I want to start by thanking Al and the other organizers of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. From my point of view, the show was a big success - of course, the true success of a show is economic: was the attendance high enough to make it a viable event to continue. I hope that it is, but I don’t know the numbers. There are a number of local vendors and retailers to drive the event and the show is already drawing companies from all over.
I was happy to be able to see some familiar faces again and to finally meet some people face-to-face that I have only communicated with online. There are a lot of interesting characters in this industry. 
It’s worth mentioning that companies should take some time considering the space they have available and how to make it work. Pick an appropriate room for what you want to do, setup that room properly and make the whole package appealing. Overall, I think the rooms were set up better this year, but there were several cases of too much stuff in a room or speakers overpowering a small room. Most of the rooms are smaller just because of availability, but that just means you don’t bring the big guns with you. Static displays were nice when there was room, but that wasn’t always the case.
The vast majority of hosts were very nice and welcoming, but not all were in my experience. If you only have one host, it’s hard to deal with people asking questions and listening at once. At least two hosts at any given time is a must in my opinion. If there are questions at the same time as listening, taking it around the corner or into the hall will prevent your listeners from being annoyed or distracted.
While I have heard people harping on the lack of room treatments, their presence did not directly correlate to the best sounding rooms. I think a lot came from just plain good positioning, which was better than last year. Last year, my joke was that I always had to squat in front of a chair because half the rooms had their hot seat about a foot or two too far back.
My one disappointment with the show is the focus on super-bucks setups. While I’m sure a lot of people visit the show to check out the systems they could never afford, and there are probably attendees who actually could afford to drop $100k on their audio system, I would like to see some more affordable systems shown.
Since I’m local, I know that many of the local retailers were showcasing their flagship systems and they carry much more reasonably priced setups which probably make for the bulk of their sales.
I have been using a car show analogy a lot when talking with people about the show. Every year, Denver has an auto show just like many other large cities. The vast majority of models on display are standard fare from each company. Most companies highlight either their latest model or an unreleased model. There are a couple small exhibits of high-end autos (Ferrari, Bently, Aston Martin) which certainly attract attention. But, the reason people attend the show are either because they are car buffs or because they want a chance to compare vehicles for their next purchase. While they can’t test drive them, they can walk back and forth between candidates without having to drive from dealer to dealer. They aren’t there to compare a Ferrari to a Porsche, but to compare a Toyota to a Honda or a Ford to a Pontiac.
The RMAF gives people a chance to actually test drive systems that they can’t hear without driving all over, or that they can’t hear locally at all. It brings together more rooms than can be test driven in a single day which is fantastic, but it seemed like most rooms contained systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars (and I’m only counting one source in each room).
On average, Stereophile readers have ~$11k invested in their systems (the number is getting a bit old, but I haven’t heard a newer one - we could call it $15k if we want). I would like to make a bit of a leap and assume that a good number of Stereophile readers are insane (yes, I read it) and that most of us spend, or would like to spend, less than that for a single system.
At the show, there were very few systems (for the purposes of this discussion, a system includes the speakers, amplification, preamplification, source, and cables for two-channel listening) under $10k and only a handful under $5k.
I understand that it’s business and it’s competitive (and it’s personally competitive for many), so I wouldn’t expect companies to bring their less expensive equipment to be compared to the more expensive products from others (important exceptions here that I’ll mention in a moment), so I propose a friendly challenge: the Budget Build-off.
The idea of the Budget Build-off is simple - a system (speakers, amplification, preamplification, single source and all cables required for the included items) for no more than $5k. The costs must be actual current retail costs without discounts (negotiating, return customer, show special, etc) and all products must be available for order at those prices at the time of the show (no increasing the costs later). To make it interesting, attendees could vote on their favorite $5k systems and the winner could have an award and bragging rights for the year.
Personally, I don’t think $5k qualifies for the term ‘budget’, but I doubt any interest would be generated with a lower number than that. I expect, if anything, there would be interest in having the price point set at $10k instead of $5k.
Now, I want to commend companies that, in my opinion, are bringing real value proposition to the show and aren’t afraid to have their less expensive products shown next to big bucks items. A lot of them are direct sales companies like AV123, Aperion, GR Research, Odyssey and RAW Acoustics. I think there are brick and mortar retailers who demonstrate value as well, but they weren’t bringing it to the show (from what I saw).
So, if there seems to be interest in the idea of a Budget build-off from exhibitors, I’ll try to work with the event organizers about making a formal part of the event. I’d be willing to put in time to make it happen.
I just finished the last of my four pages of RMAF coverage. I’ll be posting my conclusions from the show in a regular post here sometime soon.
Comments (0) - Posted in Audio by Brad
