I just returned from the 2019 edition of Audio Expo North America and it was a very eventful outing.
The first thing we (My friend Dave, and thank you for funding the outing once again for your broke audio buddy.) stumbled upon was GREAT PLAINS AUDIO, their first time at this show. Nice meeting Bill and taking in some of his received wisdom, which seems vast. They were just finished setting up and we had them to ourselves. They were situated in a large room called Expo Hall where vendors not needing playback to show their wares could have a high profile without renting a listening room. Nearly all the concerns selling music, record cleaning services and equipment, cables, and much more were in the hall so traffic was high and I hope Bill had a good show. He reminds me of the radio/tv repair guys you used to trust to fix your music system and band electronics. I miss that scene; I understand the biggest concentration of those guys and the associated parts stores was a neighborhood in NYC that was leveled to build the World Trade Center. In obvious hindsight, they should have let it be.
In the more or less equally sized adjoining hall was Ear Gear, home of all things headphones and personal listening. Everyone with good stuff always makes this show and it is a glorious experience. MANLEY, having a headphone amp line, was there and for I think the first time EveAnna Manley was present. I had never met her before and she has to be the most down to Earth owner/CEO in audio. We had a nice talk. What a pleasure and so much fun. Instead of someone selling you something, it was like bumping into someone very interesting at the grocery store.
The show also gave me a World Class serendipity meeting of someone very, very special and not an audio person. IBasso is a Chinese company and cleverly uses satisfied, knowledgeable customers to represent them at shows instead of employees. The lead guy there has designed and made headphone cables himself, is an EE and one of the smarter guys in the room. Someone helping him with display and gear was a small older woman dressed from being in the Arizona desert; a brimmed hat, and boots to absorb rattlesnake strikes. I mention this to place her as we had met earlier. I had seen her coming out of an elevator in the hotel we were in and we introduced ourselves when she happened into the fitness room where I was working out to keep my knees in shape to navigate the huge show. That was where we had the opportunity to get to know each other. A minute into a conversation and I knew I was in the presence of greatness without her saying a single word about herself. She possesses many degrees it seems and this selfless angel uses her knowledge, experience, and credentials to help heal people and the Earth. She has picked up the indigenous languages of some places; she mentioned Formosa, Indigenous North America, and Guam but there must be others. She mentioned working in Alaska, the Pacific, Africa, and the Southwest a lot, and I am sure that was the tip of an iceberg. I can say that the only other woman I ever met that was as impressive as a human being was Helen Keller, and the only man was R. Buckminster Fuller. So, thank you AXPONA. I'm sure I will never get to see her again but we have each other's emails.
Before I get to audio stuff I heard, two other encounters with biologicals. The show has seminars and concerts. We spent Friday afternoon at seminars and they were very good. I like the industry health and personality seminars much more than how to seminars, and those were on Friday this year. The man who founded AXPONA ten years ago is retired, but he showed up this year and asked his friend PAUL REED SMITH, the PRS guitar founding luthier and owner to do what he does. Unless you have caught him on YouTube at a TED Talk, the entire affair would be a total surprise. His favorite way to communicate with an audience is to get them to argue with him. He is a no BS guy and has unpopular opinions about instruments, designing and building them, and making music, and he is right about it all. As fascinating as informative, you may or may not like him but he is not to be missed. He may have pulled out all the restraints because his friend put him at the center of his show, I don't know, but it was special in any case.
The French-Canadian singer, musician and composer ANNE BISSON has been a fixture at this show for some years. Like Lynn Stanley, Jennifer Warnes and Rebecca Pigeon, she was already a musician in different styles when she was encouraged to go after the audiophile recording community for an audience. I have heard her in performance several times but had spoken to her only briefly; this year she stayed full time at the little table in the hall outside her piano set up where she was selling and signing her music. My friends always get her vinyl so I had not heard her recordings. In the hotel, I streamed them on Napster and definitely preferred one CD it ends up she had composed. She liked it best and didn't care for the one I didn't care for either. I believe she got tired of suits telling her what to perform and record to be "successful". When it was about time for her to go in the room and play I went in to get a seat and there was a loud demo still going on. Techno blasting out of huge metal speakers and all the chairs facing the demo instead of her piano. When it ended I turned around a chair and set it up as close to her as I could physically get, maybe nine feet, so I could hear her directly as well as through the PA. The second of two songs (15-minute performance) was in English and she was about the best thing I had ever seen. The song she rendered was INTENSE. In the past, she was less involving when performing in English but she has moved past that. She is a fine pianist and in concert performs numerous long passages on the keyboard that become integral to the songs. You get that extra excellence when someone is accompanying themselves and pulls it off. The communication is so instantaneous and invariably correct. She blew me away. I can only hope future recordings reflect what I heard.
Next post, some equipment reports.