By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

Today’s the last day of the Chicago Axpona HiFi show. What a treat it is to meet everyone and share some good times around HiFi and music.

The kind words, the look of delight and pleasure so many have on their faces as they leave the room, only to return for more. That’s fun!

The aspen loudspeakers, from the smaller FR5s (which are blowing people away as their sound fills that huge room of ours) to the big FR30s, we’re all pleased with the performance.

What’s always difficult is musical choices. Our playlist. Some come in and enjoy what they hear so much they want a copy of it. They sit for hours at a time enjoying the hand selected tracks that show off the system’s capabilities. Others aren’t so happy. They’d like more of this or that. And still others bring their own tracks.

And when we get requests to play people’s tracks, that’s when the conundrum begins.

How many times have we had the room packed to the gills with happy listeners only to put on someone’s prized track that sounds good to them but for everyone else, quickly empties the room?

Trade shows are a tough one. You want to make the largest group of people happiest while at the same time trying to please as many individuals as possible. Which is in itself an impossible task.

After all these years and with as many people as crowd our room, we’ve certainly come to the point where we rarely accept individual requests. Probably sad but…is there an alternative?

I’ve dreamed up a couple and here’s my favorite. Accept the request with instructions to the crowd that after 30 seconds they give a thumbs up or down? That sort of works but it requires participation (often in short supply) and we risk making someone feel badly. Not great choices.

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

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SOURCE: PS AUDIO