.FEED BACK DESIRED ,[Daed , Dr. Pyro, thanks Whamo] Central New York [Utica N.Y.] Get Together

[DrPyro]

I'm alive...I'm alive...Thank god I'm alive... Just joking...the drive over from Buffalo wasn't bad at all, it was one of my first times to enjoy the lovely upstate NY weather! After talking to Whamo, I think NY only spends $ on cleaning I-90 and doesn't spend a dime on cleaning "other" roads... Anyways, I definatly want to thank Mark & Kathy for being such fine hosts. This was my first time to see and listen to Khorns and tubes. I have seen many pictures of Khorns, but they still suprised me on exactly how massive they are but how little they actually occupy the available room space. Mark's listening room is probably 20' x 15' (or larger) and Kathy has been a good sport about the Khorns, having decorated the top of them nicely so they don't stand out....too much [*-)]. Mark shuffled a large varity of music through both my Sony XA-9000ES SACD player and Mark's CDP. I also have to admit for redbook CDs, I would probably be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two CDPs, however, perhaps Mark might be able to tell some difference after a long duration test drive on his system. Much of the music that mark shuffled through I wasn't familuar with, except the classical music that i bought. The khorns sounded nice, but you could instantly tell when a bad recording was inserted. My Ref-3s are probably more forgiving to crummy recordings. Just by that simple fact, I would have to think hard about "upgrading" to the khorns, plus the fact i have no corners in which to toss them.

Being a "kid" in comparisons to many on this board, I have grown up in the digital era, so it was a real treat to listen to the VRDs and a few records. I'd also agree that records are too much hasle, I just simply want to hit play and let it rip... I have recently purchased the pCATs (not delivered yet...) as my first adventure into tubes, I was thankful for Mark's assistance in how to bias the tubes. I was very suprised as to the heat that the VRDs released as Mark jokingly said "They are my winter amps". I'd really have to sit down and listen on my system to get a feel for tube vs SS. As for the blueberry, when the design concepts were floated on the forum, I thought the front looked a tad ugly. Now that I have seen them in person, they look a tad "retro" but all of the switches are solid and have a great feedback. The construction looks top notch, I was impressed and it makes me look forward to the pCATs even more. The highlight of the blueberry MUST be the wooden case, it looked FANTASTIC, exceptionally well made! Too bad we couldn't really give it a real serious testing.

It was a pleasure to meet Whamo, Daed and his wife. Daed has a real winner for a wife because i think she loves the music and speakers as much as he does! Too bad my lady doesn't.....

Cheers
-Dave

PS: Us WNY are going to be a tad smarter [] and have our gathering in the springtime, so y'all are all invited. I just have to find a place as good as Piggy Pats! [<)]

[meagain]

Well - How did the khorns sound other than 'good bass'? Any complaints? What type of crossover do they have?

[whamo]

Oh, He had trachorns,Bec tweeters, and Dean G networks.It all sounded

really swell no doubt. Also I'm with Dr. Pyro in that we need more time

to listen better so I'll volunteer to watch your house and take care of

your dogs while you all go down south for a vacation lol. Mark

[Daed]

Well - How did the khorns sound other than
'good bass'? Any complaints? What type of crossover
do they have?

They are KHorns, so they sounded great.
[] Without really knowing more of the music
though it's hard to clearly say if I like some areas more or less than
mine. The bass really stood out to me though..

We only live about 15 miles away from each other so we'll have
to get together again, sample some more music and do some comparative
listening.

[markgod]

Hey,

That is why I told people several times to bring some or "their" favorite music to listen to. Daed is right that he is not far away ,so he come come over just about any weekend and re-audition the set up , just give me a call and "BYOM" , bring your own music.

[markgod]

Well - How did the khorns sound other than 'good bass'? Any complaints? What type of crossover do they have?

Meagain,

For crossovers look at the bottom of any of my posts

[ben.]

PS: Us WNY are going to be a tad smarter [] and have our gathering in the springtime, so y'all are all invited. I just have to find a place as good as Piggy Pats! [<)]

Try Fat Bob's downtown. On Virginia Place. Runs between Allen St. and Virginia Ave or St. Between Delaware and Main. Virginia Pl is a one way that you have to enter from Allen. Parking is free and full on Virginia Place, so park on Allen. Great food - smoker on site and they have a good happy hour, too. (Not a BBQ joint, but a good $8 lunch is nearby at Cafe 59 on the corner @ 59 Allen.)

Also One Eyed Jacks at rts 78 and 93 in Lockport. Try their smoked chicken wings!

Sounds like it was a good time!

[NOSValves]

You know one thing I'm seeing mentioned here is comments on LP playback. I think all that attended this get together should take the playback at Mark's house with a grain of salt. This was just a simple quick setup and hardly what most of us LP's lovers would consider even remotely a good LP playback setup (no offense intended on this Mark). Yes getting up and down to flip LP's is a hassle. BUT even with a moderately priced modern turn table or a proper conditioned vintage rig and GOOD CONDITION LP's the playback of a good vinyl rig will wipe the floor with anything but high end ($2000 and up) CD players. Also building a nice LP collection is at least 10 fold less expensive then purchasing Cd's. But no LP will never be as convenient as CD.

You want to hear excellent LP playback a good numbers of members here have top notch setups that would wipe the floor with CD rigs with sky's the limit budgets IMHO A record cleaning machine or good hand methods is a absolute must for used LP usage.

Craig

[DrPyro]

Craig-

   You have a great point that a top notch LP system can perform extreamly well.  

I think that much of the decision comes down to ability to get your music on a particular format 

and age of the user.  I grew up in the "CD age" and my only experince of records was from my parents.  

However, I don't like MP3s because  I can hear a quality difference between CDs and MP3.  It must be a 

the same feeling that the "record age" users feel about CDs.

_Dave

[NOSValves]

Oh don't get me wrong I love CD's also. I listen to more CD's then LP's simply because I don't have the time to be flipping LP's while i'm working. I find with CD's most of the more recent releases or remastered older releases sound pretty darn good. I have many copies of the same recordings on both formats and many its hard to tell any difference. The thing with vinyl is most older recordings sound leaps and bounds better then all the stuff that was rushed to the new CD format in the 80's to fill the demand. Those early engineers had no clue what they were doing with redbook.

Craig

[whamo]

Well, I haven't listened to lp's in a long while and I do know how well they can sound. Mark was simply trying to demonstrate the phono section of the Blueberry and such. I don't think I gave a complete review either of whole experience. The sound was exceptional and the high's and mid's seemed to just blend somewhere in space like at times you really couldn't perceive the music coming from the speakers it was from somewhere else. What I tried to describe as bass extension I meant in the soundstage the bass permeated the area like it was resounding through everything as intended by the designer. I never said the bass was heavy at all. I've never been to any Klipsch get togethers so it's kind of hard to get over the strangeness of it too. I mean like we were all strangers and such pretty much and Mark invites us into his house and it's odd at first. And the first thing I do is reach for his silverware drawer like I lived there and whip out a knife lol. I had just arrived and they asked me what's in the box and automatically I just did it. I shouldn't have been bashful and played some stuff I brought but I was late and I didn't know if there was some sort of agenda. Overall though Mark and Kathy's system pretty much rips.

[markgod]

You know one thing I'm seeing mentioned here is comments on LP playback. I think all that attended this get together should take the playback at Mark's house with a grain of salt. This was just a simple quick setup and hardly what most of us LP's lovers would consider even remotely a good LP playback setup (no offense intended on this Mark). Yes getting up and down to flip LP's is a hassle. BUT even with a moderately priced modern turn table or a proper conditioned vintage rig and GOOD CONDITION LP's the playback of a good vinyl rig will wipe the floor with anything but high end ($2000 and up) CD players. Also building a nice LP collection is at least 10 fold less expensive then purchasing Cd's. But no LP will never be as convenient as CD.

You want to hear excellent LP playback a good numbers of members here have top notch setups that would wipe the floor with CD rigs with sky's the limit budgets IMHO A record cleaning machine or good hand methods is a absolute must for used LP usage.

Craig

Craig,

I should send you my CD player[on 2nd. thought no I shouldn't ,you probably would take me up on the offer ,and I want to relax and settle down for awhile[]] ,I think you would really like it , the reviewer on 6 moons compared it to his $1749 Cairn Fog reference CD player and Dr. Pyros Sony XA9000ES SACD is a high quality CD player and it is built like a tank ,probably goes 20 - 25 lbs. So we were listening to pretty high quality CD players . The phono I have is a decent one from the 70's a Technics SL-1700 direct drive semi automatic with a Shure catridge, not top of the line ,but in its day it was a decent turntable. With both the CD player and the turntable ,one could tell the difference with a quality recording over junk. I played one of the older crappy CD, The Best Of Mountain , it sounded terrible very flat ,one dimensional sound . I played a fairly decent LP and it sounded better than another LP ,I played earlier . I know that the LP's ,I had left laying around ,are not some of the "best" recordings out there , and some of the CD's I played were very good recordings . So all things have to be held in perspective . It took me all of 2 min. to setup the turntable.

[DrPyro]

Very true mastering of any media is critical to most of our enjoyment of that media. In fact, when we were listening to the "junk" CD just to give a feeling for just compressed and 1-D a bad CD can sound, we did discuss the mastering of a CD and what garbage some of these engineers are using to NOT tell he just made a shit CD. You are not strictly limited to 80s based CDs, I have found several recent CDs (mostly classical, because that is what i buy) that were horribly mastered. I still can't comprehend what they are using during the mastering process to miss massive tonal imbalances and compression artifacts, do they simply NOT listen to what they just made or do they simply not care because it will still sell? I don't know...

-Dave