News

March:

• Friday 23^rd: Closed
• Saturday 24^rd: Closed

Salon son & image - Montreal HI-FI Show:

• March 23^rd to 25^th

April:

• Friday 20^th: Open at 4pm for Tannoy/Audio Note show (no further space available for this show). Shop closed all day till 4pm.
• Saturday 21^st: Open at 11am to 4pm (space still available for this show)

In some ways, making and preparing shows is a lot of fun. It’s a way to get under peoples skin and stay there. For show goers, have you noticed how we seem to remember those really nice rooms or shows and want to stay and to stay for as long as possible. Its ‘ a little bit like writing for our website here , you might like the exercise, but eventually , we need to leave the room and take an exit stage left to leave others the honour and the pleasure of listening. Now with the cat out of the bag since the Feb 16th, we know that these are about my last blogs on our site. They have run their course.

Historically, folks seem to remember about 4 –7 major shows or events here. On 2 of these , we had well over 100 people show up and we had all a great time and on those same shows, we ended the night at 2:30 AM and then started again next morning for our Saturday install. On 2 other shows in ,  I think 1997 or 1998 at my home , one show started at 8:30 am , folks got there at 8 am and it went on till 2 am ( these were wondrous times ),I think during the day, over 100 people showed up. We pros ended up having supper on me, debating everything audio. Even from my home, manufacturers and other colleagues wanted to attend these events and they did. On another event, it was not a show, but it was our last Friday evening Xmas party approximately 4 years ago. Folks still talk about this one big time, and like a lot and, well, lets not forget the one I am referring to under the existing show 2012 banner the one I am referring to, of the 28th Feb 2010. This is one of the 2 shows in Ottawa that had impact and that folks across the Atlantic, in the USA and yes, Montreal, TO and yes here in Ottawa heard about. Also one of the smallest shows we had with about 60 folks showing up. It was our “first coming out” after 9 years that we were doing Audio Note, and yes that we had plenty of it. We were then for sure and might still be the Audio Note dealer that sells the most in North America.

Good shows can do that, but this last one in 2010, I knew, even though I had to pull a second weekend instalment on this one, it was bittersweet, because I knew as far back then , it was one of my last shows. The business was simply getting to be too much too handle but I was a brute for punishment and it kept my side kicks here in line with paid work.

There is always an exit stage left in our strategy when I planned any show, even the one’s at the Montreal show. I was not locked in on any particular path or set up, but I knew things would work out in Montreal. I asked a question of one of my side kicks just a week ago, my main man Chris, and asked him about our floor real estate on the upcoming show. Chris stated that he had no clue how we were going to set up these relatively massive set ups. All speakers that were being planned are all big speakers.

With the first set up I was able to set things up in the privacy of one of listening rooms. Things just jived and slid right in. On the second set up, we did a couple of test less than one week ago , and it completely blew us and everyone else away . It also opened a can of worms. So here I am a week later and I devised something up my sleeve. It’s a thought out of the box as it were. Cant’ say now, but suffice it to say, it settles’ the issue of real estate.

Our second set up is in fact about to be completely planned out. I will figure out where our Digital streamer is about to go on and on which system our turntable will go on. On all 3 set ups, of course, the sources will be Audio Note CD players starting as low as 4,700.00 to as high as 25,000.00 (without Digital nor interconnect included). As we have just uploaded on our website yesterday, our Friday show is now full, with several places still on reserve for our clients. Further, at a non specified date, several outside clients that will not be able to make our shows are coming down for this special event, folks as far as New York state and Connecticut and past Montreal are coming down.

The surprise we are devising here is a necessary evil. Its’ something we cant pass up. Either from a point of musicality or from a marketing point. Layout are now planned out, but we need to see about potential bugs once we have these decked out in our shop ( something tell us we might brown out our Hydro system due to the amount of gear that will be on , but we don't know yet ). The final tweaks are being done several days before hand during evening hours when no one is around, no phones, just silence and stuff, and yes a bottle of red to enjoy for Chris and I, right before we start our Friday night show begins.  We need to toast our efforts here and without Chris and Roger and soon Steve at my side, one person can’t do all of this. We have just been called by at least one journalist to attend...don't know yet if I will accept. Several colleagues want to come...plus que ça change, plus c’est  la meme chose...things don't change.

I admit Chris and I are getting excited about this. He looks forward about this stuff because he is now seeing where my generally skewed mind is going. Take relief guys, silence is about to ensue in a few months time, after the show. Then we will be able to reminisce about how things were before. Our second portion of our 2^nd install will be a lot more technical in nature, because sometimes, to do our jobs’ right, we do need to be anything but a artist and a poet. Sometimes I say. Long live poets’

Soon then

Luc
Stereo Passion

PS: Knowing we plan things out sometime in a overboard manner, it dawned on us here by letting some of those of you interested  in knowing what goes into making a successful  show, as well as how we map things out, we would let you folks know what we would be playing or likely to be playing at this event. Not much for a surprise there and we promised you a surprise. Suffice it to say, we did several things in order to advance our cause the long weekend of February. We know with near certainty what will be played, now we need to test and adjust our aim. We are about to reformat our main listening room in the next few days ( 3 man job likely to take a whole day to do ). We have further have deleted our first install of the show from our website , as we still are now officially trying to diminish over aged text from our site as we warned our fan base in our 1 more thing key.

In March we will see our last install and we will advise of space availability for second show. NOTE that a few spaces will be kept open for our second show ONLY for the public. Our outside clients that cant make it, will receive information re: an alternative date for show.