T.H.E. Show 2019

See the smiling woman in this photo with a dazed-amidst-all-these-rooms yours truly? Meet T.H.E. Show’s fabulous Director of Social Media and Marketing, Emiko Carlin, a former classical pianist and musician whose 3000 songs include some #1 pop singles. I don’t know how this dazzling woman comes across to others, but for me, discovering Ms. Carlin was like meeting an old friend.

Ah, mbl. This time, making music not in its usual large room, but rather in an 11-foot wide space. Mbl North America’s Jeremy Bryan had asked for a larger exhibit room, but none was available. After hearing the havoc wrought by air wall subdividers in many of the Hilton Long Beach’s conference rooms, I think Bryan is lucky to have been refused.

After Emiko Carlin of T.H.E. Show basically ordered me to check out AirHush’s display at T.H.E. Show, I spent a few minutes speaking with company CCO Michael Quinby.

It took two tries over the course of two days to find a seat, but on Sunday afternoon, I finally squeezed into the room shared by EAR and PranaFidelity. The wait was worth it.

There was a helluva lot of burnished silver jewelry in this room, and it sparkled like a sharply polished diamond.

Who would have expected to hear a theorbo reproduced in 24/192 at an audio demo?

If Scott Walker Audio had staked out a mini-empire on floor 3, Sunny Components of Covina, California, did the same on floor 6. The first room I visited, of the four from Sunil Merchant, included Egglestonworks' 87dB-efficient Nico speakers ($4250/pair), ....