2. misc-audio
  3. 1128316160

A few systems heard at the Rocky Mntn. audiofest

I sure didn't hear them all, and I'm not about to say that my fave is the show's best system, but here are a few observations.

1. Most rooms I didn't even walk into as they were either too crowded or were playing diddeebopper trash that I RUN away from.
2. The Intuitive Design speakers room was playing an acoustic-bass recording that sounded EXCELLENT. It was closely miked and the bassist was doing lots of whacking and clacking, and the bass really did sound real. Didn't hear anything else there. Their literature reads as if their 2 systems will be QUITE expensive.
3. Herron was demoing prototypes of new, big speakers and subwoofers, and the short piece of the Reference recording of the Rutter Requium sounded VERY good.
4. North Creek's new Advanced Ribbon Technologies Division was playing their new Metro hybrid ribbon system. Only about 3' high, it used a single MR/treble ribbon and a 7" vented woofer. The system had almost no bottom-octave energy and a little too much treble for my taste, but it sounded VERY coherent. Too bad it'll retail for some $7 - $8K/pair.
5. Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology was demoing his new Thigpen Rotary Woofer (TRW) system. This thing is going to be a hit with well-moneyed home-theater fans, as it'll generate high SPLs with VERY little distortion at frequencies as low as ONE Hertz! Several of us heard continuous tones at 16Hz.; below that I felt rather than heard the energy. At 2 Hertz it was flapping the room's door about an inch peak-to-peak! 'Only' $13K.
6. The only ABSOLUTELY GREAT-sounding system for me was AvantGarde's Duo horn-based system, driven by Thor tubed preamp and amps. WOW!!!!!! I've never heard big, expensive, horn-based systems before, and it literally had me in tears with, again, the Rutter Requium. I played a lot of my CD of the EMI/Boult Holst Planets, and I was truly amazed at the tonal naturalness, soundstage size, imaging specificity, etc.
.
128x128jeffreybehr
alpenaudio
1 posts
 
Mr. Behr, I want to thank you for your response to our demo. It was a joy to have you in our room. I love to see people get emotionally engaged with the music. You seemed to truly enjoy it.
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Golden ears,

Thanks for the support for my visit to FMAF. As perhaps you can guess I was not in a position to assert myself. Not even in this thread. My post honestly said it all.

Having spent a lifetime earning my living in retail sales I know how to behave if I want to peddle something. I also have a profound understanding of sales behavior when one is less than confident in their product or themselves as salespeople.

For myself the over-riding factor in not being assertive (beyond my physical limits) was there were plenty of other rooms to visit where my needs were satisfied. Perhaps at a different time I would have worked harder to get them involved in my interests.

I'm not upset with anyone there showing gear. These were just my honest observations. I did not shake my head nor bitch about the music being played within earshot of anyone and I certainly don't consider myself any kind of audio expert. I got as much out of this event as I wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.

One point where even my critics will support me is that Lugnut is never ambiguous. If I take the time waiting to sit in the sweet spot, with my wife no less, and no interest is shown in me as a potential buyer then I guess I'm guilty of being less than physchic in answering questions that are not asked of me. If one is in sales it behooves them to understand, meet, greet, qualify, demonstrate and close unless the customer is supposed to be responsible for everything.

There is nothing more ambiguous than standing there having nothing to say to a customer. But then, perhaps I'm a dinosaur.
jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
Golden, I wasn't there to hear every system in every room. I was there to see and re-meet a couple manufacturers who have turned into friends over the years, to attend several seminars that looked (and were) worth my time, and to hear some systems that seemed worth my time. I also think I was looking for a little validation of my goals in reproduced music. For instance, does my system really sound as good as I think it does? Have my tastes tilted the frequency balance* significantly? I had no responsibility to listen to all or even most systems there--I'm no reporter trying to cover everything and perhaps discover a jewel among the stones. I was there to enjoy myself, and 'enjoy' didn't include entering rooms with obnoxious music playing at too-high levels. We didn't walk the halls bitching about anything, we just went down the hall to the next rooms.

I found the people in the rooms I got into to be friendly and accommodating.

* My biamped system is HIGHLY adjustable in frequency balance, and I love to tweak, so 'adjustable' can be as much for the worst as the better.
.
ubglub
76 posts
 
I think this thread is very useful and potentially even more so if we can get past the personal issues. I'd appreciate other people sharing their listening strategies.

I find that I'm unable to assess an audio setup when the recorded music is amplified, synthesized or highly processed in its origin, since in that case it is much harder to know what the original performance (if any) would have sounded like. Therefore, I'm also one of those people that won't stick around unless the audition software is classical or acoustic music of some kind, played at a natural volume. How many people feel the same way about evaluating equipment, even though their listening tastes might embrace a much wider selection of recorded music?

Even in the case of classical and other acoustic music, modern mixing practices often result in a sound picture that is significantly different from the live performance. Especially in the categories of "soundstage" and "balance", what you hear is partly the recording engineer's re-interpretation or manipulation of the sound. I sometimes have trouble knowing what the playback equipment is doing or not doing in those areas, even when listening to what I consider to be an optimal source for evaluation, such as chamber music or a jazz ensemble.

Feedback welcome from anyone who has worked through any of these issues.
jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
One way to eliminate one variable--an unfamiliar piece of music or recording--is to bring your own. That's what I did. The Rutter recording played in the Herron room sounded very nice, but I had NO idea what it sounds like on ANY other system.

Because I am HIGHLY familiar with the recording I brought, the first 10 seconds in the AvantGarde room gave me a good idea how that system sounded, and 15 minutes of it told me the system sounded VERY good. This Boult/Holst Planets is simply my favorite piece of evaluation music--I LOVE the work AND the performance AND the recording.
.
More to discover