Wonderful to see the Voodoo album in the photo Mike. Did you'll get a chance to play it?
Oh, he did. And several of us ran off in search of it afterwards!
PNWAS Meeting at Mikes House.
- Thread starter Hi-FiGuy
- Start date
Oh, he did. And several of us ran off in search of it afterwards!
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Pictures and videos as good as they are truly cannot convey how great his system is until you've heard it
As it happens, I took some audio (iPhone) of only a few of the tracks played. The first cut is from "front and center" (in the laser-aligned seat); the rest are from third row, stage right (behind the TT, near where the video was taken).
I gave them to Mike for him to review and well, here they are:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AHJPJ3psE-IFeiA&id=C484D43F51FF73DD!77205&cid=C484D43F51FF73DD
(A pale shadow of actually being there... But the clarity of his system is evident by how well these came out. When I record live music at a concert it's usually distorted to hell and gone by the time I get home. Distortion squared... Not even worth listening to for novelty. This is something completely different).
Last edited:
Thanks for sharing the video Mike, the short tribute to Winston Ma was touching. Also it was great to see the way the music and your experience with building a system was shared so generously and with honesty and modesty.
I guess I should have deleted the post....holy mother of god.
Jerome; you have a meeting in your home you set your rules. I set mine. I trust my visitors to act like adults. which they always do. people need to talk on their phones they go outside. besides; most cell service does not reach my house.....I had 35 people, no mention of cell phones, not one cell phone ring......in 4+ hours.
This isn't about etiquette mike.
It's a given in your country, all your guests are well mannered enough not to use their phones for conversations during such events.
I appreciate and admire that.
(The reverse is prevalent in Asia, unfortunately)
It's about the degratory effects of mobile phone devices in the vicinity of audio components.
All that intense concentration of 35 hp in that area all at the same time....
Jeremy, and Mike, thank you very much for doing that! "You Shook Me" was nailed beautifully, all the qualities were there as hoped for, "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" seemed slightly overloaded, but that very likely was the phone circuitry not handling it as well - the drumming sequence in that though, in particular came through very well ...
What's amusing for me is that this album has become the benchmark for the audio friend down the road, after I mentioned its value for system assessment - if we have a good evening with his media player based setup, then he runs the tracks past me to see how it shapes up, as the "big test" ... where it tends to not quite get there is in that drumming sequence mentioned above, the clarity is somewhat smudged.
Thanks, Frank.
there were a lot of variables at play... Chiefly that I was front and center for Babe and so it was a very "hot" recording. The iPhone's "Voice Memo" app can only attenuate so much and the mic in the phone has some skew to its sensitivity across the band (being a phone after all). Wouldn't surprise me if the app has its own EQ that tries to optimize vocal quality, given its purpose. It's a shame I didn't have my little measurement mic with me... Much flatter response overall with it.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the room was loaded quite differently with ~35 warm bodies in it than it is likely tuned for. That also changes things.
Mike will have to comment there as I haven't had the pleasure of a more intimate listening session, nor was I privy to whatever corrections he may have done to account for our herd. ;-)
there were a lot of variables at play... Chiefly that I was front and center for Babe and so it was a very "hot" recording. The iPhone's "Voice Memo" app can only attenuate so much and the mic in the phone has some skew to its sensitivity across the band (being a phone after all). Wouldn't surprise me if the app has its own EQ that tries to optimize vocal quality, given its purpose. It's a shame I didn't have my little measurement mic with me... Much flatter response overall with it.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the room was loaded quite differently with ~35 warm bodies in it than it is likely tuned for. That also changes things.
Mike will have to comment there as I haven't had the pleasure of a more intimate listening session, nor was I privy to whatever corrections he may have done to account for our herd. ;-)
as far as the added bass traps/dampers with 35 soft bodies......I think it did inhibit a degree of ease, nuance and decay as it was relatively more damped. it was illustrative to recognize the degree of greater nuance and micro-dynamics when I played the Voodoo jazz cut (Sonny Clarke Memorial Quartet) with only about 10 people remaining around 10pm. I'd call it just a higher level of relative refinement.....hard to describe but clear to hear for me.
I often have 4-6 listeners which has really no effect compared to me by myself. but 30+ is a lot.
the other thing is when I have one or two visitors where one person might spend a continual hour in the sweet spot there is a process of recognition of what is going on in terms of layout of the soundstage and bass articulation which is only hinted at with such a large group. how that plays to the I-phone recording is hard to say. likely the more simple the recording the more effective the I-phone can get relatively closer to what we heard. the cut I played to honor Winston started out particularly nuanced where you could recognize the extreme decay of the vinyl but as it got more energetic some of that got lost.
obviously the bass performance, which is phenomenal and unique in person, is effectively almost missed completely by the I-phone.
yet there are certainly wonderful moments in the files that do give hints.
The bass, if only listened to via the phone, may appear to be absent, but it's certainly in the recording. I'm just looking at the FLAC file of one of the Led Zep tracks, and at some points the energy below 100Hz is far greater than elsewhere in the spectrum! For example, I'm seeing frequencies of 34, 56, 74, 79, 100Hz in the clip at one section - if listeners play these recordings on headphones, or speakers that are capable, then they should be able to hear this bass content ...
Last edited:
I agree!!! We exchanged few words about the addiction and otherwise another phenomenal human being.
On the subject of sainthood, after a long day I fell asleep in my listening chair after one side of an album.
My wife came in the room and properly sequenced lifting the needle out of the groove and performing a system shut down and invited me to the proper sleeping device.
Perfect evening!
Hey Mike, what version of the George Benson Weekend In LA, On Broadway were we listening to, was it the Acoustic sounds version or something else?
The rhythm section was sublime and I am not getting that out of my system, so I am starting with the source first and work from there.
The rhythm section was sublime and I am not getting that out of my system, so I am starting with the source first and work from there.
Yep, I just had a listen to the YouTube copy of that, and it's easy to hear what good replay of this should sound like - a nice piece to show off a system ...
it was a tape, not an Lp.
it's a complication 1/4" 15ips tape of jazz/funk including 'Just The Two Of Us'--Bill Withers (which I also played), 'Steppin' Out'--Joe Jackson, 'Ai No Corrida'-Qunicy Jones, 'Morning Dance'--Spyro Gyra, 'Birdland'--Weather Report, and 'Angela' (theme from Taxi)-Bob James. it's a really fun tape of tunes that we all know.....but like you have never heard them.
there is only 'one' live version of 'On Broadway' that I know of that I've heard. this 1/4" 15ips dub was from a low-gen safety from the "Weekend In L.A." Lp from 1978.
there is nothing like a master tape from a live event. dynamics and vividness are pretty astounding. I have the Lp (which is very very good itself) for direct comparison; you would be welcome to bring yours over.
unless you have the same 'drug dealer' I have good luck finding it.
.......Acoustic Sounds would not likely have this (the tape that is).
Last edited:
Similar threads
