NY Audio Show 2016

I hit the ground running on Sunday, the final day of the show…

Seeing as it's smack dab in the middle of the New York Marathon route, finding a way into The Park Lane Hotel presented its share of challenges, even on Saturday: though the race wouldn't begin until Sunday, gangs of scantily clad runners of all shapes and sizes dominated the sidewalks of Central Park South, forcing pedestrians to hit the concrete and scream, Ratso Rizzo style, "Hey! I'm walkin' here!"

The room was small, approximately square, with low ceilings, and—like all the rooms I visited at the show—very yellow…

My Friday-morning train from upstate New York arrived in Manhattan ahead of schedule—how often does that happen?—giving me the luxury of walking, rather than taking a subway or a cab, to the Park Lane Hotel, located on West 59th Street: this year's venue for the New York Audio Show. By the time I reached the Park Lane Hotel's posh-minus entrance, I felt as though I'd entered a whole different world—but this time I wasn't sneering. Indeed, I was wondering: what would it take for all these people of means to take interest in our little world of handmade electronics and rare phono cartridges and loudspeakers that were surely meant to be enjoyed in the largest and grandest of rooms? For people who are used to the best of everything, is high-end audio really that big a leap?

Now in its fifth year, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show opens to the public this Friday, November 4, at 1pm in the Park Lane Hotel overlooking Central Park. (Friday hours are until 7pm.) The three-day show, a smaller version of what has come before, promises 30 exhibit rooms, half of which are "oversized," two ballroom-sized exhibits, and two more ballrooms filled with exhibits and vendors selling merchandise. All-in-all, the event, whose one-day visitor pass costs $30 ($26 in advance, with significant savings for multi-day passes) promises almost 110 brands.