PAF is happening this weekend, and I'm here for the experience.
I arrived at about 2:30 after a hellride on I-5. Portland traffic was F@cked. That delayed us by 45 minutes. Then just north of Nisqually, WA, there was a six-vehicle collision (including a rear-ended State Police cruiser in the pack!) that had northbound traffic backed up for miles.
I'm afraid I was not well grounded when I got to my first room of the show, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. This was the Spatial Audio/Don Sachs/Lampizator/Anti Cables room on the 13th floor. Wow. Talk about show stopper! Don was inside explaining about all the development efforts and changes along the way. He played a few songs that sounded wonderful. The first song was a Jennifer Warnes track that I'm unfamiliar with (but I'll ask about this morning). It was magical. [
"Why magical, Michael?"] Glad you asked. Ya know how you analyze the crap out of music during a show? Well, I do it because I want to know if I like the speakers, amp, preamp, DAC, TT, etc. I want to figure out if I'm happy or irritated with the presentation. Then, I can cross it/them off my list of potential upgrades down the road, or draw stars and smiley faces if I like/love the sound. .....Anyway, after a few seconds of the song, I stopped analyzing. I just sat back and listened and enjoyed...Perhaps this sounds corny, but that's what happened.
As I mentioned, I wasn't grounded yesterday, and took just a single photo of the gear in this room. I'll be there again this morning at 10:00 sharp to snap more close up photos, request familiar tracks, and ask about the Jennifer Warnes song title.
Here's the blurb I posted on AC about the room:
"Can you take a few close-up shots of the amps and preamp and post them here? Sure! I'll snap more photos this morning. I'm afraid I was too tense from my hell ride up I-5 to be an astute photographer.
Did they share the pricing at the show? I didn't hear anyone declare a definite price, but I'll ask about pricing today.
Also, are they the final production models? Don did say that there were two (?) more adjustments to be made to the preamp and amps. The first went over my head...(I'll ask for details)...but Don and Lynn felt the sound would benefit from the change. The second change is Don will use a larger cabinet for the mono amps because it's getting crowded inside the current cabinets.
Stay tuned...."Michael