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
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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