A Huge Shout Out To Some Audiophile Friends

I have found throughout my life that some of my best and longest friendships have come from meeting fellow audiophiles. Yesterday was just one of those days. I have been friends with Damon Von Schweikert and Leif Swanson for many years. I have travelled to their factory many times and listened to many of their new speakers before they were even released. We've gotten together many times over the years both socially as well as to listen to music at either my house or their houses.

With the pandemic although it seems like yesterday, I hadn't seen Damon and Leif for well over two years. We reacquainted 3 weeks ago when I hosted the global soft launch of the new Lampizator Horizon.It was terrific to see them and at the end of the day, both were excited about the Horizon and wanted to return after the Florida Audio Show for a more in depth listen

Shortly after the show, Damon called and we set yesterday for a fun day of listening. WE listened for a few hours and then we began to talk system set up. As I have alluded to many times over the past year my room and listening postion, listening chair and upper module settings have all changed to find a perfect Wilson algorithm that would be advantageous to my speaker position and listening position.

Then the fun began as we tinkered for another 2 hours with some laser lights for my pinpoint measurements as well as re evaluating my listening position

It's always an advantage to have 2 speaker designers in your room offering suggestions. Plus it was actually very engaging working on my Wilson speakers with Von Schweikert designers. I learned a lot over the next few hours. We searched the user manual for the closest algorithm consistent with my sitting location and remeasured with laser light. Much to our amazement the laser measurements were slightly longer than those I had taken when I changed my chair as well as listening position. For those familiar with Wilson set up these new measurements allowed me to use a different rear spike on my lower mid range module as well as several spike position changes. All of this helped to achieve better time alignment with all 3 upper modules. I probably would have stoped there and accepted the new sound but Damon and Leif wanted to try a few other things.

Last year when I changed things around and added Center Stage LS footers under my speakers the speakers measured level in all 3 planes. We got out my level and remeasured and interestingly the level showed that there was a 1/16 bubble shift to the right on each speaker almost certainly from settling. This seemed almost insignificant to me and I probably would have left them. However Damon and Leif got down on their knees and adjusted the saucers upon which the LS feet stood. Once everything was level in all 3 places we listened to the same songs and I was stunned how such a little change in speaker level could achieve such a dramatic improvement in sound.

I also discovered from Leif and Damon that a good way to evaluate speaker set up is to play music which is recorded in Q sound as you can hear the sound stage shifting from one side to the other rather than sound coming from each speaker. We played a lot of Madonna and Roger Waters as we tried to fine tune the upper modules settings.

When all was said and done Leif had some special measuring devices to check that each driver was aligned perfectly with the others such that we could say we have correct time alignment. Leif however was concerned that even though we were using the newly discovered measurements and resultant settings as in the users manual that the upper mid range module was not time aligned with the other 2 drivers. Then came the magic as further experimentation done by Leif resulted in moving the upper module backwards many, many spike positions until his laser measurement showed all three drivers to be perfectly aligned. I was not prepared for what I heard, There was now much more perfect imaging, more correct timbre and tonal balance and there was a slight downward shift of the voices to more normal heights. I was stoked to say the least, as we had basically just created a new algorithm for my speaker upper modules.

I thought we were done .....but there was one more thing left to be done. Several years ago it was Leif and Damon who convinced me to move my sitting position forward. I did do this eventually and thought all was good. However some months later DDK paid me a visit to help with the set up of my VDH MSS cartridge. Once done we played music and as we did such, David walked around my room and suddenly sat on the floor and said"this is the spot where your room is taken entirely out of the equation. I pointed this out to Damon and Leif who both wanted to explore this as we were sitting all of 4 inches behind where David suggested we should be sitting. WE moved the seat forward the 4 inches and Leif was sitting in that spot when we played all of the same music and Leif's eyes lit up and said "we're done.....this is fantastic"

After they left I was glued to my chair for a lengthy listening session. Everything sounded much better than when we started. The songs with Q sound started outside the one speaker and extended right across the entire sound stage without hearing either speaker

I wanted to start this thread to give a big shout out and thank you to Leif and Damon who changed my speakers' upper modules based on laser positioning rather than using the Wilson algorithm measurements and had the perseverance to do things which I would never have considered. I am listening now in quite a forward position which allows for first reflections to be so much better. Remarkably the position upon which we settled was the exact position DDK told me when he visited.

It's great to have such knowledgeable people giving suggestions and our experiments bringing us to a totally new and never seen algorithm for the upper modules. I would never have had the knowledge they had to suggest what they did to the upper mid range module on my speakers. Thanks again Damon and Leif for spending the day yesterday as the rewards were simply unexpected

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Steve, what a great story to share, and what an awesome thing for Lief and Damon to give so generously of their time and deep institutional knowledge. When I saw Damon at the Florida show I told him I wanted to drive out to Riverside for a more intimate listen to their new Ultra 7 and I hope to do that soon. Congratulations on taking your system to the next level with D & L's help. After all, that's what makes this hobby so addictive and fun! The inevitable long-lasting friendships born of a passion for music and sound reproduction are the "icing on the cake"!!!
 
Very very cool, Steve. What a great story...a testament to the greatness of the original DW design in the hands of great designers in their own right at VS. Would love to hear VS someday.
 
A great story! While I’ve known Damon and Leif only a few years, and only through shows, emails, and some phone chats, they resonate with me as ”some of the good guys”. I keep telling them they have an open invitation to my house should they ever come out to my part of Florida. I’d be happy to just have a good meal with them and listen to music. :)
 
Thanks for sharing.

Interesting, my WA dealer who used his own recordings to do my WASP,
told me to move my listening chair forward.
 
Steve a great post
a while back I was lucky to go to an event in jersey
im sorry I can’t recall the name of the audio dealer
he was a great guy and had a great room to demo audio.
The setup was gensis audio Gary koh ran things
like your buds he is really knows how to set things up as well.
He did a demo where he turned a tiny Allen screw a half turn might have been a 1/4 turn not sure.
Just the two front footers
this changed the alignment of the drivers on top of each speaker
played same song
like you it was amazing how it changed the sound
made vocals change tone
it was a big wow moment for me.
gary really really knows not just how to make great speakers like wam and von speakers but more importantly how to set them up.
lastly I’m very glad I own large line source speakers lol. they may not be perfect in setup but do give me a lot of places to listen in
even from the area behind them hahahah.
some 16 open space behind them.
 
Steve a great post
a while back I was lucky to go to an event in jersey
im sorry I can’t recall the name of the audio dealer
he was a great guy and had a great room to demo audio.
The setup was gensis audio Gary koh ran things
like your buds he is really knows how to set things up as well.
He did a demo where he turned a tiny Allen screw a half turn might have been a 1/4 turn not sure.
Just the two front footers
this changed the alignment of the drivers on top of each speaker
played same song
like you it was amazing how it changed the sound
made vocals change tone
it was a big wow moment for me.
gary really really knows not just how to make great speakers like wam and von speakers but more importantly how to set them up.
lastly I’m very glad I own large line source speakers lol. they may not be perfect in setup but do give me a lot of places to listen in
even from the area behind them hahahah.
some 16 open space behind them.
Gary has been to my house a few times and he also advised me to move the sitting position forward as well as to defocus the sound which is essentially what we did
 
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Gary has been to my house a few times and he also advised me to move the sitting position forward as well as to defocus the sound which is essentially what we did
I should addd that Gary was also a big influence on my decision as he suggested I consider finding a way to create a listening position that is not so razor like and pin point focused on one listening position. Gary told me he designs his speakers such that there isn't only one sweet spot and everyone else is out of focus. IOW it all boils down to the toe in and how much there is. What I have done over this past year is to move my seat much further forward than where I used to sit BUT I did NOT change the toe in to account for the new sitting position but rather left the speakers toe in as is for where I used to sit. Wilson formula suggests that proper toe in allows just the inside walls of each speaker to be visible from the sitting position. Because I left the toe in unchanged from where I used to sit to where I sit now, the entire inside side walls of each speaker is completely visible. This tends to defocus the imaging from pinpoint laser accuracy at each ear to a much wider, deeper and fuller sound stage. The sound is so much more engaging for everyone in the room and not just the person in the chair.

Damon and Leif confirmed when they were done was that the tonal balance, timber, dynamics etc were equal all around the room. In fact Damon was commenting as to how much better things sounded behind the chair

Essentially there was an algorithm that we used as a starting point but the irony was that when we repositioned the upper modules to this new algorithm, the sound was OK but not nearly as good as the previous algorithm I was using for the past year. The magic started after the speakers were leveled and this was all of 1/16 of a bubble out of level but the real magic that proved to carry us over the finish line is what Leif did with the repositioning of the upper mid range module. It was shear genius and that brought us to a sound that was far better than my old algorithm. I was delighted but Leif and Damon wanted to push the envelope a little more and we then tried upper module positioning 1-2 clicks in front of as well as 1-2 clicks behind our new designated upper mid range module positioning. We all agreed that the first location we chose was indeed the best location. But what the final icing on the cake was when we moved the chair forward 4 inches and suddenly it was as if the clouds parted and we could hear so deep into the music. That spot where we moved the chair forward 4" was the exact spot DDK told me 2 years earlier was the spot where my room was taken totally out if the equation.

I have owned Wilson speakers for 30 years and have meticulously followed their recommended set up procedure and was always happy but over the years it has been the comments from Leif, Damon, Gary Koh and DDK and even Ked who put all the bugs in my ear such that when Leif and Damon suggested we reset everything that I was onboard. It all comes down to time aligning the drivers and this is essentially what Leif did with the upper modules. It was a total transformation to something that can now be enjoyed by more than one person
 
Steve, that is a great report. I found that toe-in affects tonal balance and also creates more precisely defined images. Perhaps these two areas are related. The use of the term "focus" is interesting. When ddk encouraged me to experiment with pointing my old speakers straight ahead rather than firing directly at the listener, the effect on toe-in was similar to moving closer to the speakers. I saw much more of the inside edges of the speakers. The tonal balance changed, the precision of the images changed, and the sound became more natural and open. The sound also seemed to expand more to fill the room better. I noticed that the sound was better all around the room. The room was more energized, but I could still locate the sources of the sounds in the virtual soundstage. Focus implies precision, and lack of focus implies diffusion. That is more like the sonic effect I hear when something is out of phase. The lack of speaker toe-in sounded more natural to me and the opposite of what I hear when the speakers are out of phase. I think it is really about the image edges and how precise they are. The instruments' locations relative to each other and within the soundstage is important, but sharp edges are not natural. I find this is a difficult thing to describe. You are very lucky to have these friends and to benefit from their experience and willingness to help.
 
My room size and large rack on left side of room does not lend itself well to the speakers pointing directly forward. It was something David also suggested. Logistically my room won’t allow for this
 
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What a great, fun report -- and a successful sonic result!

Yes, it is great to have wonderful, talented friends like Leif and Damon and David!

And Kudos to David for identifying the correct chair position two years ago!
 
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Glad you found success!

Who is “DDK”?

I found that Jim Smith’s way of using the RTA to find the best spot for the chair and then using the 82-84% rule was the ideal way to find musical involvement.
 
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Glad you found success!

Who is “DDK”?

Heh -- is this a trick question? ;)

@ddk is David Karmeli, a forum member who manufactures the American Sound Turntable AS-2000 and the Nothing Rack. You might enjoy reading about turntables in his corner of the forum:

 
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Hi Steve,

As we all know, the more we fine tune our systems, the more small changes become very audible.

Although I do not tweak my system anymore (spent close to a year doing that after moving into my house four years ago) I did buy a REL T9x sub to replace my T7i. Over the past several months, spent time adjusting the crossover and volume settings but I could not find the optimum combination for deep, well defined bass coupled with transparency and dimensionalty. Anyone who has a REL sub knows how small each detente impacts the sound.

A couple nights ago, I lowered the volume output by one click and everything meshed for the first time since I bought it. Reinforces how minor, sma?l adjustments can make a substantial difference.
 
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Hi Steve,

As we all know, the more we fine tune our systems, the more small changes become very audible.

Although I do not tweak my system anymore (spent close to a year doing that after moving into my house four years ago) I did buy a REL T9x sub to replace my T7i. Over the past several months, spent time adjusting the crossover and volume settings but I could not find the optimum combination for deep, well defined bass coupled with transparency and dimensionalty. Anyone who has a REL sub knows how small each detente impacts the sound.

A couple nights ago, I lowered the volume output by one click and everything meshed and for the first time since I bought it. Reinforces how minor, sma?l adjustments can make a substantial difference.
I love stories such as this. I had the same feeling when we moved the chair forward4 inches and everything locked in
 
Leif and Damon are wizards at setting up speakers. I've heard great sound from a variety of VSA speakers in many different settings and rooms. I'm glad they had a chance to spend time with you Steve.
 
When you have the designers and manufacturers of one brand willing to give up a day and sit with you to tweak their direct competition into a more refined listening experience, you have achieved a form of music / audiophile nirvana!

I agree 100% with the first sentence of you post!

Think of all the professional input from all highly respected folks in the industry you have had in your room all with different approaches to a common goal.

I have met and been treated better than I deserve by everyone you speak of except for David (have not met yet)
and I expect that bridge to be crossed eventually and that attitude and dedication is what keeps it fun.

Me, I feel honored to be welcomed into your home and spin some black and silver discs while sitting in the high honor seat and wonder how it can get better each and every time, and it does.

There needs to be a west coast tour with a stop in Utah as your system and Mikes have both gone through significant changes since my last visits, need to get caught up. I appreciate you opening up your home to me and some of my odd music choices.

This is what it is all about!
 
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When you have the designers and manufacturers of one brand willing to give up a day and sit with you to tweak their direct competition into a more refined listening experience, you have achieved a form of music / audiophile nirvana!

I agree 100% with the first sentence of you post!

Think of all the professional input from all highly respected folks in the industry you have had in your room all with different approaches to a common goal.

I have met and been treated better than I deserve by everyone you speak of except for David (have not met yet)
and I expect that bridge to be crossed eventually and that attitude and dedication is what keeps it fun.

Me, I feel honored to be welcomed into your home and spin some black and silver discs while sitting in the high honor seat and wonder how it can get better each and every time, and it does.

There needs to be a west coast tour with a stop in Utah as your system and Mikes have both gone through significant changes since my last visits, need to get caught up. I appreciate you opening up your home to me and some of my odd music choices.

This is what it is all about!
I still have that amp stand for you;)
 

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