In this video I’m talking about my experience at the Audio Advice Live show in Raleigh, NC at the Sheraton in downtown. This is the second audio show I’ve been to, and if you’ve never been to one, I break down how they’re usually set up: registration and info on the lower floors, plus a bunch of hotel rooms on higher floors converted into listening rooms. They pull the furniture out, treat the rooms, and you basically walk in, sit down, and listen to different systems while brands and industry folks demo their gear. I linked up with Louie V from Vinyl Latte and his friend Josh, and we spent the whole day bouncing between rooms on the 14th through 16th floors. There was a ton of high-end stuff from all over the world—speakers, streamers, DACs, and streaming front-ends were everywhere. I’ll be honest: there weren’t many turntable-focused setups, which was a little disappointing, but it didn’t ruin the experience at all. Some of the high-res digital demos sounded absolutely incredible. After a couple hours of listening we grabbed lunch, and then of course we went record shopping at Sorry State Records (only a couple blocks away). I scored a first US pressing of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” for $30, cleaned it up on my ultrasonic, and it came out looking perfect.