RMAF 2019

The only question in need of an answer Friday and especially Saturday was "will they show up". Certainly, while the venue was costly for exhibitors, The Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center is a stellar venue for a hi-fi show. The rooms sounded good, in part because of the non-box room layouts, the elevators worked the best of any show I've attended ever and the Internet was by far the fastest.

To a degree Friday and definitely Saturday the question was answered in the affirmative: they did show up! In large numbers as best as I could see in this spread out place and the demographic skewed remarkably young. Every exhibitor i spoke to said the room was packed all day Saturday. Generally everyone was happy. What's below was lifted from the AnalogPlanet YouTube channel because it's Sunday 10:22 AM and I've got to go to the show and spin records for a hour at a 11 in the PS Audio room (the new $2400 Stellar Phono Preamp sounded so) and I want to get this posted before I head downstairs.

Despite the pessimism expressed by many within the industry (including me) RMAF 2019 seems to be a big success. "Seems" because there's another show day and it's somewhat difficult to know the real attendance because of the hotel's expansive layout.

The exhibitors with whom I spoke were all happy with Saturday's attendance. Mostly I heard "room full all day". The demographic skewed younger than usual from what I saw and more than one "kid" approached me about writing for AnalogPlanet and I hope some of them follow through with writing samples.

Please visit AnalogPlanet and watch the embedded video of the "Record Cleaning Made Difficult" moderated panel discussion I ran with more than a half dozen record cleaning machine manufacturers and importers. It was informative and entertaining.

I played records and told stories in the PS Audio room to large groups of listeners and will do it again today, Sunday. Among the highlights here is the new Schiit Audio SOL (Schiit Out of Luck) turntable now in production. It sounded great for $799 with arm. There's coverage of many affordable stuff in this video so please keep the jealous bitching to a minimum.