An evening with Mike Lavigne

Ron Resnick

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Jan 24, 2015
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I don’t think one can tell much of anything from videos, and I am sure one cannot tell much at all about sonic subtleties. Videos may have more to do with the analog to digital converter in the recording device than anything else.
 
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Alrainbow

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Dec 11, 2013
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Ron I do agree to a point but I can't right it off with no value at all. I share videos from my phone with a man at mike L level wow do I learn and man has that person helped me make changes. Yes it not be all end all but does have value. It needs to be played low when recorded at varying distances to be good
 
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NorthStar

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Alrainbow said:
Mike has a video on you tube of the allman bros live at the Fillmore east. Even on my iPhone and it into my car system it's a big wow way aboveboard for a video sound. Whom even captured that wow man. As for what's missing in it damn I wish I was there.

I tried to locate it but without success. Can you provide help in the right direction Al?
 

NorthStar

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Professional music videos from YouTube and Vimeo to and other video channels, expertly recorded with professional microphones can give us a good idea of the room's acoustics and system's dynamics. In my opinion. ...Emphasis on "a good idea" of being there without being there, of course.
Al is correct in regards to "experimenting" with microphone's positioning and volume level.
That's why I mentioned "professionals" and "experts".
Bruce our music engineer recording expert might have some educative feedback on this perhaps.

* Headphones, I agree; best for monitoring. For the full panache of music listening...the loudspeakers and the room's acoustics is the deal. My opinion of course.
Some audiophiles, including Al as he mentioned above in regards to headphones investment, are big time head-fi audiophiles (headphiles). I respect that, it is part of the audio process from recording to playback, in the monitoring aspect. The full mojo is live, in the audience, and short of that the next best shot is in the room reproduced by a full range hi-fi sound system...surround...more than two speakers...I think.

Anyway Mike's room is among impressive. And videos are sure interesting.
Tango's music videos I like also.
 
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Alrainbow

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Professional music videos from YouTube and Vimeo to and other video channels, expertly recorded with professional microphones can give us a good idea of the room's acoustics and system's dynamics. In my opinion. ...Emphasis on "a good idea" of being there without being there, of course.
Al is correct in regards to "experimenting" with microphone's positioning and volume level.
That's why I mentioned "professionals" and "experts".
Bruce our music engineer recording expert might have some educative feedback on this perhaps.
I'm no expert lol. But even with a iPhone X there is technics involved. One thing I notice is the phones at low volume pic up much then I can at the same level. If I rec louder it does not sound like my rig
Anyway find the tape play it was very good.
 

stehno

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Jul 5, 2014
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Salem, OR
John,

interesting.

clearly you gave your above post a great deal of thought, and i respect your serious approach to all these questions and points you make. i'll leave it for others to make judgments regarding your perspective on our approach differences. and i'm not asking for that.....only that.........respectfully; any points i might make would come off as defensive.

best regards,

Mike

Hi, Mike. You have some interesint friends. :) Well, I try to give all my posts a reasonable amount of thought. As for my previous post it really didn’t require much extra thought as my focus has been rather unconventional for the past 15 years so much of it is old hat to me. Plus, I’ve picked up bits about your room and system over the years, probably since 2004 over on Audiogon. And of course the never ending controversies are, well…., never ending. IOW, I kinda’ was just rattling off differences and I’m sure I overlooked plenty, though I had to confirm whether your cables were copper or not.

Like I alluded, Davis’ So What or at least my run-of-the-mill Redbook version is probably one of my last choices for any comparison especially since I {gulp} don’t care much for Miles Davis nor am I overly impressed with the engineering. And though my version may have sounded even a bit transistory in comparison, it still retained much of the detail and timbral accuracy so I thought it an interesting comparison.

But there’s several things here that interest me. For example. Based on my limited experience, I’m unaware of any other means of eliminating negative sibilance except by superior line conditioning (I’m currently using Jena Labs THE Two LC’s everywhere). Not saying it can’t be done but I’ve been around long enough and have yet to hear it done. So it would be interesting how your isolation transformers handle female vocalists like Jacintha’s pronunciation of the Ssssssssss sound.


Another interest of mine is deep bass. I’ve got just one 15-inch Rythmik subwoofer that took some time for me to sufficiently dial in. I don’t know how much pain it was for you to dial in your subwoofer towers but it would be fascinating to hear how yours handles the following dynamics.


BTW, one thing that may interest some vibration isolationists convinced vibrations are racing from the speakers and subwoofer toward and up the rack to induce distortions into the components is that my subwoofer is anchored into the subflooring system barely 2 feet away from my rack which is also anchored into the same subflooring.
 
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stehno

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Hi john,

Severely off topic, what is that green thing displayed in your avatar?

Hi. Severely off topic? At first I kinda’ thought the same as I always try to be respectful. Then again, we’re talking high-end audio and we’re in a What’s Best forum so the implied broad-brushed topic would seem to be about higher levels of playback performance and how individuals go about achieving that and we’re in a thread specifically discussing vibration mgmt. and its effects on performance. So it actually seems we’re at least somewhat within the topic of discussion.

And though others probably won't agree, from my perspective perhaps every last performance-oriented high-end audio thread starts and stops with forms of vibration mgmt including methodologies, designs, materials, installation techniques, etc and if it doesn’t it should. So hopefully we’re well within topic.

The green thing is a front side view of a single shelf from my racking system.
 

the sound of Tao

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stehno

Well-Known Member
Jul 5, 2014
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456
405
Salem, OR
Only listen to this system 5sec through my iphone i can tell your digital is low-end. There is no tone, decay, no dynamic. The soundstage is not deep. You got bass node problem in your room. Your room probably over damp too. You need new source. You probably has not any grounding in your system.

Very constructive feedback. Thanks. :)
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
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It's a good thing that we cannot reliably count on YouTube home made music videos to assess a stereo system with pint point accuracy as if we were there, in the room, in the sweet spot, with the volume level, @ full audio res, and the room's acoustics of real life. It means not much @ all those music videos @ low rez. They are worth no more than what they are, just a YouTube MP3 audio res, like an iPod. It's only fun to show stuff. The picture quality, that has better definition, some.
 
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Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Hi, Mike. You have some interesint friends. :) Well, I try to give all my posts a reasonable amount of thought. As for my previous post it really didn’t require much extra thought as my focus has been rather unconventional for the past 15 years so much of it is old hat to me. Plus, I’ve picked up bits about your room and system over the years, probably since 2004 over on Audiogon. And of course the never ending controversies are, well…., never ending. IOW, I kinda’ was just rattling off differences and I’m sure I overlooked plenty, though I had to confirm whether your cables were copper or not.

Like I alluded, Davis’ So What or at least my run-of-the-mill Redbook version is probably one of my last choices for any comparison especially since I {gulp} don’t care much for Miles Davis nor am I overly impressed with the engineering. And though my version may have sounded even a bit transistory in comparison, it still retained much of the detail and timbral accuracy so I thought it an interesting comparison.

But there’s several things here that interest me. For example. Based on my limited experience, I’m unaware of any other means of eliminating negative sibilance except by superior line conditioning (I’m currently using Jena Labs THE Two LC’s everywhere). Not saying it can’t be done but I’ve been around long enough and have yet to hear it done. So it would be interesting how your isolation transformers handle female vocalists like Jacintha’s pronunciation of the Ssssssssss sound.

Another interest of mine is deep bass. I’ve got just one 15-inch Rythmik subwoofer that took some time for me to sufficiently dial in. I don’t know how much pain it was for you to dial in your subwoofer towers but it would be fascinating to hear how yours handles the following dynamics.

BTW, one thing that may interest some vibration isolationists convinced vibrations are racing from the speakers and subwoofer toward and up the rack to induce distortions into the components is that my subwoofer is anchored into the subflooring system barely 2 feet away from my rack which is also anchored into the same subflooring.

John,

postulated shootouts between different systems on an on-line forum are really not productive. i don't want to pooh pooh the value or lack thereof of videos, but i've not paid enough interest to them to really attach particular weight to them. you will notice i never comment on them from anyone, because i don't listen to them. maybe i should.

instead; since you live only a few hours south of me on I-5 maybe you could venture up here to my place sometime, we can play your recordings, and you can listen for yourself. then let'r rip once you've actually heard your recordings in my system. and maybe i have versions of your recordings you may find interesting. it would be fun.

i have a great deal of interest in the things you seem to focus on too. likely we have more in common in our views than not.

hope you can do it.

best regards,

Mike
 

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