Just to be VERY clear... yet again... I'll say that disagreement is fine. This whole thing came about because Amir didn't qualify his opinion, and I quoted a post from his forum to add context to his comments. His comments required qualification because he didn't give the room a fair chance, again IMO. I feel this is very unfair to the manufacturer, to the point it's an ethical issue. If Herb didn't like the room after giving it a fair chance than fine, that's life!
On music... I feel strongly that vendors should play music brought in by attendees. If they don't it makes it much harder to judge the system, and maybe this is intentional? In the rare circumstance that the room is flooded with people I can see it being more difficult though, and it being more appropriate to have a set demo, but this is rare. The Wilson demo at RMAF a few years ago was a good example. They had set demos and so many people attended it would have been difficult to take requests. But in the other 99.5% of rooms it's just not that difficult. I still don't really know how Cessaro speakers sound because they don't take requests and always play music I'm unfamiliar with, same with Goldmund. Voxativ did it this year, no way to play CDs OR memory sticks... and the show was small enough I was the only person in the room when I asked. If I'm the only guy there and they still won't play my music I do hold that against them, especially if it comes with a condescending attitude, like Goldmund.
Also, the vendors policy on talking in the room is important. If the talking is going to last more than 30 sec. or so between tracks go outside and talk. If there is talking in the room I'll often just leave, and I might not come back because it's likely you'll be talking loudly next time I'm back too. The focus needs to be on the music inside the room. Hallways are great for discussions.
On room damping there's room for personal preference here, and I prefer a more damped room. I think the way Austin does it is fine. The system should be resolving enough to reproduce spatial information that's on the recording and THIS is what should form the soundstage, not reflections within the listening room. But, to be honest most people haven't heard a system that does this well. Once you have, it's a bit of a game changer and your expectations on what a system is capable of will change as a result. It's the difference between hearing the music in the venue it was recorded in vs hearing the music in your listening room. It's a HUGE difference and the fine detail and spatial information in the recording are best served up in a relatively damped room. Many systems just aren't capable of clearly reproducing these details though... if the system isn't capable enough then maybe room reflections are the next best thing, but in a good system it's just distracting and takes away from the recording.
