Thailand 2017

It's early Thursday morning Bangkok time. Today is day one of the Thai magazine What Hi-Fi?'s big audio show (the magazine is not related to the U.K. magazine of the same name, started around the same time).

Unlike the previous hotel show I attended here, this one takes place in the sprawling Bi-Tec Exhibition Hall well away from downtown Bangkok.

The hall is an enormous space capable of holding multiple simultaneous exhibitions. If you've watched Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" (highly recommended as we're now living in Judge's predictive fantasy), you'll recall the enormous Wal-Mart. This convention center is almost that large. The High End show occupies a single very long corridor with large numbered rooms on either side. The image at the top is of but a small fraction of the humongous multi-floor parking garage under the Bi-Tec. It might be the largest parking space I've ever seen.

I will be presenting two turntable set up seminars and sharing the stage with Analogue Productions' Chad Kassem for a discussion on the state of LP production among other things and another one with Kassem and Groove Note's Ying Tan on record collecting.

From what I saw during set-up day yesterday, exhibitors, which include American brands McIntosh, Avalon Acoustics, Rowland, VPI, Spectral and many others are concentrating on expensive products while missing the opportunity to present to the public affordable audio. But that's based upon a cursory perusal.

There will be plenty of time to cover it all. In other sectors of the enormous hall were home furnishing and other shows I didn't get a chance to check out. But directly behind the audio show was a smaller exhibit of industrial pumps and water management systems. Clearly there's something for everyone!

Pictured is the just set up Audio Excellence room hosted by Wuti Larnroongroj who was assigned the thankless task of keeping me in line and entertained during my visit.