Dave Wilson's daughter from Wilson Audio. We've been talking about it for a year now, but we were both so distracted at RMAF and CES. The funny thing was, as I walked Deborah through T.H.E Headphonium, introducing her to people and chatting, Dan Clark of Mr. Speakers asked if he could be her "first time." Deborah and I laughed hysterically, as did Dan. Well played sir, well played. And touché, Deborah said "no thanks, I'm saving that for Michael". And yes: Both our spouses approve of all this banter, as they know our souls and trust us. Hell, our new show tradition is me giving her a kiss on the cheek! That's how weird we are, but it's all love, especially since Deborah got to catch-up with Alexandra over the phone, and the two already have a couples vacation plan in works! We grew up in this thing together, at different sides of the country for so many years, but it's trippy. She's also done an amazing job with the Wilson Audio social media work. It's tough to stand out from the noise: There's a sea of sameness you have to break through. Deborah (of course her father’s amazing speakers helped a lil') really took that on and brought that company into the 21^st Century, literally, in the interconnected economy. I don't know about anything else, but I got a feeling her parents are proud. After all this time, Deborah’s first high end headphones experience occurred as we sat on the floor outside Sunny's (Sunil Merchant, a Wilson dealer in Los Angeles) party when people started showing up. I handed her an Audeze LCD-X, and told her it was open-back, so we moved down the hallway. I wanted her to experience something fresh with a great set of headphones: fidelity-wise. I gave her my Astell&Kern AK120 digital audio player (unfortunately the Audio360 AK240 loaner was not in my hands at the moment – but this sufficed for now) along with Moon Audio Silver Dragon headphone cables (one of my top references).  I just gave her a brief overview of the UI and she was off.

She got so lost in the music, it was a since pleasure watching her react. Wholeheartedly, I love helping somebody with that experience. It's meditative. At least it is for me. Music is magic, and Deborah's lived her life with arguably some of the finest loudspeakers in the world, and heard the evolution of Wilson first-hand! She also has a terrific ear. We were at a show once in this dealer’s room for Wilson, and I asked if they could play my 9" 45rpm single of James Blake's "Limit To Your Love" and she detected the amp was clipping before the second bar, it was insane. She also loves music – she doesn't love music simply as a means to experience those speakers. It's the other way around: She loves music so she loves to experience high fidelity. Debbie really gets it so I appreciated her open-mindedness about this. Well, I can't speak directly for her, but she had a terrific time in that damn hallway. Next Warren and I asked her to come up to the room (see, it's all funny the way it reads, which is why we make jokes around it) to hear a better portable rig. Again, a coincidence? We see Mr. Michael Goodman of CEntrance again, this time walking around the pool. I asked him if he would like to join us in our room for a headphone sesh using one of his product! The CEntrance HiFi-M8. I don't travel anywhere without it these days. It's a portable DAC/amp that outputs 2 solid watts of power – that can drive three headphones at once without strain. Not to mention it's feature set (you can check out my review at Part-Time Audiophile), it's the only battery-driven DAC/amp that I believe stands with some desktop amps! So having that handles my MacBook/Amarra rig or any of my iDevices. I especially enjoy using the iPad as a digital transport with it. So, we jumped up there and got down to listening. Deborah got a chance to hear Audeze LCD-X, XC, and LCD-2s w/ Fazor through the CEntrance HiFi-M8, WyWires USB cable, and Double Helix Cables Molecule Elite for Audeze. Again: I can't speak for her, but it was so much fun. We ended up listening and talking about music until 5AM, and that says far more than prose of mine could. It was a great listening sesh, and I needed an engaging one in order to recharge my mental batteries after all the shit that’s gone down this year. That's also the magic of music: I was supposed to be focusing on giving her the best demo possible, but got swept up in the musical haze.

I'm a confessed music addict, what choice do I have anyway? That evening turned into morning. It reminded me of the wonderful people I've meant in audio as a whole (in-room, headphones, etc.): Big commercial crap to the guy working out of his basement – we're all chasing the audible dragon. Our paths on the way may differ because we're all individuals. When you share at least a similar notion of a goal with a large number of like-minded people it is the essence of pure connectivity. Hearing our music in the most pleasurable way. That's why our Head-Fi tribe works. Most of us know we're all looking for great sound and new music experiences, and there's such an amazing amount of headphone-relate stuff out there to cater to your tastes! It's crazy, how fast personal audio is evolving. But it's also the best time to be in the high end headphone community! Because there's so much innovation happening there I don't know if anybody can keep up. And thanks to the resurrection of vinyl there is also a rekindled demand for turntables and stereo gear. Now, don't pat yourselves too hard on the back – DJ's playing wax kept many of those pressing plants open for all those years. Nonetheless, stereo sound is also becoming cool again. So let’s all bask in this together, and put the community first (that's the readers, and then we think of ourselves).

Tyll Hertsens wrote up a wonderful show report about Newport at Innerfidelity), and we were honored to be part of his adventures this year. Don't worry Tyll, like last year, the Godfather never misses a session in our room! All kidding aside, Tyll capped his Newport Wrap-up with a paragraph that just went straight to the heart of something that matters: He talked about how the web is not a zero sum game, which I've heard from Dr. David Robinson at PFO and Steven here at Enjoy the Music.com for years. So Tyll said, as opposed to seeing other audio sites and blogs as the competition, he sees us as co-operators. I think that's brilliant, as it also cuts through much of the bullshit that comes along with thinking it's you against the world! There are plenty of audio toys out there for all of us. At Newport, like CanJam at RMAF, there's a welcoming and relaxing vibe that makes it real easy to cut through all the bullshit! The tip of my cap to Richard Beers for keeping this up all these years in Las Vegas and now here in sunny California. I also need to acknowledge Mr. President himself, Bob Levi, Pres of the Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society: for his tremendous support for all things audio (he's got all sorts of Unicorn headphone stuff by the way). It has been a pleasure watching this show grow. I can't wait for next year already. Perhaps that's all I needed to say about it? Well, that's OK. I bet a lot of people skip to the last paragraph anyway to see if the show report's worth it and then they check it out. If you're one of those people: and this hobby is important to you and you live close-by (headphones or stereo) c'mon down. The overall highlight of my Newport adventure was when a sixty-year old man came up to me while we were blasting Four Tet in Dan Meinwald's room (E.A.R USA and Marten Audio) and asked me "what is this amazing space age stuff?" It was so out of the blue and it hit me right in the gut, I told him it was Four Tet, and the album we were spinning was called Pause. He had a cell, so I Googled a review I wrote about Pause for Positive Feedback for him. He said he l "loved it" and that it sounded "refreshingly modern" which is a phrase what will stick with me forever!

In all, I had a great time during T.H.E Show Newport this year. Next year promises to be bigger and better. I'm down for it. If you live in Los Angeles or Orange County, and you're an audio enthusiast come on down! Whether you're into headphones or in-room stereo gear – there's an insane amount of high performance audio to experience. Plus the community is great and I don't feel like the youngest guy in the room at 39 anymore! That's progress. This year T.H.E Show Newport was extended for a few days. Warren Chi and I locked ourselves in a hotel room in Marina Del Ray for three days. We were allowed to borrow all the new Astell&Kern DAPs (digital audio players) and we promised we would get impressions and comparisons up on Head-Fi.org before I came back home to Sonoma County. It was work, no doubt, but we knocked it out and had a lot of fun in the process. We got to sit in for band practice with the Marlon Hoffman Band. Alex Rosson plays drums for 'em. Hoffman's worked with people like Allen Ginsburg and Lou Reed! They sounded like straight up Northern California rock-n-roll, akin to The Mother Hips. They've got a flavoring of early Wilco (pre-Hotel Foxtrot). What a way to end an extended weekend with good friends that I don't see enough. It was awesome, pure and simple...

 

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