DaveC's RMAF 2016 Best In Show: Austin Acoustic

I'm guess DaveC won't like Herb Reichert's comments about the room either!

Just to be VERY clear... yet again... I'll say that disagreement is fine. This whole thing came about because Amir didn't qualify his opinion, and I quoted a post from his forum to add context to his comments. His comments required qualification because he didn't give the room a fair chance, again IMO. I feel this is very unfair to the manufacturer, to the point it's an ethical issue. If Herb didn't like the room after giving it a fair chance than fine, that's life!

On music... I feel strongly that vendors should play music brought in by attendees. If they don't it makes it much harder to judge the system, and maybe this is intentional? In the rare circumstance that the room is flooded with people I can see it being more difficult though, and it being more appropriate to have a set demo, but this is rare. The Wilson demo at RMAF a few years ago was a good example. They had set demos and so many people attended it would have been difficult to take requests. But in the other 99.5% of rooms it's just not that difficult. I still don't really know how Cessaro speakers sound because they don't take requests and always play music I'm unfamiliar with, same with Goldmund. Voxativ did it this year, no way to play CDs OR memory sticks... and the show was small enough I was the only person in the room when I asked. If I'm the only guy there and they still won't play my music I do hold that against them, especially if it comes with a condescending attitude, like Goldmund.

Also, the vendors policy on talking in the room is important. If the talking is going to last more than 30 sec. or so between tracks go outside and talk. If there is talking in the room I'll often just leave, and I might not come back because it's likely you'll be talking loudly next time I'm back too. The focus needs to be on the music inside the room. Hallways are great for discussions.

On room damping there's room for personal preference here, and I prefer a more damped room. I think the way Austin does it is fine. The system should be resolving enough to reproduce spatial information that's on the recording and THIS is what should form the soundstage, not reflections within the listening room. But, to be honest most people haven't heard a system that does this well. Once you have, it's a bit of a game changer and your expectations on what a system is capable of will change as a result. It's the difference between hearing the music in the venue it was recorded in vs hearing the music in your listening room. It's a HUGE difference and the fine detail and spatial information in the recording are best served up in a relatively damped room. Many systems just aren't capable of clearly reproducing these details though... if the system isn't capable enough then maybe room reflections are the next best thing, but in a good system it's just distracting and takes away from the recording.
 
I'm guess DaveC won't like Herb Reichert's comments about the room either!
Thanks. I looked that up and this is his listening observations: http://www.stereophile.com/content/rmaf-2016-saturday-part-2-herb#7GzYdzSYKmSWvCUS.97

"Everything in the Austin Acoustic room was rich for the eye, but the sound was unfocused, thin, and phasey to my ears. When I stood by the amplifiers I saw a lot of unbranded silver wires running hither and yon; I suspect one or two got crossed up somewhere."

Dave?
 
Just to be VERY clear... yet again... I'll say that disagreement is fine. This whole thing came about because Amir didn't qualify his opinion, and I quoted a post from his forum to add context to his comments. His comments required qualification because he didn't give the room a fair chance, again IMO. I feel this is very unfair to the manufacturer, to the point it's an ethical issue.

I didn't want to get into this but! If the point is ethics Dave then shouldn't this exhibitor also be held to some standard? You have a typical DIY kit based on old ALE or Gotto drivers and Onken design based DIY bass bin with the very typical Altec drivers put together with an out of production crossover for nearly $350k! He doesn't even bother adding the proper horns and sticks a stupid looking piece of wood on the driver as a muffler and calls it a speaker? There are hundreds of these amateur attempts in Asia and all sound the same, horny and incoherent. I don't even want to get started with the diy electronics, the crappy silver wires and their ridiculous pricing. If you know what you're looking at it's not even necessary to hear this system to know that it's a con job. Please no more lectures on ethics or how should people react to a POS!

david
 
Just to be VERY clear... yet again... I'll say that disagreement is fine. This whole thing came about because Amir didn't qualify his opinion, and I quoted a post from his forum to add context to his comments. His comments required qualification because he didn't give the room a fair chance, again IMO. I feel this is very unfair to the manufacturer, to the point it's an ethical issue. If Herb didn't like the room after giving it a fair chance than fine, that's life!

On music... I feel strongly that vendors should play music brought in by attendees. If they don't it makes it much harder to judge the system, and maybe this is intentional? In the rare circumstance that the room is flooded with people I can see it being more difficult though, and it being more appropriate to have a set demo, but this is rare. The Wilson demo at RMAF a few years ago was a good example. They had set demos and so many people attended it would have been difficult to take requests. But in the other 99.5% of rooms it's just not that difficult. I still don't really know how Cessaro speakers sound because they don't take requests and always play music I'm unfamiliar with, same with Goldmund. Voxativ did it this year, no way to play CDs OR memory sticks... and the show was small enough I was the only person in the room when I asked. If I'm the only guy there and they still won't play my music I do hold that against them, especially if it comes with a condescending attitude, like Goldmund.

Also, the vendors policy on talking in the room is important. If the talking is going to last more than 30 sec. or so between tracks go outside and talk. If there is talking in the room I'll often just leave, and I might not come back because it's likely you'll be talking loudly next time I'm back too. The focus needs to be on the music inside the room. Hallways are great for discussions.

On room damping there's room for personal preference here, and I prefer a more damped room. I think the way Austin does it is fine. The system should be resolving enough to reproduce spatial information that's on the recording and THIS is what should form the soundstage, not reflections within the listening room. But, to be honest most people haven't heard a system that does this well. Once you have, it's a bit of a game changer and your expectations on what a system is capable of will change as a result. It's the difference between hearing the music in the venue it was recorded in vs hearing the music in your listening room. It's a HUGE difference and the fine detail and spatial information in the recording are best served up in a relatively damped room. Many systems just aren't capable of clearly reproducing these details though... if the system isn't capable enough then maybe room reflections are the next best thing, but in a good system it's just distracting and takes away from the recording.
We must keep this on topic, and have no personal comments. But... We can fill in a name if appropriate. :)

 
I believe that this thread started with a simple and honest OP however to see its downward spiral as a result of argument and OT posts IMO serve no further purpose in this thread so unless there are objections, I have been asked by many members to close this thread
 
I've gotten way too many PM's from members who seem to be on both sides of the fence with opinions so I will reopen the thread with my only request being to discuss the topic of the thread and to avoid personal attacks
 
I didn't want to get into this but! If the point is ethics Dave then shouldn't this exhibitor also be held to some standard? You have a typical DIY kit based on old ALE or Gotto drivers and Onken design based DIY bass bin with the very typical Altec drivers put together with an out of production crossover for nearly $350k! He doesn't even bother adding the proper horns and sticks a stupid looking piece of wood on the driver as a muffler and calls it a speaker? There are hundreds of these amateur attempts in Asia and all sound the same, horny and incoherent. I don't even want to get started with the diy electronics, the crappy silver wires and their ridiculous pricing. If you know what you're looking at it's not even necessary to hear this system to know that it's a con job. Please no more lectures on ethics or how should people react to a POS!

david
That might be a bit extreme. Granted it is allot of $$$ and it is always someones choice if they want to spend what one asks for something. But done right such systems can sound amazing. I have always loved vintage Western Electric stuff, amazing sound and now out of reach for most people. Herb mentioned the DIY days, which brings back found memories. :)
 
That might be a bit extreme. Granted it is allot of $$$ and it is always someones choice if they want to spend what one asks for something. But done right such systems can sound amazing. I have always loved vintage Western Electric stuff, amazing sound and now out of reach for most people. Herb mentioned the DIY days, which brings back found memories. :)

+1... a bit extreme, but ddk gets that way sometimes. It's worse than what Amir said actually, but nobody is going to take that tirade seriously... ;) I'm not saying the system was perfect either, just that it was better than anything else at RMAF and probably better than any dynamic speaker over 800 Hz. Some aspects of the mid/high reproduction were startlingly lifelike, horns were amazing, trumpets sounded REAL, like they were right there. They were also willing to let me play it at realistic SPLs, which added to the effect. The bass was decent though and not distracting. Not everyone has the room for bass horns...
 
+1... a bit extreme, but ddk gets that way sometimes. It's worse than what Amir said actually, but nobody is going to take that tirade seriously... ;) I'm not saying the system was perfect either, just that it was better than anything else at RMAF and probably better than any dynamic speaker over 800 Hz. Some aspects of the mid/high reproduction were startlingly lifelike, horns were amazing, trumpets sounded REAL, like they were right there. They were also willing to let me play it at realistic SPLs, which added to the effect. The bass was decent though and not distracting. Not everyone has the room for bass horns...
Yes bass horns are pretty much out of the question for most. You can do horns down to say 100hz, i.e Bruce Edgar and live with them.

There will always be some discontinuity between the horns and the direct radiators.

I use to love playing with this stuff when I was young and dumb. Now I am older but still dumb and have since simplified my system to meet the guidelines of domestic acceptably.
 
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That might be a bit extreme. Granted it is allot of $$$ and it is always someones choice if they want to spend what one asks for something. But done right such systems can sound amazing. I have always loved vintage Western Electric stuff, amazing sound and now out of reach for most people. Herb mentioned the DIY days, which brings back found memories. :)

This isn't vintage stuff Bob just commonplace high-endish Asian DIY job, used Gotto/Ale drivers are readily available as are Altec woofers. Sure some of them can cost a pretty penny but not this one, there's nothing or little in common with vintage WE/JBL/Klangfilm/Tannoy etc. here.

david
 
watching4.gif
 
+1... a bit extreme, but ddk gets that way sometimes. It's worse than what Amir said actually, but nobody is going to take that tirade seriously... ;) I'm not saying the system was perfect either, just that it was better than anything else at RMAF and probably better than any dynamic speaker over 800 Hz. Some aspects of the mid/high reproduction were startlingly lifelike, horns were amazing, trumpets sounded REAL, like they were right there. They were also willing to let me play it at realistic SPLs, which added to the effect. The bass was decent though and not distracting. Not everyone has the room for bass horns...

Horns? What horns Dave? What you have is a couple of drivers sitting on top of a home made bass box with a chachka attached. If this really was the best sound at the show the industry is in trouble!

As far as tirades go, please describe what am I wrong about.

david






[/QUOTE]
 
Just to be VERY clear... yet again... I'll say that disagreement is fine. This whole thing came about because Amir didn't qualify his opinion, and I quoted a post from his forum to add context to his comments. His comments required qualification because he didn't give the room a fair chance, again IMO. I feel this is very unfair to the manufacturer, to the point it's an ethical issue. If Herb didn't like the room after giving it a fair chance than fine, that's life!
You post the same review in this forum: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=146024.msg1563077#msg1563077

The last post says this:

"Drivers are by ALE and they need a lot of crossover work to correct.

I can understand how something like this is very impressive in the short term, no way would I be able to live with them as the primary set of speakers for day in day out listening. I played a recording I made of my friend's mother (former violionist Cleveland Orchestra) and it was very far from sounding like real life. Most acquaintances I know in Japan that start on the ALE/GOTO journey and try and tame it over decades eventually give up."


Seems consistent with ddk's posts. Did the above poster do something wrong too with respect to evaluating the system? Anything unethical about it?
 
And for completeness, here is part of Dave's original post:

What if you hear a system that can make recordings sound more real than ever before? What if a simple redbook CD player surpasses every other source you've ever heard? You'd have to adjust your views that the recording and the format is as much of a limiting factor as previously thought, and maybe it's our playback systems that are really lacking. Well, I've experienced a system that has forced me to think about these things because just a simple CD player was able to create a musical experience above and beyond anything I've experienced before, including state of the art analog.

Above poster used a recording he had produced and as such, was there during the live session. He disagrees completely Dave. What is your reaction? You didn't say anything in that thread.
 
You post the same review in this forum: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=146024.msg1563077#msg1563077

The last post says this:

"Drivers are by ALE and they need a lot of crossover work to correct.

I can understand how something like this is very impressive in the short term, no way would I be able to live with them as the primary set of speakers for day in day out listening. I played a recording I made of my friend's mother (former violionist Cleveland Orchestra) and it was very far from sounding like real life. Most acquaintances I know in Japan that start on the ALE/GOTO journey and try and tame it over decades eventually give up."


Seems consistent with ddk's posts. Did the above poster do something wrong too with respect to evaluating the system? Anything unethical about it?

Thanks, Amir, very informative.

I have a problem with systems that need to be 'tamed'. I guess that's why I prefer it nice and simple.
 
I'm curious about why DaveC refers to "horns" and "dynamic speakers" as two different speaker types? Most horns are used as waveguides for dynamic speakers, but some are used with ribbons as well. When you refer to "dynamic speakers" do you actually mean direct radiators (which of course can also apply to ribbons, folded ribbons, and even panel speakers, whether they are electrostatic or planar-magnetic)?
 
I'm curious about why DaveC refers to "horns" and "dynamic speakers" as two different speaker types? Most horns are used as waveguides for dynamic speakers, but some are used with ribbons as well. When you refer to "dynamic speakers" do you actually mean direct radiators (which of course can also apply to ribbons, folded ribbons, and even panel speakers, whether they are electrostatic or planar-magnetic)?

Lol, it's pretty common. Horns are typically used with compression drivers but not always. But I'm refering to cones and domes.



ddk and Amir, I'm just going to ignore you guys, I'm not responding. You two should be embarrassed by what you wrote. How Steve tolerates this is beyond me. Conjecture from people that have never or barely heard the system is all that's here. Ridiculous and really ugly. I feel bad for you guys, full of hate and just nasty. Amir in particular is one of the nastiest trolls I've ever seen online and I can't believe Steve doesn't ban him. Steve, why did you open the thread back up? We need more of this? Really? Please close it unless all you want is more trainwreck. But I'm not going to participate and will probably never post a review here again.
 
Horns? What horns Dave? What you have is a couple of drivers sitting on top of a home made bass box with a chachka attached. If this really was the best sound at the show the industry is in trouble!

As far as tirades go, please describe what am I wrong about.

david






[/QUOTE]


They retail for $348,000. Had no idea they cost that much when I heard them.
 

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