music at Hi Fi shows...

[Ivor]

I know I like to hear some familiar music when listening to new equipment in a sterile hotel room and might occasionally have a CD in my pocket in the hope that an exhibitor would allow a minute or two of a reference CD to be played but I've also seen some very rude exhibitors who refuse point-blank to allow anything other than their selection of music to be played. I always wonder what they're hiding?

Anyway... I thought this acrtilce interesting....

http://www.stereophile.com/content/play-or-not-play

[DaveF]

It's a tricky one alright. The exhibitors have no way of knowing what god awful recording a punter is going to bring along. But you can kinda understand it from the exhibitors point of view too, I mean you're trying to sell some equipment and you'd ideally want something thats reasonably well recorded to be played in a room full of people. As long as it not the usual synth plink plonk type crap.

Going off on a slight tangent here but it also really annoys me when an exhibitor has a demos on cables, isolation etc but plays very obscure music or sounds that few people can identify with. I remember a demo on Atlas cables where he played some sh*te plink plonk type music but each time he repeated the track he moved up the chain to a more expensive set of cables.
Naturally it would take any person several listens to learn the music but changing cables each time gave the illusion that more detail and nuances were being revealed each time where in actual fact our brain was just learning the music.
This isnt a debate on cables but more about what would be a more effective demo. Perhaps obscure music hides something. ;-)

[Diapason]

I have mixed views on this as well. For the most part, I'm happier to listen to what the exhibitor thinks sounds good, as I want to hear equipment's strengths rather than its failings. HOWEVER, so few exhibitors actually manage this, it's almost a moot point! I mean, how many times have we walked into a room demoing state-of-the-art equipment playing Take Five on a loop, non-stop ear-splitting whatever designed purely to drown out everybody else, or worse, unidentifiable "am I at a spa" music at whisper volume. Yes, I'm talking about Kharma's massive system at the most recent show, which was just astonishingly disappointing.

Anyway, one of the nice things about the Irish shows is that, being smaller, some exhibitors are amenable to the idea, especially if things are a bit quiet. The absolute master of this was Maurice Patist from PMC, who did the best dems I've seen. When they had the awesome BB5/XBD setup in the Burlo, he played everything under the sun, including whatever he was handed at the time. I remember Metallica on vinyl, I remember a dreadful U2 recording on CD, and basically everything was fair game. He had the confidence to play the stuff, and then if things didn't sound good, he had the right music to follow up with to show what the system could REALLY do. Of course, given that the dems were structured at regular intervals, and that he'd talk through what he was doing, he could start by wowing us with his own stuff before moving onto the punters' requests. Ultimately, I think that's the answer for the exhibitors: don't just have music playing non-stop without comment, where one surly, dishevelled-looking man loops through 5 audiophile jazz classics without making eye contact. Get out there and present!

[DaveF]

Having an exhibitor taking control and being proactive always helps alright but sometimes they can go too far by telling us what we should be hearing, with the finger clicking and foot taping thrown in for ultimate annoyance. That Nordost conman was close to getting a sort cone booted up his arse last time.

Missed that PMC demo Simon. Sounds like it was the perfect way to do things. I remember that Kharma demo too, huge system but an uninterested demoer playing music at whisper levels.

[Ivor]

The absolute master of this was Maurice Patist from PMC, who did the best dems I've seen. When they had the awesome BB5/XBD setup in the Burlo, he played everything under the sun, including whatever he was handed at the time. I remember Metallica on vinyl, I remember a dreadful U2 recording on CD, and basically everything was fair game. He had the confidence to play the stuff, and then if things didn't sound good, he had the right music to follow up with to show what the system could REALLY do.

Well Maurice is an exceptional guy and a great but subtle salesman, as you say he had confidence in his own products.

the mention earlier of the guy from Atlas is quite funny because when I mentioned "very rude exhibitors who refuse point-blank to allow anything other than their selection of music to be played" I may have been thinking of him.

[Claus]

I have been shouting about this issue before. The con of playing increasingly longer segments of a track to prove better sound when cables are inserted annoyed me as well. The other bugbear is the sheer lack of willingness to DEMO YOUR EQUIPMENT! Tell me what's so great about it! And let me hear it play instruments at reasonable dynamic levels, so I can hear if it sounds like piano, bass, trumpet etc.

Johnny Darko has some great views on this on his website blog here. Even a spotify playlist with something different to Diana Krall....

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/ ... eing-done/

[tony]

Darko's stuff is always a good read for me. Some very nice picks on his suggested playlist.
Certainly it will allow Nigel an opportunity to expand the test tracks beyond Oscar Peterson.
He will be happy to know that he already has some of these excellent tracks :)

[nige2000]

some tracks are painful in any system :)

strangely enough i was looking for thee "op" track last night

wears better than most :)