Newest In Sound Draws Big Crowds To Fifth Northeastern Hi-Fi Show

It was virtually impossible to hear any but strictly binaural sounds from the lavishly designed exhibition rooms of this year's New England High Fidelity Music Show. Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the show featured all conceivable kinds of music reproduction equipment, from the standards of Bogen, Scott and Electro-Voice to the Grundig, Grado and Glasser-Steers para-phernalia. Even radio stations such as WXHR maintained promotional booths featuring such novelties as FM car receivers.

Reading clockwise, and starting about nine o'clock, the show was staged in the lobby of the Hotel Touraine, and fashionably attended. There were of course dozens of salesmen and promoters eager to answer everyone's questions and there were some, like the young man above, who preferred to examine the equipment on their own. The binaural headsets went over big with the young married set, yet there were some, such as the Shavian gentlemen at about four o'clock, who found plain old stereo enough to keep them interested.

A lot of sales were made, and the salesman below is just clinching a deal for one of his expensive turntables. Perhaps all the responses to the abundant music at the show are represented in the three attitudes struck at eight on our clock; manly criticism, feminine rapture, and middle-aged contemplation.

The exhibition, which ran from the seventh through the nineteenth of October, has on its board of directors many distinguished names, including Arthur Fiedler, Cyrus Durgin, and H. H. Scott.

The conductor of the Eastman Symphonic Wind Ensemble, who records frequently for Mercury Records, Frederick Fennell, was on hand to discuss the new recording techniques and describe their value in developing the appreciation of music in America through the electronic marvels that were on display.