Keith Kingdon, of the representation firm KK Associates, who spoke on behalf of Denon and Audyssey, and Michael Austin, of the marketing firm Marketing Concepts, who spoke on behalf of Auralex, joined forces to conduct a seminar on both “mechanical” and electronic room acoustic treatments.

Speaking first, Austin explained (in laymen’s’ terms) three key principles of acoustic treatment: isolation, absorption, and diffusion. He then briefly reviewed ranges of Auralex products that provide those specific types of treatments, and concluded by playing a demonstration recording. The recording showed the sound of a snare drum, steel-string guitar, classical acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, played first in an untreated room and then in the same room with optimal treatments applied. As you might expect, the sound of the instruments in the treated room was markedly clearer and more tightly focused—a true “night/day” difference.

Speaking second, Kingdon provided a good summary of four key Audyssey electronic room/speaker EQ technologies: MultEQ, MultEQ XT, Dynamic EQ, and Dynamic Volume. He then gave a brief outline of Audyssey technologies as implemented in various ranges of Denon products, including the firm’s flagship A/V controller and multichannel power amplifier, which were used as demonstration vehicles for the seminar. Finally, Kingdom gave demonstrations of Audyssey technologies in action, first using high-quality two-channel music recordings, and then using soundtrack excerpts from the film Heat.

Judging by the size of the crowd who attended the roughly 1 1/2-hour long presentation, the Auralex/Audyssey seminar was one of the high points of the evening.