What's it like to exhibit ?

1. A lot of hard work for very little return.

2. He who makes the loudest noise wins.

3. He who tries to demo incredible sound staging with breathtaking front-back perspective, as well as height (yes really) stands absolutely no chance because everybody else is banging the crap out of toilet shaped loudspeaker contraptions, meaning you can't hear it.

4. And anyway, getting the above results depends on good room ratios (acoustics) which meeting rooms and hotel bedrooms don't have, which demonstrates that the organisers have little or no idea about real hi-fi, and don't actually care. As it says on DSoTM "Why does anybody do anything?" Money of course.

5. Most who visit are the type who kick tyres in car showrooms so why bother?

The cacophony of noise that over spilled into the corridor was hardly inviting to the visitor to explore further.

A supply of painkillers to dull the inevitable headache was essential! 

  

The reason I like to go is ( just like car shows ), I can see and hear all the offerings in one place. When I go to a dealer who doesn't sell say Exposure he will say that people only bought those who couldn't afford Naim and visa-versa. 

To help me, I take along my son who's a musician as he can see right through the hype and often tells me that some £399 speakers are more realistic in their delivery than some costing £2,000 +

Graham, I like your point about tyre-kickers though, annoyingly though I'm someone who takes an age to make a purchase decision so I'm probably guilty of that also. 

I did form the view that the all vinyl (+ a few feel to reel at the time)  sets ups did tend to have characteristics so Quad, LP12, Naims, KEF, Audio Research, Krell, Beard, Koetsu etc based systems tended to their own sound signatures, good, bed or otherwise....

 

Do recall demos from Philips and the like of how the 'perfect CD sound' was far better than vinyl or anything else (not from their demos it wasn't!!!! and rather put off didn't acquire my first CD player until around the millennium) but coincidentally there endeth my show visiting - as whatever year CD was launched sort of coincided with my last show visit. 

 

I do remember the carrier bags available with leaflets and brochures, no doubt now would have to be paper rather than plastic now though (if brochures are still printed in the on-line age).

 

Whilst I do not feel any inclination to attend any shows anytime soon I suspect they may be interesting if not always informative.

 

Dave Friday wrote: We went to Harrogate (sp) in the mid 70's with the kids,we found it fun,the dems were mostly too quiet..never bought anything just collected the leaflets and read them later.

I thought the Quad room was excellent and so was the piano music, which sounded real enough from down the stairs as to get me to investigate further.