Doctor's Orders/The Listening Room And Home Theater Of Steve Williams
- Thread starter Steve Williams
- Start date
That's for old people 
. I've been island hopping and snorkeling for the past 10 days in the south Caribbean. Darn when I got home to California we were havting a cold spell but it is a balmy 73 here now. So napping is for ground hogs
. I've been island hopping and snorkeling for the past 10 days in the south Caribbean. Darn when I got home to California we were havting a cold spell but it is a balmy 73 here now. So napping is for ground hogs
In march my wife and I had a wonderful holiday in California. We visited my daughter and her husband who live in SF. What a wonderful city SF is - especally if you have a good guides.
They took us to different parts of the multicultural city with exciting shops and restaurants. We visited a Reedwood forest and took a tour to BigSurs fantastic landscape. After a week we hired a car and drove to Las
Vegas. We didn't spend any money on gambling, but marveled at the sights of the fantastic hotels along the strip. The helicopter tour to Grand Canyon (and landing inside!) was expensive, but it was a once-in-a
lifetime experience. Death Wally was overwhelming in many aspects and lots of desert flowers were blooming. San Diego was very charming and Sea World with the killer whale show was very good. Spending the last night on The Queen Mary and taking part of her history was very intresting.
But the highligth for me was of course visiting Steve and listning to his fantastic system. I have listen to many high end systems the last 15
years, but Steve's is by far the best I have listened to in a private home.
Steve has a BIG room and a big room give big speakers like the Alexandria the chance to breathe. I have listen to big Wilsons both in big
and small rooms (unfortunately I have a small room) and the big room gives an extra dimension to the music making it more like the real thing!
Apart from the room, the system is of course a dream. I consider Alexandria one of the best speakers in the world and was curious how it
would sound with the extraordinarily expensive and famous Lamm pre and power amps. Oh what a sound!! The soundstage was of course life-like big and stretches ouside the speakers.
The 32 w produced by the Lamm was enough to play at live volume without stress. The sound was utterly musical with a bit of extra warmth that I liked. Micro details were easily detected and the big Gotham subs integrated beautifully with the main speakers, giving clean and massive bass. The heigths were soo clear. My reference CD with Swedish artists contains several tracks with female voices and these voices were so beautifully presented trough the midrange.
All in all, one of my best musical experiences ever!
Thank you Steve for your hospitality. I hope you can come to my beautiful hometown, Stockholm, and have a listen to my system. And Steve you must get vinyl! It's the only thing I missed in your system.
They took us to different parts of the multicultural city with exciting shops and restaurants. We visited a Reedwood forest and took a tour to BigSurs fantastic landscape. After a week we hired a car and drove to Las
Vegas. We didn't spend any money on gambling, but marveled at the sights of the fantastic hotels along the strip. The helicopter tour to Grand Canyon (and landing inside!) was expensive, but it was a once-in-a
lifetime experience. Death Wally was overwhelming in many aspects and lots of desert flowers were blooming. San Diego was very charming and Sea World with the killer whale show was very good. Spending the last night on The Queen Mary and taking part of her history was very intresting.
But the highligth for me was of course visiting Steve and listning to his fantastic system. I have listen to many high end systems the last 15
years, but Steve's is by far the best I have listened to in a private home.
Steve has a BIG room and a big room give big speakers like the Alexandria the chance to breathe. I have listen to big Wilsons both in big
and small rooms (unfortunately I have a small room) and the big room gives an extra dimension to the music making it more like the real thing!
Apart from the room, the system is of course a dream. I consider Alexandria one of the best speakers in the world and was curious how it
would sound with the extraordinarily expensive and famous Lamm pre and power amps. Oh what a sound!! The soundstage was of course life-like big and stretches ouside the speakers.
The 32 w produced by the Lamm was enough to play at live volume without stress. The sound was utterly musical with a bit of extra warmth that I liked. Micro details were easily detected and the big Gotham subs integrated beautifully with the main speakers, giving clean and massive bass. The heigths were soo clear. My reference CD with Swedish artists contains several tracks with female voices and these voices were so beautifully presented trough the midrange.
All in all, one of my best musical experiences ever!
Thank you Steve for your hospitality. I hope you can come to my beautiful hometown, Stockholm, and have a listen to my system. And Steve you must get vinyl! It's the only thing I missed in your system.
Stefan
thanks for your kind comments and it was pleasure to have met you. It was indeed a fun day.
I continue to play the CD that you burned for me of that beautiful Swedish music
Sweden is a country that I have yet to visit and almost certainly we will in the next few years. If so, I will be knocking on your door for a listen of your fine system as well.
And yes I do miss vinyl as well
thanks for your kind comments and it was pleasure to have met you. It was indeed a fun day.
I continue to play the CD that you burned for me of that beautiful Swedish music
Sweden is a country that I have yet to visit and almost certainly we will in the next few years. If so, I will be knocking on your door for a listen of your fine system as well.
And yes I do miss vinyl as well
Sweden have some of the best music recording engineers in the world.
With excellent recording studios.
They are serious on how they record their artists.
With excellent recording studios.
They are serious on how they record their artists.
Glad you like my Reference compilation with Swedish artists. I always play it in Hifi shops and on Audio shows.The track with Baba Blues singing the old "St James infirmary" always atracts intrest and I haved made numerous copies to shop owners and HIfi brands representatives on shows . The track is in a way not HIFI with tape hiss but was made, I guess, with no limiter because the dynamic is outstanding. The singer change from very soft to nearly shouting and a saxophone suddenly appears in full force. Many lesser systems can´t cope with that swing but of course it was no match with your system! I played it for Alon Wolf on his Magico speakers in Gothenburg HIFI show last year and he really liked it.
It was amazing that we has - in spite of living half a globe away from each other - much the same reference music. You played for me Steve Ray V "Tin Pan Alley" one of mine ref songs (you should hear it on vinyl!). You played the unknown fantastic blues singer Hans Theessink and I have many of his albums and use it for demos. I played one of the best live recordings ever - The Weavers at Carnegie Hall - and you played the Gold CD version for me (much better than my standard CD).
It was amazing that we has - in spite of living half a globe away from each other - much the same reference music. You played for me Steve Ray V "Tin Pan Alley" one of mine ref songs (you should hear it on vinyl!). You played the unknown fantastic blues singer Hans Theessink and I have many of his albums and use it for demos. I played one of the best live recordings ever - The Weavers at Carnegie Hall - and you played the Gold CD version for me (much better than my standard CD).
Couldn't have been said any better Steve!
_________________________________
* Stefan, do you have any links with music samplers on 'Baba Blues' or any other recommendations?
Of course Steve you are spot on
You had a ref CD that I din´t know: Black Light Syndrome . I have bougth it and track 3 is really a showpiece!
You had a ref CD that I din´t know: Black Light Syndrome . I have bougth it and track 3 is really a showpiece!
Saddly no.
For me and this is just for me I have been waiting to see what my friend Jonathan and Andreas were doing at Playback Designs. I like the idea of his soon to be released USB-x. Amir rightly points out that this will work only with a PD player. I am OK with that because I am quite happy with my PD MPS-5.
So if you ask me that question again in 3-4 months I am hoping to give you a different response
For me and this is just for me I have been waiting to see what my friend Jonathan and Andreas were doing at Playback Designs. I like the idea of his soon to be released USB-x. Amir rightly points out that this will work only with a PD player. I am OK with that because I am quite happy with my PD MPS-5.
So if you ask me that question again in 3-4 months I am hoping to give you a different response
Steve,
I too am waiting for the little magic box from J and A. I think it will open up a whole new world for us
Scott
I too am waiting for the little magic box from J and A. I think it will open up a whole new world for us
Scott
Hi Steve,
Thank you so very much for the welcoming me in your beautiful home and meeting me in the BART station. And for the nice lunch and chat we had, and it was a pleasure to finally meeting you and your beautiful family members.
Listening to your system is one of the top 3 musical experiences I have had in my audio life. It was awesome and mind-blowing, to say the least. And for the first time in my life I listened to a R2R tape and really, it blew me away. The clarity, definition, detail, quietness, and dynamics was really something else. Wow! Listening to all cuts that you put on for me was like attending a 'demo' as the hi end audio shows. Everything was fantastic and it showed that your system has great resolving power at each track showed various traits of the recording. The Lamms and Wilsons do match up so well. Beautiful sound. And such dynamics at 32 watts. And the bass of the Gothams. WOW !!! The switch on/off A/B comparison was so evident, the subs indeed truly made a difference. I still can't forget the last track you played for me, the one that you listened to 20 times in one sitting to tune your subs. That was great! Thanks again for a memorable experience. I finally am able to get time to log in and still enjoying the nice weather these couple of days in downtown SF. Too bad the lockout set us back for an NBA game, but hopefully we'll get to do it someday.
Visit to Steve's Room
I have just returned home after an 11 day visit to the Bay Area and most certainly, this was the highlight of my trip - a visit to Steve's Listening Room. I was looking forward to this visit that I made my appointment with Steve the next day I arrived.
I'm very impressed with Steve's dedicated music room and how well-tuned the room is. I hear no aberrations due to room resonances and it's as perfect a room that I have heard for listening to music. The system as a whole struck me as a very revealing one, capable of projecting differences in from one source material to another. And the Lamm/Wilson combination is just something else. Never had I thought, nor heard a 32 watt pair of amps that sound so dynamic and effortless in a large room. The Eagles' Hotel California cut on Hell Freezes Over was fantastic. Great detail and information coupled with strong dynamics. Hard to ask for more. The crescendo when the female vocalist hit the high notes on Cantate Domino was clean and brilliant, and when Radka Toneff was singling The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, her voice was as lovely as ever. Steve played for me a few cuts that I have not heard before, highlighting the guitars and bass on a blues cut and that was an awesome experience to hear music at such great resolution and musicality. Throughout the session, I can only think of one word to describe the system - it has 'rhythm'. Everything was 'in-sync' and very 'right'. I can now understand why Steve is such a fan of Wilson. What I heard is truly impressive and a memorable one. Truly enjoyable for me.
I have just returned home after an 11 day visit to the Bay Area and most certainly, this was the highlight of my trip - a visit to Steve's Listening Room. I was looking forward to this visit that I made my appointment with Steve the next day I arrived.
I'm very impressed with Steve's dedicated music room and how well-tuned the room is. I hear no aberrations due to room resonances and it's as perfect a room that I have heard for listening to music. The system as a whole struck me as a very revealing one, capable of projecting differences in from one source material to another. And the Lamm/Wilson combination is just something else. Never had I thought, nor heard a 32 watt pair of amps that sound so dynamic and effortless in a large room. The Eagles' Hotel California cut on Hell Freezes Over was fantastic. Great detail and information coupled with strong dynamics. Hard to ask for more. The crescendo when the female vocalist hit the high notes on Cantate Domino was clean and brilliant, and when Radka Toneff was singling The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, her voice was as lovely as ever. Steve played for me a few cuts that I have not heard before, highlighting the guitars and bass on a blues cut and that was an awesome experience to hear music at such great resolution and musicality. Throughout the session, I can only think of one word to describe the system - it has 'rhythm'. Everything was 'in-sync' and very 'right'. I can now understand why Steve is such a fan of Wilson. What I heard is truly impressive and a memorable one. Truly enjoyable for me.
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To what address should we ship your R2R deck?
Hehe. That caught me by surprise.
As Jack mentioned before, our problem is still finding a competent tech man who can service these players if ever they go down. Then, the R2R decks should be shipped first to the brothers Jimmy and Jack. LOL My impression of the R2R is that it makes the 3D characteristic of analog carts and tables sound 'ordinary' and the R2R is 'beefier' in its projection of this trait. Rock solid and superb definition of instruments.
Hehe. That caught me by surprise.
Well if you ever get to NY, I will play you some tapes that redefine dimensionality
There's just more of everything on the tape.
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