heathrow hi-fi show.?

This is posted anonymously, its not from me, just sent to me - With regard to the room issues for hi-fi shows.
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The debate on the virtues and vices of the Heathrow Hotel Rooms is amusing. It may be worthwhile to compare the difference of a normal living room (my one) with the rooms at heathrow....

From here on "HR" means "Hotel Room" and "LR" Means Living Room.

Dimensions HR:
4.2m X 4.2m X 2.2m (yup a square with the height nearly exactly 1/2 of the square)

Dimensions LR:
5.5m X 4.5m X 2.4m (much nicer ratio's of standing waves)

Room Surfaces HR:
Thin, very little absorbent carpet on the floor, thin drapes over the windows on one wall, very reflective and very hard (concrete walls)

Room Surfaces LR:
Heavy carpet over felt on the floor, slightly irregular shape, floor is suspended wood (so bass can "leak out") and the ceiling is fairly thin & bendy material (so bass can "leak out").

Furniture HR:
Nine chairs rented from the hotel, HiFi Rack

Furniture LR:
3 Seater Sofa, well stuffed, two armchairs, front wall is covered with varying shelves which are irregularly filled with CD's, DVD's and LP's, creating a moderately effective diffuser.

Summing up, the Hotel Room is extremely echoy (in other words there is very much reverb in the midrange) which is easily tested by a simple handclap (which gives a nice resonant "brrrring" tail) and has about the worst possible modal structure with strong modes reinforced by the room dimensions and it has very little damping at any frequency. In addition, due to the high listening chairs it was generally necessary to place the speakers higher than normal.

The Living room in turn is quite well damped to start with and allows quite a bit leakage/damping of vertical standing waves, in fact a handclap has no perceptible resonant trail.

Finally a comparison for a pair of speakers placed in the Hotel Room versus the Living Room. A quick look at the reverb times and the predicted frequency response is rather telling.....

Hotel Room:



Living Room:



The differences, as well as the problems of the hotel room are obvious. The living room could still use some acoustic treatment, but it can actually sound pretty decent by itself, the hotelroom is a sonic disaster area of first magnitude....

And exhibitors cannot do much in terms of treatment (only free-standing and removable treatment is possible and allowed, don't damage the wallpaper or the Hotel charges you big time) the amount and degree of remedies is limited, but it is possible to do quite a bit more than was seen in some cases this year.

This should give some background to the "but it sounds great at home, why does it sound so bad here" debate.

 

how is thorsten these days?

 

It helps if the exhibitors realise that placing the speakers symmetrically with equal distances to the side and rear walls is a fine recipe for LF problems. Sadly, not many do.

 

It would also be common sense for exhibitors to request dimensions prior to booking. Any idiot with a tiny knowledge of acoustics could see the problems with the hotel room in question.

They should therefore either book a different room or decide not to book. I would question the competence of any dealer who did not understand the precise reasons why their system sounded crap. In short. I would not book such a room. I'd be a fool if I did.

 

Titian - not as often as I would like to (far too prone to try to do too much at once), but often enough to appreciate the benefits of access.

 

Not so bad as you are trying to make it.

Yes there are some problems under 100 Hz but so drammatically worse than the living room.
The major problems noticed in the Hotel rooms are not mostly concerning the lower frequencies.
Sometimes I think we are going from one extreme to the other: before "nobody" hardly talked about room acoustics aqnd today if something is not ok with the sound of a system, it is fault of the acoustics but never of the equipment.

 

Too much fuss and excuses over acoustics. I was listening the other day in a situation that should have been dissastrous, speakers under the stairs!! Common sense, good equipment and it did the job perfectly well.

Hotels are a bad environment for other reasons. Too much going on acoustically (background SPL), electrically (Sh-one-t from lifts, air conditioning, other equipment, but mostly just plain mains quality), emotionally - just too much going on. Pressure from all sides. Pressure to please, pressure to be pleased. Time pressure to not allow adjustment to different compromises (everything is compromises). If anyone makes a major value judgement or purchase from a show, or the results there of, they deserve all they get.

This all creates an energetic field in the environment that I suppose Zanash could dowse, but I have no experience of that. All I know is that I must be a dowsing rod, as if a walk into those environments I get a headache, I feel an internal rising energy that is stress related. I just want to turn around and walk out, and that is just trying to stay in one of them!!

Acoustics seem to be the new fad and using digital correction techniques, or digital analysis to apply physical correction techniques. I have to go carefull as I have no experience of the former, but the latter throws the baby out with the bathwater in every case in the past that I have been involved in. Good equipment should sound good or relatively better no matter what the acoustic environment.

Richard

 

OH WELL, the soap goes on and on, room acoustics etc. maybe we should buy equipment by looks only (sic), i think that shows are mainly there to display their latest offsprings and retailers to try and give people a hearing in the right enviroment, not to judge what they are exiviting as far as sound is concerned,we all know that the acoustics are never perfect in any show, the problem rests i belive in the organisers that decide who is exiviting,there are no bread and butter products on show, mid high to high, how about tom, dick ,and harry, with a few bob to spend, is it who the f*** cares,is been a long time coming for the empire to be tought a lesson,,nugh said.

 

As a matter of interest, was 'he who cannot be mentioned' at the show?

 

witch one? there were many incognitoes. toes... ha a .

 

Somebody drop Nuuk a PM please. Let's keep it off the forum. Thanks.

 

Most of the time, actually. I rarely use music for 'background', so, for example, the kitchen radio is usually tuned to Radio 4 rather than a music station. Similarly, if I'm doing DIY/decorating I prefer to work in silence so I can concentrate on what I'm doing.

 

If music is the spice of life - then play on!

These days its 100% of the time. The most I will do is drink tea or wine whilst listening.
I guess we are all different on this one.

 

me too, nice rioja and ole..music pleasseee. nando.

 

Lost the plot on this thread

Chaps!

aren't we supposed to be talking about the hifi show in this part. Forgive me if I'm out of line. But the title is about the hifi show not how we listen to music.

My thoughts on the Hifi Show.

I only got to the Park inn show as in the past I have not like the pokey rooms in the other one.

Having a quick listen to most of the rooms I think the really high end systems are let down by the show environment. If you are going to have a proper listen to some kit then it has to be done at home in an environment you know.

I mainly look at rooms that attract my attention. So a lot is down to the music they play and what it looks like. I like the impact first then try and work out what they sound like.

I dont go into the creek or naim rooms as they are black boxes. I don't go into the phonosophie room as all the red lights make me angry and I want to smash the place up!!!

Ive calmed down now. think happy thoughts.

The rooms I likes were:

The Manger and ASR room. I have a soft spot for mangers and they are a lot cheaper then the overkill audio stuff. The ASR emitter is completly over the top but a friend has one and we put it up against a lot of kit and it always comes out on top as long as you leave it switched on!

I likes the RPM room with the merlin speakers and the oracle turntable. He even played some metallica.

The gershman room was very good but they would have been better off with smaller speakers the combination of the Black Swans which go down to 18HZ and the 20W valve amp which is measured down to 3Hz was overkill (pardon the expression) too much bass in the room. I know as I have just got one of the amps. they played some Aphex twin which shook the room and the guy in the room next door had to come and tell them to take it off.

I liked the Nola room. The speakers are far too big and ugly but they sound quite good and did not overpower his little room. The gershman and the Nola room both used the weiss Jason and Media transport and DAC which I think is awsome. I'm in talks now about buying a set.

The Krell room was OK but did not inspre me. I like the look of the new stuff and Brian and Alison from Pinewood are amonge some the finest dealers in the country very nice chaps. (sorry alison if you read this you know what I mean)

The McIntosh room was too much too soon I got blasted out of the door. Looked nice though and I liked the rack.

I did't bother with the MBL room It all costs far too much.

Vivid were good and I like the elctrcompaniet chaps wife who wore skin tight red silky trousers (nicessss!)
He mucked up his demo by using a copied DVD on his suround sound dem it was far too compressed and I had to point it out to him. The rest of the 2 channel stuff was good though.

I didn't see the bouhorn room I would have liked to have listend as they are quite near me in Hastings but I can't be bothered to make the trip to look at a wooden door knob stuck in a lowther.

Overall an enjoyable show apart from the over priced bar with added "optional service charge" added every time I brought drink or food!

Cheers

thanks for turning up.

 

forgive me, but i thought that going to the hi-fi show is exactly what it says in the tin , listening to hi-fi not the rooms, after all it is an exivition, not a demo room show, we go there for manufacturers to show us the public their latest offspring to their collection, chat , have a pint, anybody who goes to this shows with a view of taking a serious listen, well my mind boggles, ones rooms where ever you live are never perfect, each tries to trie their best to tune their hi-fi as best they can, and by the way this thread is about music and all, what else do you play on hi-fi? i am not being funny but someone please say i am wrong ? ta.nando.

 

I listen to the turntable setup disc sometimes...
:music:

 

what has that got to do with the show?

you don't have red lights on your hifi by any chance?

 

beats me, pass, as for red lights there were plenty at the show, and i don't mean neons or lcd's.

 

Come on Chaps!!!

Lets have some more views on the show. (without winges)

I personally had a good time at the show and met some great and strange (in a good way) people belonging to world of hifi.

have a go at writing a mini report. I didn't get to hifi news show.

What songs would you like to hear? but not things like the new Gilmour album as it would be so boring in a show environment.

Cheers

and thanks for turning up

Likes for the show:
God laugh, intersesting people (as long as they didn't talk for too long) some new equipment I haven't seen and some interesting ideas.

Dislikes:

Those black boxes with red lights!!