We had our first official Pendragon party today! Tinka and I were joined by Dale Stanton, Don Saltzman, Jeff Duggan, Philip O'Hanlon and Russ Stratton!


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The group did a wonderful and patient job experimenting with the acoustic panels and with Tube Traps, for which I am grateful!

After a nice dinner in Beverly Hills Don and Philip returned with me to the house, and Philip played some amazing tapes!

The 4' x 8' panels are back on the side walls, and Tube Traps have returned to the middle and to the corners of the front wall.

Here is the latest frequency response curve:

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It seems like today's work smoothed out the prior dip at about 30Hz.

Don refused to let me theorize why, but he says that he is now hearing greater width and depth of soundstage. I think the consensus was that returning the panels to the side walls may have dampened some reflections and improved soundstaging.
Can some one explain this room sweep to me.
I am not understanding it. it looks very rolled
Off to my eye.
 
It seems like the ribbon panels are smoothing out on their own.

2C85C9F3-C3A9-43DF-A2E7-132D7BD49D49.jpeg
 
I am starting to see that graph in my sleep. lol. It is my own Rorschach test. It would be nice if you could superimpose those those graphs on one another. Just for those who claim there is no measurable difference during break in. Of course you would have to keep the other variables constant less they their way out.
 
So did the listening panel just drink the suds and eat the food and leave, or did they give a preliminary progress impression?
 
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So did the listening panel just drink the suds and eat the food and leave, or did they give a preliminary progress impression?

Not really; Don -- who also visited seven days earlier -- found significant progress. I am hearing significant progress; I have trouble leaving the room.
 
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Does it sound that way too? Like it is getting smoother??

Yes; thankfully.

This I cannot hear, but according to the curve the collapse at 20 Hz has also disappeared (and that is with a light touch on the woofer level).

I think the woofer towers on this thing are completely amazing. The base texture and resolution on Dave Brubeck "Take Five" definitely is better than I have ever heard in any of my systems before. Depth is more obvious than it ever was with the Prodigys plus REL Stentor III.

I think the four columns "disappear." (I am not suggesting you would agree.)

My drive to aim for high-power SET as an amplifier alternative has weakened.

At this time I cannot see the argument for adding sub-woofers.

I even have lost interest at the moment in further optimizing the speaker positioning.
 
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It seems like the ribbon panels are smoothing out on their own.

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Could you change the scale to linear to show the 1 - 20kHz response. It may reveal the dip at 2khz and fast roll off above 12khz more clearly.

Also, please remember that the pink noise is going through the amps and subject to their characteristic output curve rather than direct into the speaker and you are measuring the room sound and not the speaker.

cheers
Blue58
 
Yes; thankfully.

This I cannot hear, but according to the curve the collapse at 20 Hz has also disappeared (and that is with a light touch on the woofer level).

I think the woofer towers on this thing are completely amazing. The base texture and resolution on Dave Brubeck "Take Five" definitely is better than I have ever heard in any of my systems before. Depth is more obvious than it ever was with the Prodigys plus REL Stentor III.

I think the four columns "disappear." (I am not suggesting you would agree.)

My drive to aim for high-power SET as an amplifier alternative has weakened.

At this time I cannot see the argument for adding sub-woofers.

I even have lost interest at the moment in further optimizing the speaker positioning.
Hi Ron,
Very glad to hear it. I am not so surprised that the woofers blend well as the crossover is pretty low and they are quite close together given the size of the columns.

I would say that the ribbon did break in somewhat (do you know how many hours you have now on them) and that could have led to smoothing in and of itself but could have also led to a shift in the resonance frequency that then better matched the filter design (my guess is the notch filter was developed on a well broken in driver).

I would be surprised if you need subwooefers and then you have a potential blending issue.

I think a high powered SET would still be interesting to try. I used a KR VA350i on my BG ribbons in a smallish room and it was plenty of power. Remember it is a line source and so drop off with distance is not nearly as sharp.
 
Also, please remember that the pink noise is going through the amps and subject to their characteristic output curve rather than direct into the speaker and you are measuring the room sound and not the speaker.

Very true! But that's OK, isn't it, because it is the room that we actually hear?
 
The most difficult thing for some audiophiles is to worry about what visitors say on the forum after they listen to their system

System sound criticisms are simply food for thought. They do not have to be adopted or worried about.

For our own systems only our vote matters.
 

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