Show Report: An Accidental Friendship at T.H.E. SHOW, Long Beach June 2021

It was a normal work day about two weeks before T.H.E. Show in Long Beach, CA was scheduled to open.  With the good grace of the organizer of T.H.E. Show, we managed to push off our commitment to show in our secured room to 2022 as we made a company decision to wait due to the state of COVID19 containment.

The phone rang and it was John Voss of Voss Audio.

Due to certain COVID19-related logistics issue, John was put in a position to have to look for a replacement pair of loudspeakers that pairs best with their system to exhibit at T.H.E. Show.  A friend of John’s recommended the Graham Audio’s line.

We were lucky as normally our demo equipment is out at different places serving different shows, reviews, and audition purposes.  Due to COVID, we had most of our speakers with us.  After much deliberation between John and I the next few days, we established that there was indeed great synergy between the Graham Audio line and Voss.

With synergy confirmed, all we needed to do was to find the right loudspeakers for the room requirements, and it wad decided that the LS5/8 (retails between US$13,995 and US$16,857 depending on finish) was the perfect match.  Have to say, John was initially a little skeptical as he was used to higher ticket loudspeakers driving his 6-figure audio presentation but he was delighted with these Graham Audio workhorse and so were the audience.

Given how close our warehouse was to the hotel, we offered to take on the responsibility to outfit the room with triple-suspension high end audio rack system and isolation devices by Artesania Audio from Spain for the exhibition.  We would have been all set, except, last minute, due to a technical wrinkle, the reel-to-reel machine that John initially was going to use could not be used, so we brought in our personal tape deck with Sonorus saving the day.

On the side of the room, we set up a nice passive display for the tape-to-tape enthusiasts and for a show-and-tell showcasing Artesania Audio’s functional and aesthetics flexibility to present a form plus substance isolation and racking solution to audiophiles at large.

It was a joyful and productive experience and an honor to work shoulder-to-shoulder with John Voss at this event.  As with all enthusiasts, we found a few other passions in life that we share.