BTW, another one I enjoyed is the Thrax room.
I cannot offer an analysis of the finer parts of the system, etc, but three of us (you know who you are
) got them to play us Black Sabbath (War Pigs, of course). That filled the room btw -- and made our day!
Greg, I was one of the three, handling air bass, air drums, and doubling with you on the lyrics. It was a blast to revive all of those adolescent synaptic connections! But it was the Total Dac room with their new speakers, as I recall it. I thought the speakers were just plain incoherent, and I enjoyed that moment more for the gusto the three of us shared, in spite of the musical challenges of the speaker. To me the drivers were dialing in from completely different zip codes, just so different in texture that I couldn't feel the music. Memory reinforced by hundreds of plays of that record helped to overcome it (may my dear departed mother rest in peace - - how she suffered through that period of my life!).
And Diesis. I heard them on Day 2, and they left me cold, as I heard the "horniness" coloring voices and instruments in ways that just don't work for me. I simply cannot get around that with that horn speaker, just like every other one I have encountered, albeit only at shows (with the exception of Avantgarde Trios + Basshorns in a supremely cultivated system and Edgar Horns in another). Diesis is reputed to be some pretty good horns, making me conclude that I'm not a horn guy. Probably just as simple as that (or maybe not, with the right ones that I've yet to hear). No system does it all. Which compromises can you live with, which ones can you not (the main point of my original post - - i.e. there is considerable spread in how we hear and what we value, and that's OK). Now, maybe the Diesis system had improved importantly by Day 4 when you heard them (just like the DartZeel/Stenheim room did for me - - underwhelmed and gravely disappointed on Days 1 - 3, amazed on Day 4).
Ked, if you could PM me the horns you think are really great, I would appreciate that, as I am on my "ultimate speaker quest", and I'd hate to f%@& it up by ignoring worthy contenders out of ignorance. My experience of quite a few horns so far has confirmed for me that I'm not a horn guy, but mostly at shows, and I surely haven't covered them all, even in those challenged venues.