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AKFEST07 WEEKEND at PICKY'S: (Attendees & Detroit Area Klipschers)


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Metal? Yikes - only when I'm in the mood. I listen to all sorts of genres, but would never say that I especially care for any one in particular. The only genres I usually don't enjoy are Jazz, Country, Rap, and Punk. Lately I've been listening to a lot of New Age and Electronica. Most of my favorites tend to be "cross-genre" - like combining opera and rock or opera and metal. I play viola so I particularly enjoy music with a dark string sound. My favorite bands right now in no particular order are Loreena McKennit, Cirque du Soleil, Glenn Hughes, Covenant, Blue Man Group, and Massive Attack. I used to have a ton of Depeche Mode, but my CDs got broke and my computer that I had them uploaded to got stolen out of my car a few years ago. [:@]

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I'd like to know what demo discs you think you have that would sound horrible on any system at the show.

Craig

No, you don't!

Oh shyt.... it sounds like Doc is gonna brake out the Yoko Ono ........... RUN AWAY!!

EDIT:

Seriously speaking, this is suppose to be one of the all time greatest songs for critiqueing a high quality audio system. I can't remember where I found it originally, but it has popped up on several occassions during my web searches for Sound Quality testing and reviews. Honestly, I'm not pulling your leg. Unfortunately, the link below is not associated with the correct recording, but it is this song being sung by this group.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3k8qcNDco

I've come across it's many times. The correct version is on their greatest hits CD/LP. Anyway, enjoy... it's definitely better than Yoko, but then, so is my cat Beaudruex when I'm scrubbing him down in the tub [:D]

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Pink? I wish....it's fire-engine red.

Ok, time for a long write-up...

After a 4 hour drive to Detroit, I showed up at Picky's place around noon. I came in with my red suitcase and a case of CDs ready to embark on the adventure to Picky's HT. But alas, that was postponed by a great bowl of chili with Hot Sauce served by Glenn's awesome wife Verna. As a quick aside, the two of them reminded me very much of my own parents (which is a good thing, lol) and I felt very much at home. After lunch we head on down to the basement, which was the wierdest experience in retrospect...

The room is tiny and the first thought that came to mind was Picky's equipment list. How in the heck did he cram everything in there? It was like a master puzzle piece. Glenn did a great job with the aesthetics. The most important aspect of the room though, is that it doesn't feel small once you've been in there for a while. In fact, the room feels incredibly larger than it is - despite how much stuff was in there. Then when the movies came on and the lights went down there was nothing but you and the screen....and yes, everything (including the lights) was being controlled by remote - way cool.

I don't specifically recall the order of events, but I think the first thing we listened to was my "demo CD" - which is a compliation of music I put together, originally intended to be sent to Richard as a test for his Jubilees which I've still yet to send him [:o] As mentioned, the first track is from a studio recording that Cirque du Soleil put together consisting of their favorite live music. The songs are slightly different from the live DVD's since there's no visual aspect to a CD, but it just makes it all the cooler to listen to. It's from the album "Le Best Of" and the title is "Stella Errans - Extrait De Dralion", which apparently is from the Dralion Circus. I guess the name isn't that hard afterall [:$]

I particularly enjoy this piece for a few reasons: first, buried in the mix is a great recording of a cello playing most of the melody. I played Viola and first chair was always right next to the cello section which is way fricken louder than my viola could ever play. The line is buried in the mix, but it makes a great test for how revealing a system is. Any extreme amount of intermod distortion just covers up the entire cello part - and we all know how good Klipsch is with keeping that distortion low [;)][Y] Secondly, it's a great test for a system being "too revealing" or "too detailed" which makes the cello very brash sounding. I would typically associate it with a rise in the 2-4kHz octave. And though she's not singing words, it's a good female vocal test since they're right out front on top of the mix. You can get an idea for the cleanliness of the HF extension of the system with the triangle mixed hard right - poor extension and you can't hear the reverb added to the triangle - if it's really bad you won't even hear the triangle on top of the mix where it's supposed to be. If there's a lot of comb-filtering, then the triangle doesn't sound "pure" for lack of a better term. And then finally, the bass in the recording is boomy - kind of annoying when you want to enjoy the music, but a good revealing system with real low frequency extension (below 50Hz) is going to sound boomy.

So them's a lot of words about the song I chose to demo with, but there's a crap load of stuff I can listen for with this song and I just wanted to mention a few of the key points. Anyways, Glenn's system really shined in most of the areas. The song was a bit too boomy, but that can be seen in the measurements showing a lot of rise in the 60-80Hz region. We listened to the song using I believe the Dolby PLIIx surround extraction mode - not pure 2.1 listening. Since Glenn's room is small there is really no reverberant field or even semi-reverberant field that builds up. And to get rid of crazy slapback and ceiling reflections, Glenn went with an overly dead ceiling. Though the room isn't too dead or unnatural to be in, it is too dead for music....However, the surround mode creates an ambience that is very much like that of a better listening room. Not perfect, but it's an improvement over the natural acoustics of a small room. It's kinda scary how well it works when everything is timbre matched [Y]

Then came track 2 of the CD. This clip was from a set of CDs Damon sent me for demo'ing some new music and I've absolutely fallen in love with the song. As mentioned, it's called "Bullet" and is from Convenant's 'Northern Light' album. There's a bass line at the beginning that walks around the 60-150Hz region which is the melody until the song breaks outta the intro. There's a few bars in there where the bass guitar walks down into the 30-50Hz region, but still playing the melody - yep, another one of them songs to demonstrate low frequency extension. The interesting thing is that there are no harmonics on top of the bass guitar, which means if you don't got sub 50Hz, then you completely don't hear the bass line. When listening on Picky's setup, the bass line over these few bars went away for most of it. The coolest thing (well for me at least) was to see the dip centered at 45Hz in the measurements.

As far as the midrange - that's one of those tell tale differences between Reference and Heritage. I would probably argue (and I'm sure most would agree) that the Heritage outpeforms in the midrange clarity, but I think one of the advantages to the Reference is that it's more forgiving of poorer source material. Yep, there's crap on my demo disc too - it's always interesting to see how different systems treat the more compressed / distorted music. I've been struggling with the concept of a "revealing/accurate" system versus an "enjoyable" system...but that's a whole different topic.

The bass response was one of the most striking attributes to Glenn's room. One of the advantages of a small room is that all of the standing waves and room modes start at higher frequencies, which means you don't have issues with the lower frequencies being overly exagerated. This resulted in a very natural sounding transition to the sub (even despite the craziness at the higher frequencies). In fact, you would be extremely hard pressed to tell that a sub was even on....I guess that's one of the attributes of the cleanliness of the RSW-15 which was just coasting along in his room. Glenn had an extremely smooth transition to the sub.

Movies were the real ticket in Glenn's system though. In fact, I can't think of anything to "complain" about. Glenn has a few CDs and clips that he likes to demonstrate with - I believe I got to undergo the ritual 3 times. The 2nd and 3rd time it was so hilarious watching Glenn basically just showing off, but in such a tactful and enjoyable way, lol. He definitely had an ear for movies and concert videos that sounded great.

One of the videos we watched that stood out the most was that Heart concert - that was really cool. That Open Range? The western movie with the gun fight was awesome hilarious too. Blue Man Group sounded incredible too - not that I know what all them crazy instruments are supposed to sound like, but if you're enjoying the music I think that's the most important thing. Gosh we watched so much stuff, a Rush concert, the entire move of the Fifth Element (which I believe Roger gave Glenn a copy of since he had an extra, lol). What else did we watch guys? The time flew by so fast it was such a riot. We stayed up real late talking too.

Another interesting thing we did was to take a nearfield measurement of the RF-7 in the corner and then gated the imuplse response so that we could ignore as beast as possible the reflections in the room. While I couldn't get rid of all of them, it was interesting to note how well the tweeter integrated with the woofer section. I know some people enjoy modding the crossovers in the RF-7, but the top-end of the tweeter is already down about 1-2dB from the woofer section and there was no resonant peak to be found in the tweeter. If anything, there might be a little ringing from the woofers...but that's probably a mechanical issue with the diaphragm, meaning that a crossover or any amount of EQ won't be able to get rid of it.. Heck, you don't see it in the far-field measurement either.

I dunno, did I cover all the bases? It was seriously information overload at your place Picky. I really enjoyed myself. The only dissappointment for me was not being able to finish watching all the movies...I just got sucked into the movies when you were demo'ing everything [:o][Y]

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So Saturday morning rolls around and we were hoping to hit up AKFest

around 10am when it opened, but apparently someone decided to get outta

bed late...[A]

When we arrived at the hotel, we started walking in when Parrot drove

by so we decided to wait up for him - talk about crazy timing. After

signing in, us 4 Klipschers headed off for Craig's room, which in a way

became a home base for us. We were greeted by a pair of Frankenscalas,

a blueberry which I don't think ever got plugged in, some crazy

finagled tube amp and then another guy with some home brew (?) Phono

Preamp? We didn't really stay to listen...I believe Paul suckered me

into helping him carry up a bunch of LP's he was trying to sell, along

with some other stuff he wanted to demo with? I dunno, but I can't

believe how heavy the boxes were. When we got back, Roger and I went

off together to go demo all the rooms, one by one until we hit them

all. There were quite a few rooms to hit and I was hoping to leave

around 4pm to make sure I got to Colter's at a decent hour.

Anyways, I don't remember the specifics of each room, but I went into

each and every room telling myself "ok, screw the opinions and prepare

to be impressed". I was bummed that I forgot my own music to listen to,

which made any form of analysis difficult - even moreso because I'm

from another generation and have never heard of any of the music. All that to say, there was a definite lack

of being able to tell when suck was in the recording or in the system...

But the thing that shocked me was all the music being played that just

sounded awful...often times playing at levels that brought everything

into distortion. It was a day full of clipping amps, clipping speakers,

overloaded rooms, and poor source material. But at least there were

glowing tubes, fancy power plugs, and even fancy little damping

devices. *sigh*

I was kinda dissapointed really because I was hoping to find some

alternative approaches that resulted in good sound. I pretty much

stopped listening to other brands of speakers about 5 years ago because

I've been so sold on the Klipsch sound. I'm sure there is some level of

sub-concious bias in my blood, but I had every desire to appreciate the

hard work all these crazy audio geeks have been pooring into their

systems. Maybe the room acoustics were worse than I thought, but there

wasn't a single system present that came anywhere close to the best

sound I've heard...was I expecting too much from these uber expensive

systems?

One of the craziest things I saw during the whole event was the nature

in which the majority of the people assessed systems. Roger and I would

walk into a room and make our way towards the listening position,

trying our best to grab a good seat and chill for a bit to get used to

the different sound. While sitting there, almost every guy would walk

in and the first thing they would do is walk up towards the speaker and

start stroking it...almost as if it was

some exotic orgasmic experience. Just picture a bunch of old guys in

sweat pants and velcro shoes getting all excited over the finish on the speaker....I'm

scarred for life! Then, while standing beside the speaker they would

proclaim the pleasantries of the sound to the exhibitors....but of

course, this was only the case when the speaker was "pretty". Words

cannot describe the realization of what I was seeing unfold before my eyes. They weren't all like that, but the vast majority of the people would go on about the sound without ever coming close to any form of sweet spot. Far be it for me to judge another person having fun, but there is a huge difference between "looking good" and "sounding good".

The arrogance just pissed me off too. Someone (usually exhibitors)

would spew some audio magic BS and the visitors to the room would go on about

how they know exactly what they're talking about - everyone knew

everything about everything and they had to make it known. My favorite

was some idiot peddler trying to market little blocks you put on top of

your speaker to aid in damping. He also had some other pad thing that the

speaker sat on too. He was using some crazy mini-monitor mains that

were sitting on top of another speaker (just some tall skinny speaker he was using as stands).

He was going on and on about the damping qualities and why his ribbon

wire and blah blah blah helped so much. The thing I couldn't fathom is

how he could boast about all this crap, but didn't dampen the speakers he was using as stands! In fact, that's probably the only

thing that was a serious resonance issue in the first place! All them

drivers behave like passive radiators and just ring away when their

frequency gets hit. I wanted to ask the guy how he was damping the "stands", but figured I was better off avoiding

confrontation. That was probably the epitomy of the audio BS.....oh,

except for the IDS room. They had speaker that were nearly 8 feet tall

consisting of a bunch of little 2" drivers. They had the music blasting

so loud and the dude kept changing up stuff in the middle of songs

(rather abrubtly) and was just spewing all this BS. I seriouslly needed

a few hundred buttons just to give to him. It was outrageous. In fact, he was actively uneducating people...man it was dirty.

The event wasn't all bad though. There were a few rooms that sounded

nice. In fact, there were quite a few ribbon tweeters and I'd have to

say just about every system with them had amazing highs - didn't matter

if it was tubes, SS, CD, or vinyl...The Manley room was interesting too

- though it was mostly the speakers they were using. I believe Picky

already talked about them though...I forget the brand name of the

speakers, but I know they're from Denmark. They had a great system

running in there, but only if you kept it under 70dB. It sounded fine

up to around 80dB, but the second you opened them up the sound just

fell apart - likely because the speakers are so small.

I went to the Manley room a few times and the last time I asked one of

the exhibitors if Manley made any solid state gear and the guy was like "Do

you need a sticker?" They had a huge roll of stickers that they were

handing out that said "Tubes Rule." I was in another room listening to

something on vinyl and told the guy that his turntable was the most

CD-Like reproduction I've ever heard....meaning it as a compliment.

However, the guy took it as an insult and was all flustered with my

comment! I didn't go back to that room, which is sad because I would

have liked to know what kind of turntable he was running.

I saved Craig's room for the end and my goodness was it refreshing. The acoustics in Craig's room were noticeably harsher than some

of the other rooms, which never jives well with horns so it wasn't the

greatest sounding rig in the world, but that's life. We listened to

some Dire Straits song that Parrot threw in - Roger ended up buying the

album. The volume was a bit too hot for my tastes, but the dynamics were so refreshing I didn't care. The Trachorns remind me very much of the squawkers in the Chorus

II....both have the same wierd sound in the upper range of its passband

- I dunno how to describe it other than to say that every tractrix

squawker has some some level of hashiness to it - but it might

just be the source material, or amplification. I think it might even be

acoustics related. It's something I need to play with more.

As far as the amps, I was actually surprised...maybe it was my state of

mind after all the BS of the day, but I had pretty much given up on

trying to find something new to appreciate. I really wish I coulda

picked Craig's brain a bit more, but he came across extremely

level-headed....actually talking about compromise and concerning

himself with the real variables that mattered and not catering to all

the stupid audiophile bias. Very PWK-like...or maybe just a good sales

pitch, lol. In fact, he was the only guy running around with a

volt-meter....maybe other guys had them and tucked them away? Who

knows. Anyways, apart from the lacking bass of the lascalas, I was

quite impressed with the bass response of whatever it was amp that he

was running. I'm a bit hesitant to form an opinion too early though,

and would love to hear his amp mated with a speaker like the Chorus II

sometime playing some of my crappy kid music [:)] I told Craig before I

left that they were the most solid state sounding tube amps I've ever

heard - I hope he took that in the good way I intended, lol...you know,

a best of both worlds kind of thing.

After all that mess, Glenn took me back to his place where we ended up

chatting for a couple hours....probably could have gone for much longer

too, but Colter was waiting for me in Indy. Man, there's another review to writeup there too....

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DOC, yer all growed up!

Very astute observations there young man, I dig your writing style. Loved the desciptions of Picky's Man Cave and the Velcro shoe guys at the AK. Sounds like it was all a very interesting weekend for you even if all the equipment and music wasn't to your tastes. Take it all in, it is all a learning experience, even if you are defining what you don't like.

Now for part III, the trip to Colter's!

It was great to have you over for another day of fun. Just so y'all know, Doc is a hard worker and loves to experiement. I have so much stuff here that there is always and experiement or two.

Doc arrived at my place Saturday night around 10ish, wasn't it? He'd called ahead to give me his ETA. I headed out to get a fresh DVD at the store. I'd been tryint to watch a couple movies during the week and the old Sony player was just having fits. I'd purchased a very nice Yamaha DVD player from Klipsch CES booth and had wired it up.

Went to the local store, picked up the last copy of Casino Royale. THe girl behind the desk gives me a funny look, then murmers something about 'reserved' to her cohort. She tells me that tale that another customer had just called in, his copy of that movie had a bad scratch and would not play. She was holding this last copy for him. I think she was expecting me to blow up (cause I just look like that) but I just said, 'fine, I'll just go get something else'. I think it shocked her, she was like 'I'll put a dollar credit on your account'. I'm like 'why, he picked the movie first, probably has a gf or family wanting to watch it and they got part way through- he deserves to see it. So while I'm there the guy comes in, shows her the scratched disc, takes the other one. I tell her that I've got this new super-duper DVD player and ask if she's tossing it anyway, could I try it. She gives me that and the extras disc and gives me my other movie for FREE! And yes, it played just fine.


I really wanted Doc to watch SNL with me because Peyton Manning was hosting, but we get too absorbed talking so we watched some movie, he begged me to 'please play some good music' because he'd been tortured all day at the AK fest. I put on some Glenn Hughes on the LS and I could just see his eyes light up at that good ole Klipsch sound that we all love. Then he demonstrated the 'velcro shoe old guy speaker stroke technique' and I about fell outa my chair. oooooo, that sounds goooooood. LOL

More about Sunday's experiements tomorrow. Or maybe Doc's up and will beat me to it. I just wanted to chime in about his visit.

Michael

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I believe Paul suckered me
into helping him carry up a bunch of LP's he was trying to sell, along
with some other stuff he wanted to demo with? I dunno, but I can't
believe how heavy the boxes were.

Now we learn the real reason Dr. Who prefers CDs to LPs: They don't weigh as much.

I figured that Dr. Who, being a youngster in a group of old farts, would be the logical choice to help me haul up two boxes of records. I gave him the lighter box that had only 50 LPs in it, and I took the one with 70 LPs.

I enjoyed your AKFest review, Doc, especially the part about telling the guy with the fancy turntable that it sounded the most like a CD player that you had heard. That must've crushed him.

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Just picture a bunch of old guys in
sweat pants and velcro shoes getting all excited over the finish on the speaker....

Shut UP! Really? [:o]


The event wasn't all bad though. There were a few rooms that sounded
nice. In fact, there were quite a few ribbon tweeters and I'd have to
say just about every system with them had amazing highs - didn't matter
if it was tubes, SS, CD, or vinyl...

"Line Arrays"?

I saved Craig's room for the end and my goodness was it refreshing. The acoustics in Craig's room were noticeably harsher than some
of the other rooms, which never jives well with horns so it wasn't the
greatest sounding rig in the world, but that's life.

How can you tell it was the room and not the speakers themselves producing 'harsh'?

We listened to
some Dire Straits song that Parrot threw in - Roger ended up buying the
album. The volume was a bit too hot for my tastes, but the dynamics were so refreshing I didn't care.

Like, around what DB is 'too hot'?

The Trachorns remind me very much of the squawkers in the Chorus
II....both have the same wierd sound in the upper range of its passband
- I dunno how to describe it other than to say that every tractrix
squawker has some some level of hashiness to it - but it might
just be the source material, or amplification. I think it might even be
acoustics related. It's something I need to play with more.

So you did hear harshness out of them in the upper frequencies? It woulda been cool if you were able to test it to see exactly where this was on the spectrum. Interesting you likened the Al horns to the flavor of Chorus II. I have Chorus II (stock) and listened to them about 2 months ago again back to back with stock Cornwalls. I didn't find them 'harsh', but a bit 'grainy'. Felt they spat out music more in the 'air' or more the front of the speaker vs. the Cornwalls more direct, from the inside sound. Very different vibe but interesting enough for me to want to hear a higher-end version of that tractrix. Now - how are you meaning 'harsh'? Piercy? Or something else? I'm not happy to hear the Trachorns described as having harshness - but I also realize this could be the crossover's fault.


Which preamp was running Craig's amps? And the amps were VRDs - Right?

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The event wasn't all bad though. There were a few rooms that sounded

nice. In fact, there were quite a few ribbon tweeters and I'd have to

say just about every system with them had amazing highs - didn't matter

if it was tubes, SS, CD, or vinyl...

"Line Arrays"?

I think the answer is no? They were using the ribbons much like the tweeters on the RF7's....just a single unit on the top-end. None of the tall arrays of anything ever sounded good...

How can you tell it was the room and not the speakers themselves producing 'harsh'?

Acoustical issues linger around in the air and are most easily noticed when there are sharp transients and pauses in the music...the speaker simply isn't going to "ring" like the room will. Well I suppose the speaker could distort in a way similar to poor acoustics, but that's gonna be one real crappy speaker.

I dunno, it's the same way you can tell the difference between an amp distorting and the speaker distorting. Each has its own signature sound.

Like, around what DB is 'too hot'?

It depends on what you're listening to and how you're listening. Every once in a while I like to jam out at 90dB A weighted slow, but I usually listen around 60dB C weighted...at the very least, I prefer the music to be 20dB above the noise floor - it was a bit noisy at AK Fest so that meant somewhere around 75dB A weighted would have been my ideal.

You were measuring the voltage Craig....how loud were we listening? Around 85-90ish?

So you did hear harshness out of them in the upper frequencies? It woulda been cool if you were able to test it to see exactly where this was on the spectrum. Interesting you likened the Al horns to the flavor of Chorus II. I have Chorus II (stock) and listened to them about 2 months ago again back to back with stock Cornwalls. I didn't find them 'harsh', but a bit 'grainy'. Felt they spat out music more in the 'air' or more the front of the speaker vs. the Cornwalls more direct, from the inside sound. Very different vibe but interesting enough for me to want to hear a higher-end version of that tractrix. Now - how are you meaning 'harsh'? Piercy? Or something else? I'm not happy to hear the Trachorns described as having harshness - but I also realize this could be the crossover's fault.

Which preamp was running Craig's amps? And the amps were VRDs - Right?

Ahhhh, I said "hashy" not "harsh"...not sure if that makes a difference or not. I can jive with your "spat out" comments, but there is nothing about the Chorus II that makes them "grainy"...that's usually an electronics issue. If you didn't notice it in the Cornwall, then something was probably wearing out in them. I dunno how to describe hashy other than it's how the word sounds when you pronounce it. A little bit too much "heshhhh" in the sound....it's been true of every tractrix horn I've heard too (reference style tweeters, chorus II mids, forte 2 squawker, tons of PA speakers, etc....) - it's probably just something inherant with the tractrix expansion? Maybe I'll go hunt down Roy and see what he thinks. I don't recall hearing it with the Jubilee top-end, but I don't remember listening for it either. I really think it's just an electronics issue being revealed by the horn because I certainly don't notice it as much when I've got my HK630 powering the Chorus II instead of a typical reciever.

As far as the spatty sound...try pulling them away from the walls a bit (or anything that might be causing early reflections). I think what you're hearing is the difference between collapsing and non-collapsing polars, which means the two speakers ideally need to be in different locations in the room.
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OK - I get it. You said Craigs room had more harshness and attributed it to the room, then morphed to hashiness so I read that as harshness instead. :) I do wonder if you were all in hotel rooms, why Craig's room would sound harsher cuz I assume all the rooms were the same size, etc? I think I understand what you mean about the 'hash'. And I'm thinking it's what I interpreted myself as 'grain'. LOL

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Craig had his system setup along the long wall instead of the short wall like most everyone else....with the bare front and rear walls it was a recipe for slapback. I think a few acoustical panels along the front wall would have dramatically changed that perception. It coulda been as simple as a few curved masonite panels - he didn't have any early side wall reflections to worry about since the speakers could be angled in so much. It woulda been nice to get rid of the floor to ceiling bounce too, but that's not gonna be feasible in a temporary setting.

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I told Craig before I left that they were the most solid state sounding tube amps I've ever heard - I hope he took that in the good way I intended, lol...you know, a best of both worlds kind of thing.

Honestly I don't even remember you saying that but coming from a staunch SS guy I guess its a compliment similar to a Tube guy saying an SS amp sound like tubes [;)] I do remember you stating that it was the first tube amp you actually would like to own or something to that effect which shocked me.

The only part of your reveiw of my room that surpises me is the bass response of the Lascala's comment. I just do not understand folks hung up on the below 40 hz bass reproduction. But hey we all have are own personal preferences.

I'm not sure if this is your first audio show like this or not. But realize the last thing you should do is to take the sound you hear from any of the systems at these types of events too seriuosly since its never ideal and your always destracted. Like you stated you should always bring the recordings you prefer. I find the general comments about other systems at the show kind of surprising but then I didn't visit all the rooms so maybe they were mostly all bad sounding? I find the angle you seem to have taking when listening to systems as kind of interesting you seem to be looking for faults in certain frequencies rather then listen to the music in its entirety. When I listen I look for what "I like" not what "I don't like" with over all balance being one of the most important factors. Does it sound like music or a machine is always my first question.

Craig

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VRD's sounding solid state? I guess it depends on what characteristic of SS you're referring to. I've had the chance to listen to Craig's amps on 3 occasions: 2 at the AK fest, and once at Audio Flynn's for a more extended period. I don't know that I'd characterize them as SS. Maybe fully "tube-ish", with a low end capability that is reminiscent of some of the better SS amps.

I arrived at the Fest late on Sunday, which was the earliest I could get away. I wanted to see as many rooms as I could in the short period of time that I had, but I did get to Craigs room a couple of times, and things were pretty consistent with the other experiences that I had. Some of the SS gear that I'm used to hearing, including some of my own unfortunately, can impart some "brittleness" to the highs. I hear none of this with the VRD's.

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Honestly I don't even remember you saying that but coming from a staunch SS guy I guess its a compliment similar to a Tube guy saying an SS amp sound like tubes [;)] I do remember you stating that it was the first tube amp you actually would like to own or something to that effect which shocked me.

Hmmm, maybe I said it to Glenn on the way back? I was having trouble remembering the convo, but whatever - you get the idea, lol.

The only part of your reveiw of my room that surpises me is the bass response of the Lascala's comment. I just do not understand folks hung up on the below 40 hz bass reproduction. But hey we all have are own personal preferences.

Well every lascala I've measured poops out at 100Hz [;)] Whether or not that is low enough is going to be dependant on the music you listen to. I personally prefer for the melody to be present in my music [:)][:P]

I'm not sure if this is your first audio show like this or not. But realize the last thing you should do is to take the sound you hear from any of the systems at these types of events too seriuosly since its never ideal and your always destracted. Like you stated you should always bring the recordings you prefer. I find the general comments about other systems at the show kind of surprising but then I didn't visit all the rooms so maybe they were mostly all bad sounding?

Maybe they didn't have crappy music playing when you were in some of the same rooms? Or maybe I just didn't like any of the music and then tried to blaim it on "objective" things like distortions and what not?

I find the angle you seem to have taking when listening to systems as kind of interesting you seem to be looking for faults in certain frequencies rather then listen to the music in its entirety. When I listen I look for what "I like" not what "I don't like" with over all balance being one of the most important factors. Does it sound like music or a machine is always my first question.

I think I just don't write about the things I like since I feel there's really nothing to talk about...not to mention I feel very limited in my vocabularly to describe the good things. I suppose I could always go find some crazy audiophile articles to cut and paste from. [:D] Nevertheless, I think you're right in pointing out that I'm overly critical, but I think it's more of a learning process for me. I'm always trying to understand how everything was designed in hopes of applying it to the stuff I will be building someday. I actually do enjoy sitting down and just enjoying the music, but I've just got this habit of overanalyzing everything before that happens. I certainly don't listen like this all the time! Yikes, talk about boring and wearing yourself out.

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VRD's sounding solid state? I guess it depends on what characteristic of SS you're referring to. I've had the chance to listen to Craig's amps on 3 occasions: 2 at the AK fest, and once at Audio Flynn's for a more extended period. I don't know that I'd characterize them as SS. Maybe fully "tube-ish", with a low end capability that is reminiscent of some of the better SS amps.

I arrived at the Fest late on Sunday, which was the earliest I could get away. I wanted to see as many rooms as I could in the short period of time that I had, but I did get to Craigs room a couple of times, and things were pretty consistent with the other experiences that I had. Some of the SS gear that I'm used to hearing, including some of my own unfortunately, can impart some "brittleness" to the highs. I hear none of this with the VRD's.

What SS gear are you referring to? I'm referring to amps like Aragon, Sunfire, Crown Studio Reference, Mark Levinson etc...

Maybe I should say the VRD's don't impart the sound of compressed / overdriven tubes, and aren't underdamped.
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