We had a thread on the best and worst audio moments of 2013 - this one should refer to the most disturbing moments of the finishing year.
For me it was helping in the setup of pair of Wilson Audio XLF's. I was invited to participate in such experiment in a great room, and as the XLFs were still on castors, we had a few hours to play freely. At a time I could take the command and I used a recording I usually like to use for test listening, as I could be at a the life performance of it - the Claudio Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine, La Petite Bande directed by Sigiswald Kuijken. The XLF's had an impressive scale, performers seemed to be present in the room, the instruments were sounding great from the starting position. We started moving the speakers backwards, listening to the same voice in a track in repeat mode, about four inches every time. The differences were clear, and all at a sudden, in one spot the voice became real - the small intonations, the body, the decays and the timbre, it approached my memories of a life performance in a way I thought impossible. This effect overspread all over the stage and performers. We tried fine tuning, but any small movement over two inches would destroy this voice gradation and life effect. Unfortunately , this session was informal and there was no tape or markings in the ceiling, and we went on looking for other good positions without keeping a record of this one. As our experiment time was ending we tried to reposition the speaker in the best spot, but due to time constraints we could not find the place, and we had to leave without re-listening in the previous conditions.
What I find disturbing is that if it was not for this opportunity I would never have given the XLF the due credit - OK, it has all the typical attributes of great large speakers, but for a lover of vocal ancient music this re-creation in the optimum position was transcending - after I explained to other people what was so special in this voice, they were also fascinated. The second disturbing aspect is how critical is fine setup is such high-end systems - the extra points are very hard to get and absolutely metastable - once we get there you can not change anything. The third disturbing aspect is that one inch really matters. And the the real lesson (often forgotten, but not new) - is that we should always keep a good log book with objective details describing in full the positioning and conditions of a system - our memory will not remember it all.
BTW, that some day I decided to get a pair of Alexia's, that I had already listened to several times sounding very good. It was very disturbing for other reasons ...
For me it was helping in the setup of pair of Wilson Audio XLF's. I was invited to participate in such experiment in a great room, and as the XLFs were still on castors, we had a few hours to play freely. At a time I could take the command and I used a recording I usually like to use for test listening, as I could be at a the life performance of it - the Claudio Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine, La Petite Bande directed by Sigiswald Kuijken. The XLF's had an impressive scale, performers seemed to be present in the room, the instruments were sounding great from the starting position. We started moving the speakers backwards, listening to the same voice in a track in repeat mode, about four inches every time. The differences were clear, and all at a sudden, in one spot the voice became real - the small intonations, the body, the decays and the timbre, it approached my memories of a life performance in a way I thought impossible. This effect overspread all over the stage and performers. We tried fine tuning, but any small movement over two inches would destroy this voice gradation and life effect. Unfortunately , this session was informal and there was no tape or markings in the ceiling, and we went on looking for other good positions without keeping a record of this one. As our experiment time was ending we tried to reposition the speaker in the best spot, but due to time constraints we could not find the place, and we had to leave without re-listening in the previous conditions.
What I find disturbing is that if it was not for this opportunity I would never have given the XLF the due credit - OK, it has all the typical attributes of great large speakers, but for a lover of vocal ancient music this re-creation in the optimum position was transcending - after I explained to other people what was so special in this voice, they were also fascinated. The second disturbing aspect is how critical is fine setup is such high-end systems - the extra points are very hard to get and absolutely metastable - once we get there you can not change anything. The third disturbing aspect is that one inch really matters. And the the real lesson (often forgotten, but not new) - is that we should always keep a good log book with objective details describing in full the positioning and conditions of a system - our memory will not remember it all.
BTW, that some day I decided to get a pair of Alexia's, that I had already listened to several times sounding very good. It was very disturbing for other reasons ...
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