RMAF 2013: Gear worth making the trip to Denver to hear... And not!

[Steve Williams]

Not to mention the fact that you lent Nick Doshi one of your Studer A80 decks and Nick had nothing but good things to say about it in comparison to the Technics deck he brought with him to the show.

It was magnificent Bruce.

The Doshi room contrary to a solitary isolated opinion remains IMO absolutely magnificent.

 

[Bruce B]

We kept teasing Nick, asking if we needed to dumpster diving for his Technics machine!

 

[Steve Williams]

I thought the turntable in Nick's room was one of the deals of the show at $12K and arm included, although it did have a $12K Koetsu cartridge

 

[Bruce B]

For everyone that went over to the Hyatt to listen to the Wilson demo, those were the transfers that I made last week at Dave's house.

 

[rbbert]

It was nice. We got to spend some time in Pargagon Audio/Nick Doshi's room last night listening to both tape and LPs. I heard Neil Young's Massey Hall in a new way last night. I never heard so much detailed/complex harmonic information and tone coming from Neal's guitar before. When I get home I will have to relisten to this LP to see/hear if I can replicate that information. The fact that I'm even saying this is telling. I also heard the Ravi Shankar tape I've been raving about on the same system and I don't need to go home and relisten to that tape because I'm capturing everything I heard last night if not possibly more.

This is your post to which I was referring; I read it to mean that your home system captured as much or possibly more of the sound of the Ravi Shankar tape as the system in the Doshi/Paragon room?

 

[jazdoc]

For everyone that went over to the Hyatt to listen to the Wilson demo, those were the transfers that I made last week at Dave's house.

Bruce,

Your transfer of "Take the A Train" was masterful ....my highlight of the Wilson demo. Sounded very natural. Well done.

 

[Bruce B]

Bruce,

Your transfer of "Take the A Train" was masterful ....my highlight of the Wilson demo. Sounded very natural. Well done.

Thank-you ...

He does have an amazing and quiet Basis TT with a Lyra Olympos

 

[Brian Walsh]

Wow, drastically diverging opinions of what was good and bad at the show. I couldn't stay in the Scaena room for more than five minutes, if that long. The Wilson/VTL demo was effective, but I think the last track (Winds of War and Peace) was redundant.

I found Steve Dobbins' room underwhelming. Maybe the 50 watt Absolare amps aren't enough to light up the Rockports.

A sleeper was the Von Gaylord room.

 

[caesar]

In your opinion.



I think you are out to lunch with that comment. Everyone I talked to was blown away by the Paragon Audio/Doshi room. Maybe you stopped by when they were playing a tape that wasn't up to your standards just as other people certainly could have said about the other rooms playing tape. Not all tape sounds great unfortunately. The sound of LPs being played in the Paragon/Doshi room was magical. When I needed to recharge my batteries after suffering through some dreadful rooms, I always found myself going back to the Paragon/Doshi room.





There was nothing "natural" about the sound of the Scaena speakers, especially when they were cranked up past the point the 6 massive woofers could tolerate. I heard the Sheffield drum album on this system at a level that far exceeded the capabilities of the woofers and it turned the kick drum head from skin to rubber. Of course the guy who gave the demo remarked that the Drum Record CD was far better than the D2D LP which is pure nonsense for those who have heard both. The CD is almost laughable in comparison. The subs used with the Scaena look cartoonish and remind me of what a teenage boy with bad skin might dream about cramming in his car so he could go "boom-boom" down the street. Never mind WAF, I wouldn't have those subs in my house. Without those subs, I think the main drivers are capable of being very good sounding. With the subs and the levels they were playing at, this was a hi-fi demonstration to the extreme. The Wilson demonstration paled in comparison to this. At least the Wilson presentation was clean and distortion free with bass that sounded like actual bass.

It's quite obvious that you and I don't hear the same. I'm surprised that you were there and didn't say anything to anyone and attend the dinner.

MEP,

You did not see my Shakespeare quote, so let me restate it: "Just remember Shakespeare's quote from As You Like It, and substitute "great sound" for "happiness": Oh! how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes." Let's also remember that everything in this hobby is an opinion. All the great designers claim to use science, but the one's that use science as a marketing tool are just quacks and confidence men of the highest order. So when we come and listen to a system we bring our reference sound with us.

Over the last few weeks, i have had the pleasure to hear Live an outstanding blue grass/ country band, a great female vocalist playing an acoustic guitar, James Cotton - the greatest living blues harp player, Chick Corea, one of 3 of the greatest of all time keyboard players, and Johnny Winter, among several others. I'm cued into what sounds real.

As for Alexia, my reference system with that speaker is the Arc ref 20 preamp with D'Agostino monoblocks. That system is world class, only to be bettered by that same system with 2, 4, or 6 subwoofers. Now coming to the Doshi system, it was good, otherwise, I would not have mentioned it. And although he had superb source material, which resulted in very natural sound, he was first and foremost really missing that bass foundation that makes music sound real to my ears. But his gear doesn't sound like the VTL bass, nor did his system have the superb foundation that Dr. Von Schweikert has in his system utilizing 4 sub-woofers. Sure, von Schweikert could have had some tubes in his system for more naturalness, but using Greg Beron's gear and source material sounded much more real to my ears. I thought the Doshi gear is good, but just like Sanders' gear is not as good as Martin Logan (yet close) and nowhere near as good as Soundlab, I felt like with Doshi you can have better bass (VTL), better midrange (VAC), better highs (ARC), etc. He strikes me as a good designer but just not in the major leagues. Listening in that room, I did a bunch of centering breaths, like a professional athlete would, to recalibrate my focus on the here and now, but I just could not fully get absorbed in the performance and I could not reach that state of flow and mental relaxation with that system. Sure, with great source material and great speakers it was a very solid showing, but just not real to my ears. I'm sincerely thrilled that you, Steve, and others did find that state of flow. But as I said, we are all have different references and tastes. That is what makes this hobby such fun.

And thanks for the guilt, man. My family, however, won out in that respect. I had very little time and I'm thankful I was able to get away. As much as I would love to hang out and have dinner with the WBF gang, I just could not get away any longer, as I only see my family several times a year.

 

[caesar]

For everyone that went over to the Hyatt to listen to the Wilson demo, those were the transfers that I made last week at Dave's house.

Superb, Bruce!!!!!!!

 

[caesar]

Surely. If you do not know well the reviewer, the whole review is useless.

I think you not only need to know their system and musical tastes, you also need to attend live shows with them. On top of that, you need to understand their interpersonal relationships, and the level of emotional arousal those relationships create when meeting someone at a show. I have found that emotional arousal can really skew your perception.

I really enjoyed speaking to Mrs. Wilson, but when I went into the demo I did a bunch of centering breaths (inhale 6 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 7), as I do when I play tennis and as guys like Tiger Woods do to get them to completely let go of what just happenned so they can let go of the past and have complete focus and concentration on the present.

 

[caesar]

So, was YG my bud, Bill Parish (GTT Audio?) And were they using Veloce or something else to power them?
Sorry I missed seeing you guys-
I think (having not been there, i can be completely objective), that it does come down to preference at a certain level.
Leaving aside show conditions.
And what the heck good is listening to the Sheffield Drum record? (I have all those 'audiophile' records, and never listen to any of them).
By the way, not to nitpick, but shouldn't this thread go in the designated show report slot, not in 'general'?
Best,

Yes, YG used Veloce with the smaller YG speakers. Very natural sound, but I like the sound with a great foundation and big balls. With the bigger YG's, they used mola-mola. I have never heard of that brand. As good as the bigger YG's were, I was wishing they hauled in some Ypsilon amps from the ground floor into that room.

 

[Bill Hart]

I just looked up Mola Mola- appears to be a class D amp and not a terribly expensive one at that.

 

[rbbert]

I think you not only need to know their system and musical tastes, you also need to attend live shows with them. On top of that, you need to understand their interpersonal relationships, and the level of emotional arousal those relationships create when meeting someone at a show. I have found that emotional arousal can really skew your perception.

A little over the top here, IMHO

 

[Bill Hart]

A little over the top here, IMHO

I think it is simpler than that- you can't substitute one person's hearing/judgement for another's', so no matter how much you know about the other listener, it's no substitute for your own evaluation. That said, there are people's judgements I trust, at least to know that we are in the same ballpark.

 

[Bill Hart]

I wasn't going to deal with Caesar's 'emotional arousal' point, but it raises a slightly different point- the whole objective of this gear is to generate something that approximates real music, however you define that (by what real instruments sound like, by what's on the tape, etc.). That means that to be 'musical,' a system by definition, helps create the same emotional stimulae that you'd experience in the concert hall, night club or studio. So, at a certain level, comparing these systems, the level of 'emotion' they cause us to feel is very much a part of the equation, no? (Obviously, that gets into the whole subjective v objective thing, which I don't want to engage in here, but it does go back to highly subjective nature of evaluating this stuff, and I don't think you can remove that from the equation).

 

[microstrip]

I think you not only need to know their system and musical tastes, you also need to attend live shows with them. On top of that, you need to understand their interpersonal relationships, and the level of emotional arousal those relationships create when meeting someone at a show. I have found that emotional arousal can really skew your perception.
(...)

IMHO, even George Orwell could not go so far in his novel 1984 ...

 

[mep]

This is your post to which I was referring; I read it to mean that your home system captured as much or possibly more of the sound of the Ravi Shankar tape as the system in the Doshi/Paragon room?

You are absolutely correct and I was wrong. I was bone-tired when I came home yesterday from Denver and started answering your posts and I forgot that statement I made. I heard the Shankar tape before Bruce delivered his Studer A80 to Nick and Nick played the tape on a Technics deck with the stock head. If I heard the Shankar tape played over Bruce's Studer, it probably would have been a different story. Plus, this was all on Thursday before the show opened and the final setup of the room hadn't even been completed. The Wilson speakers were still on casters when I heard the tape being played.

 

[mep]

I just looked up Mola Mola- appears to be a class D amp and not a terribly expensive one at that.

I think the name sounds funny. It sounds like some sort of tropical disease you would pick up on vacation in Tahiti.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I think the name sounds funny. It sounds like some sort of tropical disease you would pick up on vacation in Tahiti.

Or a well-endowed lady! Holy Mola Mola!