SE WI Tower speaker GTG - Page 25

Just poking a little fun. I'm getting excited to have a weekend away!

Oooo - my favorite!

I'm all done here with the Spring Break rush, good to go.

Is there a way to get a copy of the set list? I'm curious what on it I've heard, and would like to get a listen to the unfamiliar songs if possible.

Since the Ascend Horizons aren't on the speaker list, and Dennis isn't coming anyway, I will leave it home.

We're waiting on Terry; he's been very busy with work the past couple of months, but I hope he'll post the list today.

Is a little music from all genres being represented? Hopefully?

Speakers may do really well at classical or opera, or acoustic but fail to excite a top 40s fan and vice versa. I've noted this in my delve into high end headphones which is why I own a pair of high end sennheiser hd-595 headphones for more detailed listening and a pair of Sony DJ v700 headphones for my favorite bass heavy music. I like them both but they sound nothing alike.

I think so, yes, and I agree with you. Please let us know what you think of the track selections when Terry posts them.

Just a note - we are leaving for Niagara Falls on the AM and will be back on Saturday. I will be taking the computer and will try to check in, but if you do not hear from me I am either having problems connecting or my wife has dumped me at the bottom of the Falls..........

Sorry for being late with the track list. My only excuse is that I have far too much going on. It looks like I'll even be missing the beginning of my own GTG as I have to coach my soccer team that morning. Nuance will be in charge until I get there.

Track list:
"Boxenkiller" by Cyrill Lutzelschwab and Martin Hess
"Ntyilo Ntyilo (The Love Bird)" by Hugh Masakela
"Walking On The Moon" by The Yuri Honing Trio
"Chant" by Foreplay
"Copland - Fanfare For The Common Man" by Erich Kunzel: Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
"Jazz Variants" by Various Artists
"Red Rain (Instrumental)" by Peter Gabriel
"Dream On" by Kelly Sweet
"Just Like Love" by Steve Strauss
"Rubina" by Joe Satriani
"Into The Void" by Nine Inch Nails
"Hells Bells" by AC/DC

Sorry if this list has too many tracks that people aren't familiar with. Nuance and I spent a lot of time reviewing tracks that we feel really display a speaker's strengths and weaknesses. We have great recordings, and ones that aren't so good. We want to hear just how good the speakers can sound, and we want to find out if they fall apart on any particular genre.

This list is not in stone. There is a track coming to us from Dennis Murphy, and Jim Salk supplied 3 of the tracks. If there is anything you hate, be sure to blame Nuance.

^ He'd better hurry and choose a track so we can post it and let others get familiar with it. Give him the current track list and see if he even wants to add anything now. I think we put together a good list.

The "Jazz Variants" track is by the artist O-Zone Percussion Group, for what it's worth. Also, Dennis' track is 45 seconds of the finale to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; he plans to send the song when he sends the speakers.

Some of the songs chosen are short, maybe 2-3 minutes, so we should be able to use the full song during our auditions. Other tracks are long, and Terry and I both agreed only the first 2-3 minutes of these tracks need to be played to get an idea of how the speakers reproduce them. We're probably looking at 30-35 minutes of continuous listening time with each speaker, then obviously more with specific speakers (based on requests) once we've run through the standard "eval" on all of them. Almost every track is very well recorded, but we also threw in one or two to see how enjoyable an average or poor recording can still be on each speaker. If a speaker sounds great with well recorded material and still allows the poor stuff to be at least enjoyable, it's a winner.

I urge everyone to get familiarized with these songs if you have them, and pay special attention to timbre/tone of instruments, sound stage width and depth, imaging, midrange resolution, cymbals and sibilance, and bass response. But you already do all of that, so I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

I'll be arriving at 9:00 a.m. and filling in as "host" until Terry gets back (10:45-11:00ish). I recommend those bringing speakers arrive a little earlier than 10:00 to allow for unloading time and what not. Terry's front end sounds great, so all we'll have to do it put the next pair of speakers to be listening to in place, experiment with toe-in a bit and listen away. We'll have the ground marked with tape to reflect the listening distance, and we'll run a quick pink noise tone to level match to 85dB for each pair before firing up the tunes.

Does that all work for everyone? Suggestions are welcome, of course.

The only folks that have not yet confirmed are:

Warpdrv
pennynike1
TurboFC3S

Warpdrv has a business to run, and he will not know if he can attend until likely the day of or the day before; it'll be based on the weather forecast. I have emailed Ryan from Vapor Audio asking for a commitment, whether it is a yes or a no. I should also mentioned I invited Jeff from JTR Speakers and Mark Seaton from Seaton Sound; I'm waiting to hear back from them.

If Jeff or Mark can make it are they invited to showcase their speakers during an audition timeslot as well?

Of course.

My email has been on the fritz all morning. I would like to attend however none of my speakers are full range and are designed to be used with a subwoofer. Would it be possible to integrate a subwoofer?

Thanks for replying, Jeff! Terry is going to have the subwoofers in a different room (DIY LMS5400 Ultras), however I am sure we could accommodate that. We could save your speakers for last or play them first, as then we'd only have to move the subwoofer(s) once. Would you be able to bring your Quintuple's?

Please shoot me a PM when you have free time with the E-mail you'd like me to send the contact info and address to. Thanks, Jeff!

That would be great. The Quintuple are special order so I don't have any on hand. I'll bring a couple or Triple 12HT-lp unless you'd like me to bring something else but those we could get away without a crossover for the meet.

If your looking for demo material than the "Worlds Greatest Audiophile Vocal Recordings" super audio cd has many great tracks, or Diana Krall "My Love Is" or Norah Jones "Cold Cold Heart".

That'll work, Jeff - cool deal. I'll put you down as confirmed and bringing the Triple 12HT-lp. I look forward to meeting you!


Awesome - thank you, Jeff!


Sounds good buddy. Thanks.

Mark Seaton responded back and is pretty sure he can make it, even if he cannot bring speakers. If he can bring a pair, though, he'll let me know. I know this event was suppose to be capped already, but I never wanted to leave anyone out, and Mark and Jeff work hard and should be there. Thanks to both of them for making time to attend even though it's rather last minute.

This is turning out better than I could have hoped for. I have really been wanting to hear the JTRs, as well as Seaton speakers. Very exciting news!

At the KC subwoofer meet while people were kinda gathering and getting everything together we played a set of "typical" subwoofers. They were the kind of subwoofer that the average hobbiest might enjoy - specifically a pair of Klipsch RW-12D subwoofers. It acclimated everyone to the room, and gave everyone a chance to have some idea what to expect before the first real audition. It was particuarly important for our blind testing because without some sort of baseline nobody would know exactly what to expect of the first audition and have no idea how to judge it.

Is there any plan on something like this? To have a pretty typical pair of cheap enthusiasts speakers by which to baseline? Say a pair of Polk 70s or something equivalent --- ideally something which is pretty popular on these forums and fairly inexpensive so that the readers have some reference to the experience...???...

Sitting here at a hotel in Lansing - glad I checked in as there is lots to digest!

Thanks for the playlist - too bad I only recgonize one or two. I will have some downloading to do when I get back!

Great news on the additional speakers! If a decision is made to have a set of inexpensive speakers as a baseline and we need a set, let me know. I can provide a set of Emp Tek e55Ti towers.

That's a really good idea, but due to the amount of speakers that will now be in attendance I don't know that we'd have enough time. I just hope we have enough time for all the main speakers. I hope I didn't overbook this one...speakers wise I mean.

I'm thinking maybe a check list type of print out for each speaker might be helpful in evaluating them.

Soundfield,
depth:
width:
Imaging,
Sharpness:
Solidity:
Dynamic Impact,
Upper frequency:
Mid frequency:
bass:
Detail,
High frequency:
Mids:
Bass:
Presentation Balance,
High:
Mids:
Bass:

I'm not sure of all the parameters that one might want to have available, the preceeding was just a quick idea of what might be helpful so that each individual tries to give each speaker a well rounded evaluation.

I'm trying to type this out on a laptop, it keeps jumping around and publishing this post unintentionally! I should avoid trying to work on a laptop, it's an exercise in frustration! I can't believe this thing doesn't offer the option of disabling the touchpad, my big thumbs always manage to hit that without meaning to.

That's a great idea; one I've been pondering myself. I'd like the opinion on the majority about this, though, as I don't want this to be too formal. Our goal is to ensure everyone has fun and gets enough listening time in with each speaker. If an evaluation sheet will inhibit that or slow down the process I think we should skip it. Thoughts?

I'm thinking the evaluation sheets are for our own use, they don't necessarily need to be filled out. For myself, memory can't fully be counted on with so many speakers across such a long time period, thus the sheets to keep everything clear to myself.

The more I follow this thread, the more I wish I could be there instead of Arizona. What a great gathering of people and speakers. Have a great time guys and I'll be sure to make it to the next one, whenever that happens...

Gotcha. In that case definitely go for it; it's a great idea.



Thank you sir.