The California Audio Show is This Weekend!
The 6th annual California Audio Show is being held this weekend just south of San Francisco in Burlingame, CA. It begins on Friday, August 14 at 10 am and ends on Sunday, August 16 at 4 pm. And AIX Records will be there. The venue is the Westin Hotel just south of the airport. I’ve participated in the CAS for at least the past three years and am always impressed by the local audio enthusiasts. Constantine has offered me a seminar slot on Friday afternoon between 2-3 pm. Here’s the blurb that I sent him:
“The Myth of High-Resolution Audio/Music”
There has been a lot of press and buzz in our industry about high-resolution audio/music. But what are the realities of this new marketing push by the music trade organizations and labels? This seminar will peel back the curtain on this emerging audio initiative from someone that has been on the inside of the process for 15 years. What’s the truth behind “hi-res transfers” and how are they different than new high-resolution productions? Why are there two “hi-res” logos, each with its own set of specifications and requirements? Are the 19 million CD rips offered on PonoMusic really capable of delivering us the “soul of music”? Come and listen to Mark Waldrep, founder of AIX Records and blogger at RealHD-Audio.com give you the cold hard facts about the world of high-resolution audio and music.
All attendees will be given some free high-resolution music recordings from the AIX Records catalog.
He wrote me back and informed me, “Pono will also be at the show showcasing its PonoPlayer in the ‘MP3 Challenge’ demonstrations.” I haven’t run into the guys from Pono at any of the trade shows this year with the exception of Neil’s presentation at the CES Hi-Res TechZone. I looked online and couldn’t find much about the “MP3 Challenge”. Pono did tweet an announcement to their 12.8K followers, “#PonoMusic is exciting to be attending our first California Audio Show this weekend from Friday August 14th”.
I’ll be providing full show reports on the show and as many seminars as I can attend. Here are a few that sound interesting:
High Fidelity Cables: Secrets of Magnetism
For years, the accepted common knowledge among audiophiles has been to demagnetize everything. Impossible. Magnetism is a fundamental truth in the flow of an audio signal. Any audio system depends upon it to actually work. So, your choice is to either work with Mother Nature or against her (which rarely works out well). This openness to discovery led inventor Rick Schultz to rethink the presence of magnetic materials within a music system. This new scientific exploration inspired the invention of “Magnetic Conduction” – a patented way to actively conduct a music signal at the highest level of fidelity possible without signal loss.
And my friend Bob Hodas (he tunes my room) will be presenting a master class, “Room/Speaker interface issues. Optimizing the listening environment.” Bob is based in Oakland but travels a lot to tune studios, audiophiles, artists, and demo rooms. He’s very interesting and knows his stuff.
See you on Friday.
Mark, You might want to consider a side job as an ad writer. That blurb you wrote is excellent and if it get widely distributed should draw a overflow crowd!
Magnetic Conduction huh? Can’t wait to hear all about this new invention. 🙂
I remember sometime back a guy was selling a gadget to demagnetize CDs, maybe this fellow can demag a HDA file.
That’s just what I need…another job. I’m looking forward to the event in SF. I’m actually had some of my discs run through the demagnetizers…no effect.
” I actually had some of my discs run through the demagnetizers…no effect.”
You mean it didn’t work? I’m shocked!
Maybe you had the polarity reversed?
No, it didn’t make any difference at all in the sound. The guy who “demagnetized” my disc was amazed that I didn’t experience any improvement.
This magnetic thing sounds just like the device I could put on the gas line in my car to line up the molecules and get better mileage. Who’d a thought!
Pseudo Science is an amazing thing!
I have just come to conclusion that one-way speakers with decent frequency response are quite possible and they might be superior to any multi-way .
Some say analog tape delivers warmth, but no one seems to care that CD is potentially an infinite warmth, depending only on the level of oversampling.
I do not get why one would believe in John Siau’s high-resolution marketing hype & selling efforts rather than in Dan Lavry’s technically justified arguments .
I think the smartest way to better audio should be >352.8 kHz/16-bit [dual mono] UNFILTERED ADC output with following proper digital decimation to CD sample rate + very high-quality noise-shaped dithering in tandem with the best software oversampling available .
Jay, I read what you write and I just don’t understand your thinking. I’ll certainly take John Siau’s experience and expertise any day of the week…Benchmark has designed and built some the most amazing products for audio enthusiasts.
O.K. Did you honestly compare your Benchmark DAC with a Chord Electronics DAC ?
I’ve done this comparison…the Benchmark DAC2 HGC is the best sounding DAC that I’ve heard.