Introducing Center Stage 2M

PeterA

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The latter comes part and parcel with the former when you achieve a high level of precision with the execution of the footer.

Actually, I last did it to Steve, although I never told him. Early on in LS development, I sent him a set of LS1.5s for a beta test and then called them back. By increasing the area of the filter by 275 10/thousandths I did that very thing. It honestly doesn’t matter to me if anyone believes it’s possible. I’m used to that. It matters that I can do it and you can hear it and listeners benefit from the precision.

Joe, How did Steve react to this change in sound? Where are you responding to a comment he made about the beta version needing some type of improvement?

It sounds like you can shape the sound of a system with the adjustments in the size of the filter. Can you customize your footers to sound a particular way in different system contexts to please the preferences of the customer?

this can be the ultimate in customization to a particular sonic preference. However, it implies a sonic signature to the sound. Or do you see this as an increase towards transparency and a way to get the system closer to sounding like the recording?
 

joelavrencikCMS

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Joe, How did Steve react to this change in sound? Where are you responding to a comment he made about the beta version needing some type of improvement?

It sounds like you can shape the sound of a system with the adjustments in the size of the filter. Can you customize your footers to sound a particular way in different system contexts to please the preferences of the customer?

this can be the ultimate in customization to a particular sonic preference. However, it implies a sonic signature to the sound. Or do you see this as an increase towards transparency and a way to get the system closer to sounding like the recording?
I think the first paragraph is for Steve to answer. Although, I think I just threw him into a black hole and I apologize for that, Steve. You have my permission to ignore what I wrote.

Your 2nd paragraph is touchy. I'm not trying to shape the sound of a system. I'm trying to find the optimal performance of the components that make up a system. The components shape the sound of the systems and my job is to assist them in sounding the way they were engineered to sound. There's a huge difference.

Yikes!! I'm not your man for your 2nd sentence in paragraph 2 or paragraph 3. In my opinion, if you're building products for the exception and not the rule, you don't have the strength of conviction or courage or expertise to determine what is right and what is wrong (advancements excluded). I'm not totally clear on what "this" is as you use it in your final sentence. Can you help me with that?
 

PeterA

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Thank you Joe. By “this“ I’m referring to your ability to change the balance of the performers on the soundstage when you were describing the affect of changing the dimensions of the filter by incredibly small increments. You seem to have the ability to control the sound from your own description of your product. From your most recent explanation I gather you’re choosing not to do so on an individual system by system basis but rather to optimize the sound of each individual component I making a universal and fixed filter that sounds identical for each footer you produce.

You must have settled on one design based on feedback from the beta testers and your own experimentation. Trying to understand your earlier post, it seemed to me that you discovered a way to alter the balance of certain instruments up on the stage of each recording.
 
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Bobvin

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The components shape the sound of the systems and my job is to assist them in sounding the way they were engineered to sound.
Joe, piggy-backing on Peter’s questions… how can you assist them to sound the way they were engineered to sound without working directly with the engineers responsible for the sound of the component? How can you assume to know the engineers intent without direct involvement? Is it not enough to say you believe your footers improve the sound of the component? Perhaps unveiling performance the designing engineer didn’t even know was there?
 
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joelavrencikCMS

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Thank you Joe. By “this“ I’m referring to your ability to change the balance of the performers on the soundstage when you were describing the affect of changing the dimensions of the filter by incredibly small increments. You seem to have the ability to control the sound from your own description of your product. From your most recent explanation I gather you’re choosing not to do so on an individual system by system basis but rather to optimize the sound of each individual component I making a universal and fixed filter that sounds identical for each footer you produce.

You must have settled on one design based on feedback from the beta testers and your own experimentation. Trying to understand your earlier post, it seemed to me that you discovered a way to alter the balance of certain instruments up on the stage of each recording.
What I wrote was the following:

" In one of the failed tries with the LS feet, we noticed that the center image was too far back and too quiet compared to the instruments playing around the vocalist. By manipulating the filter, we could enlarge that image, bring it slightly forward, better its detail and prominence and raise its volume level to a proper balance in the process. If you pay close attention to the net effect of many other devices in this genre, you can hear that they get this wrong, along with other things."

The minute change in the dimension had an affect upon the high frequencies, which accomplished the above.
 

joelavrencikCMS

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Joe, piggy-backing on Peter’s questions… how can you assist them to sound the way they were engineered to sound without working directly with the engineers responsible for the sound of the component? How can you assume to know the engineers intent without direct involvement? Is it not enough to say you believe your footers improve the sound of the component? Perhaps unveiling performance the designing engineer didn’t even know was there?
I guess this is possible, but I prefer to think they know "it's" there. Today's components can create 'real" in my view. The idea is to get the sound that comes through the loudspeakers as close to "real" as possible. I have always believed that an audio system can momentarily suspend belief. After the 2M design, I'm more convinced than ever, but I serve the component and the engineer who created the component directly (Soulution) and indirectly (yours placed in your system).
 
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PeterA

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I would love to hear some videos comparing before the footers and after footers to see if it was discernible. That would be impressive.

This would be trivial for any new customer to do. I’ve done a lot of before and after videos for comparison purposes. They can be quite useful.
 
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Mobiusman

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Hi Ron

Keeping in mind that there are proprietary aspects to what we do, I’ll do my best to answer your question. The CS and LS feet are derived from our rack designs, specifically the OLYMPUS rack. More specifically the material composition and material sequencing in the OLYMPUS rack is the basis for the structures found within CS and LS.

The internal composition of the foot follows the material composition and material sequencing of the rack. If you cut the foot open, an untrained eye would see absolutely nothing of any consequence. But you would be looking at a miniaturized version of an OLYMPUS superstructure precisely calculated to mismatch impedances to achieve, or net, an effect. The phrase, “every material does something” could not ring truer in this case. The “something” in this case is a ringing noise in a predictable bandwidth. To be clearer, all materials produce noise, but controlling the noise so that it can be exploited to net a desired effect is THE “IT”. That’s the grail. Learn how to control every aspect of your materials and design so that you can exploit predictable weaknesses to achieve a “greatest good".

This brings us to the shelf, or filter (as I like to call it} of the OLYMPUS. The OLYMPUS filter was miniaturized and applied to the CS and LS designs. With the understanding that the superstructure of the foot is critical to the performance of the foot, the key to refining its performance is the miniaturized filter and you find this atop the foot as you would on an OLYMPUS rack. Here is where you cancel out the noise of the foot and reduce entropy stored in the component above in very precise increments.

What seems impossible for those unfamiliar with the CS or LS products to comprehend is that the foot functions as an extremely powerful filter when all its disparate parts are combined. Disassembled, it is nothing. Assembled and placed against the bottom of a component, it is a miniaturized OLYMPUS rack that not only functions in 1st Law energy conversion (mainly to cancel out its own noise), but more importantly, 2nd Law entropy reduction. Only a fool would believe that a foot an inch in height could convert vibration to heat in broad bandwidths. But I digress.

So, understanding that which came prior, the answer to your question is to manipulate the filter. In one of the failed tries with the LS feet, we noticed that the center image was too far back and too quiet compared to the instruments playing around the vocalist. By manipulating the filter, we could enlarge that image, bring it slightly forward, better its detail and prominence and raise its volume level to a proper balance in the process. If you pay close attention to the net effect of many other devices in this genre, you can hear that they get this wrong, along with other things.

So, what Steve and Russ and now others are hearing is the net effect of changing the dimensions of the filter in teeny tiny bits. We can do it using very precise tools. It isn’t a newly discovered process by any means in the design and execution of analog devices or many of the parts used in audio componentry. This has been going on for years in many areas of our industry. It is, however, probably new to footers. The good news is that the same degree of precision that nets advancement in other areas of our industry, works in this one as well.

I hope I answered your question.
Joe,

I am slowly getting the basics of what you are doing, BUT what I do know with zero doubt are the sonic changes and when totally settled, off the chart improvements. I am fortunate to have a high resolving system with incredible imaging, making easier to hear to the evolution of the break-in.

What I can say with ZERO DOUBT is your products have always produced benefits that once experienced, I cannot do without. I will take it one step further as I have done before. The CMS footers (original, CMS2 and now CMS2M) have produced progressively more of what I seek and have always sought with each additional upgrade to my system.

Now all I have to do is get my VSA Ultra 9's modified so that the LS 1.5's will work with their cabinet design. Unfortunately, the pandemic has made it hard to get Damon and Leif to NJ to perform the mod.

Another benefit the part I am least fond of, the break-in, is I am becoming a more knowledgeable listener, and certainly enjoying my system more.

Remember the CMS2's are a bargain on the aftermarket.

Said again, the CMS footers produce the most sonic benefit for ther dollar. Do not be thrown by their small size, because they produce the biggest benefits you obtain,
 

joelavrencikCMS

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You must have the old footers somewhere. Do a video with the new ones in your system, then take them out, put the old ones back in and do another video, a PITA? Yes but doable.
The truth is I had my old versions destroyed. I don't keep them for fear they would get mistakenly shipped as new.

But, I don't think I would do that if I could as I don't have the chops or equipment to produce a quality product. In the words of the Immortal Bard, Clint Eastwood, a man's got to know his limitations. :)
 
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Joe Whip

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The truth is I had my old versions destroyed. I don't keep them for fear they would get mistakenly shipped as new.

But, I don't think I would do that if I could as I don't have the chops or equipment to produce a quality product. In the words of the Immortal Bard, Clint Eastwood, a man's got to know his limitations. :)
Gee, instead of destroying them, you could have had them shrink wrapped with a Nice Price logo, like all those vinyl returns in the 70’s and ‘80’s that were sold for a buck! since I have a set under my DAC, I could have tried them under my pre and amp. Oh well!
 

howiebrou

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I would be more curious about a comparison video between either of the CS2 footers and the stock footers. The sense of space, clarity, distortion, all come through on a decent iPhone YouTube video.
That's what I had in mind too. CS footers vs stock footers, not CS vs CS2.
 
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joelavrencikCMS

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That's what I had in mind too. CS footers vs stock footers, not CS vs CS2.
Oh God, that reminds me! Some clown who cares not and knows nothing did a utube video claiming CS2 didn't work under Boulder. It was the comparison you are suggesting.

He had monoblocks. I'm not sure if has them now.

Anyway, he called me after 14 days and said CS2 was crap, more or less, so I suggested he leave them in for 30 days to settle. To explain, the 2150 and 2160 have very thick bottom plates that extend the settling process longer than usual.

So, at the end of 30 days he declared the product a disaster. What he didn't care to know was I used a 2160 as part of the CS2 1.5 development process. Mine took 30 days to settle. I don't have the amp anymore for obvious reasons.

Apparently, his system was a few days different, but that didn't stop him from releasing the utube. This kind of thing comes with the territory, as they say. Anyway, I'm not sold on the internet as a true determinant of the sonic quality of anything high end.
 

howiebrou

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Oh God, that reminds me! Some clown who cares not and knows nothing did a utube video claiming CS2 didn't work under Boulder. It was the comparison you are suggesting.

He had monoblocks. I'm not sure if has them now.

Anyway, he called me after 14 days and said CS2 was crap, more or less, so I suggested he leave them in for 30 days to settle. To explain, the 2150 and 2160 have very thick bottom plates that extend the settling process longer than usual.

So, at the end of 30 days he declared the product a disaster. What he didn't care to know was I used a 2160 as part of the CS2 1.5 development process. Mine took 30 days to settle. I don't have the amp anymore for obvious reasons.

Apparently, his system was a few days different, but that didn't stop him from releasing the utube. This kind of thing comes with the territory, as they say. Anyway, I'm not sold on the internet as a true determinant of the sonic quality of anything high end.
Fair enough, when someone has an ulterior motive or agenda......but it would be nice for those of us with open minds to hear the difference, assuming video can do it justice.
 
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PeterA

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Oh God, that reminds me! Some clown who cares not and knows nothing did a utube video claiming CS2 didn't work under Boulder. It was the comparison you are suggesting.

He had monoblocks. I'm not sure if has them now.

Anyway, he called me after 14 days and said CS2 was crap, more or less, so I suggested he leave them in for 30 days to settle. To explain, the 2150 and 2160 have very thick bottom plates that extend the settling process longer than usual.

So, at the end of 30 days he declared the product a disaster. What he didn't care to know was I used a 2160 as part of the CS2 1.5 development process. Mine took 30 days to settle. I don't have the amp anymore for obvious reasons.

Apparently, his system was a few days different, but that didn't stop him from releasing the utube. This kind of thing comes with the territory, as they say. Anyway, I'm not sold on the internet as a true determinant of the sonic quality of anything high end.

Joe, i’m sure this happens fairly often. I’m suggesting someone who is a client of yours who really likes the effect of the footers make a simple video with his iPhone to demonstrate here on WBF the positive effects of your footers versus stock footers. All the better if this were a familiar system from a known member. It’s a shame that Marty or Russ or Steve or you did not do this.

Perhaps someone else could do it as you have sold many sets recently. I think it could be a very positive thing for you.
 
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PeterA

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Fair enough, when someone has an ulterior motive or agenda......but it would be nice for those of us with open minds to hear the difference, assuming video can do it justice.

If it is as revolutionary as has been described, it should be easily picked up on an iPhone video.

I just sent a video to someone who could hear the difference of my system with the coffee table removed and one of the chairs moved slightly and my blinds adjusted to be slightly more open.
And these were subtle differences at the listening position heard in real life.
 

Mobiusman

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I would be more curious about a comparison video between either of the CS2 footers and the stock footers. The sense of space, clarity, distortion, all come through on a decent iPhone YouTube video.
You must have a much more special iPhone than I do. Besides, I absolutely do not care. I know what I hear and what excites me and that is enough. Come-on, surely you know that different speakers that measure the same do not necessarily sound the same. However, you have given me an idea. Since I got a new iPhone today, I am going to listen to it for a few days on speaker and then I am going to put it on CMS2 footers and see if it sounds better!
 
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