Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
I have concluded that I might not need the sidewall absorption panels anymore.
(Although it's a bit puzzling because I have always thought it was standard audiophile acoustic practice that first side wall near reflections and first side wall cross reflections should be diffused or absorbed.)
I was thinking more along the lines of component changes within the system , from the time when you first perceived the slight brightness that bothered you to your current configuration and whether you might have identified a potential culprit (s) for this glassy edge that is no longer present ?
I think he had concluded it was more in the Pendragon speakers from the BG planar driver...correct me if I am wrong, Ron.
So, the goal is to make 213Cobra dislike your system somewhat less than before?
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Has he told you specifically why he has never liked your system? Or is it just not his cup of tea?
I have no goal for my system with respect to 213Cobra's preferences.
My only goal with my system is maximizing my own personal emotional connection to the music I like. And as of last night the system is sounding the best I've ever heard it.
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I would prefer Phil to enumerate the reasons himself. Among other things of which I can recall just off the top of my head: he does not like VTL; he does not like Aesthetix (I believe Phil finds it thin-sounding); he likes only sensitive or very sensitive loudspeakers; he does not like massed output tube amplifiers; he hears no depth to the sound-stage, just flatness.
Phil has always kindly said "I may not like your components or the way your system sounds, but I'll always try to help you make it sound as good as it can be." And I appreciate that sentiment.
Why would Ron even care, isn't he a Zu owner ?
It's not about caring or not caring. I don't think about it that way. If nobody ever liked the sound of my room plus system, and I was happy with the sound of my room plus system, then I just wouldn't care that nobody else likes it.
I have come to understand that people are puzzled why I like to solicit honest, no punches pulled comments from everybody who visits the room. It's not because I'm looking for advice per se. It's not because I'll pick a component or make a system or room change by a majority vote of commenters.
I may hear or I might not hear what a commenter is talking about. I might agree or I might disagree with a particular comment. It's really that I'm simply curious to get everybody's thoughts.
Beyond mere curiosity here is one way I might use a collection of comments. Each of us is more sensitive or less sensitive to certain attributes.
For example, I don't think I'm particularly sensitive to discerning the sonic ambience cues of the physical extremities of the concert hall in which unamplified acoustic music is recorded. If 10 people happen to make substantially the same comment that they feel that side reflections are confusing the ability to hear the dimensionality of the concert hall -- even if I don't hear what they're talking about -- it might drive me to consider experimenting with absorbing or diffusing side reflections.
I'm confident that I would like your system muchly based on topography, components, preferences and sources.
But I guess it's all in the ear of the beholder. How do you like Phil's system in return?
But I guess it's all in the ear of the beholder. How do you like Phil's system in return?
I see your system history as an ongoing lesson on displacement of many assumptions by actual listening experience.
Perhaps it is not a problem so much as it is not recognizing what you don't hear.
Live acoustic music is vivacious. What 'these guys' may be experiencing with the panels in place is an overly dampened sound or reduced liveliness or lack of energy in your room.
Every room is different. In my room the taming of sidewall reflections with sound panels is an absolute necessity.
Assumptions that do not hold in some circumstances do hold in others. There is too much dogma running around proclaiming one or the other exclusively.
Also here it depends. Live acoustics vary.. Some concert halls, when packed with an audience, may exhibit an acoustic liveliness which is not as great as that of some of the rooms systems play in.
So, you don’t hear the thinness of tone or flatness of soundstage or smearing from multi-tube output stages of amps, which he claims to hear in your system?
Or rather, do you hear all that but you connect well with the music and don’t care?
Or do you think his observations are objectively wrong but you listen to him because he has noble intentions?
IME, if Ron listens to music he likes and as long as it is not bright (to him), he doesn't care.