My spouse and I were lucky-enough to be admitted to Wilson Audio’s (http://www.wilsonaudio.com/index.shtml) World Premiere of the Sasha 2 Loudspeaker held at Paragon Sight & Sound (http://www.paragonsns.com/). I realize that the title says that it’s the “North American Premiere” but it turns out it’s really the world premiere — that it’s literally the first time these speakers have been premiered outside the Wilson Audio premises.
I’m not aware of the details behind Paragon landing this premiere event, but I do know that they appear to have a strong relationship with several particular brands, Wilson Audio being one of them. Thus, while I’m left wondering how Wilson Audio ends up in Ann Arbor, Michigan for their world premiere, it isn’t an outlandish idea, either.
The next question might be how people like my spouse and I (relatively new to town, never purchased anything at Paragon Audio) could get themselves into this event and I would say it’s because, “We know a guy.” I can’t figure out why no-one ever says it’s because, “We know a gal,” but that’s a question for some other time, I suppose. While we do sometimes go over to Paragon to do a bit of window-shopping, it is all due to the fact that we know someone who does happen to shop there that we knew about the event in order to ask if we could attend it. And, silly Paragon, they said, “Yes” to our request. 😉
The Listening Experience
First of all, for those who don’t know this, Wilson Audio provides what I would call a “high end” home speakers. By “speaker,” I mean a home loudspeaker that gets attached to one’s music system.
The next bit I should add, for those of you who don’t know this, is that even premium equipment is not always properly displayed at their events to the item’s best advantage. Thus, I would first like to compliment the person Wilson Audio sent to setup the demos. Some demos are surprisingly poorly-planned, with regard to actually showing off the expensive equipment, but not this one. This fellow was an audio engineer who was able to select music that was carefully selected to show-off the speakers’ capabilities, but also able to answer just about any question about the details of the recordings OR the speakers, themselves.
Thus, we were given to a lovely and dynamic demonstration involving mainly classical instrumental and vocal music. It was wonderful. I would have liked to have heard more varieties of music, but the demonstration gave a good idea how the speakers could perform. Of course, I should add that they were supported by a variety of high-end components, so it was not only the speakers that created the illusion of sitting in a concert hall, but the excellent recordings and supporting components, as well.
After everyone who wanted to hear the demos was finished, it was open-season on coming back into the room to insist upon playback of one’s own selections. To that end, I had a rather flawed jazz recording of a vocalist with two or three musicians. The speakers amplified the problems with the recording to a rather embarrassing extent. However, the well-record portions were so truly beautiful that I felt satisfied, both in my selection, but also in the performance of the system I was listening to.
In the End
While my spouse and I did almost finally buy something at Paragon (not the Sasha 2’s, which are currently out of our league, but another component that we have a need to fill), “almost” is as far as we got. Someone else got dibs on the component we’d planned to purchased and we’ll now wait a bit longer on it, as it wasn’t a pressing need. Some day, possibly Paragon will make up for all the wine and food we’ve consumed, but I won’t guarantee it.
Meanwhile, we’ll enjoy listening. To those people who wonder why we go see demos of systems that are currently way out of our league, it’s because we just enjoy it. It doesn’t make us like our system any less or cause great envy, but we just like knowing what the possibilities are. We just think listening is that much fun that we will listen to all varieties of systems, from the most modest of systems, to the million dollar system we will apparently hear in April.
The Perpetual Tourists 
Sounds fun. Back when I was single and had more disposable income I used to live checking out audio stores. I think there’s an audio equipment sales industry bylaw that says you can only play Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, or jazz to customers.