The Fremer lays an ostrich egg thread

[Soundminded]

please describe for all of us the specific in home reproduction system that has come closest to meeting your expectations. it matters not your degree of disappointment. simply what got closest.

all your lamentations need a context.

thanks.

OK, here it is, prototype #2, being developed for 11 years so far.

About the room (which is critical) it's a rectangular prism about 30 feet long, 14 feet wide, 9 1/2 feet high. One long wall is mostly glass, there are windows at the front and rear. The flooring is low pile burber carpeting over wood. Acoustics are on the live side but not terribly so. There are no acoustic room treatments...deliberately. It is a standard Toll Brother's music conservatory with a flat ceiling due to a room above it.

The main speakers are modified AR9s. Substantial changes have been made to its spectral balance by virtue of additon of eleven 3/8" indirect firing mylar tweeters per channel that are aimed at the walls and ceiling. This results in the reflections from the main speakers having the same spectrum as the sound coming directly from them. Unfortunately, this corrects for only one type of geometric field distorions of three identified by the model but it's a critical one. If there's a future prototype, I will design a different type of speaker that will correct the other two.

Sixteen RS Minimus 7 speakers are located around the perimeter of the room. They aim their sound exclusively at the walls and ceiling. Small but effective enclosures for them prevent their direct radiated sound from reaching anyone in the room. Extensive signal processing generates the necessary time delays, changes to spectral content as the delays become later, and channels the appropriate delays to the speakers. The currnt version divides the room into 4 reverberant quadrants each supplied by four speakers. The system could generally be desribed in conventional terms as 6.2. The signals all receive extensive equalization. There are 16 equalization circuits including for the main loudspeakers. It is critical that the system sound flat and that means among other things individual equalization for each recording, even different cuts on the same recording. Very tedious to arrive at. Changes to the simulation of acoustics are achieved by changing parameters of time delay, rate of spectral change during decay, adjusting the relative and absolute intensity of the individual sound fields. Small changes can have a substantial subjective effect. The system is classified as an Electronic Environmental Acoustic Simulator and was described in vague and general terms in my now expired patent 4,332,979. Despite its complexity, in this class of equipment, it is a very primitive version. The patented version itself was severely chopped down and adapted for its use as an entertainment device compared to the full blown concept. I think of it as being like a very early color TV set, unique but difficult and quirky.

At it worst, it will produce sounds that are literally unbearable to listen to. Worse than you could possibly imagine. I am not one for hyperbole but this is what it strives to accomplish. Among its goals which it achieves fairly well with most recordings after enough tweaking are the following; Enormous and natural sense of space. Sense that the instruments are far beyond the front wall of the room and more powerful. That the sources of the reverberant field are undetectable by ear. That the reverberant sound field is inescapable in the room. That the musical timbre of instruments are reasonably accurate as they would be heard at a live venue. There are no sweet spots but there are sweet regions which are in about 1/2 the room. If there's another prototype, that's another engineering issue that will be addressed, to make every spot in the room a sweet spot to listen to.

The system is designed and adjusted to the room it's in, not in the usual sense of tuning but where the acoustics of the room itself is an inherent and indespensible part of the system. The system does not fight the room the way conventional sound systems do, it depends on the perimeter of the room to reflect sound to work. Any changes to the design of the system or its calibration to the room invalidates all prior settings for individual recordings. If the system were to be moved to another room, it would have to be completely redesigned and recalibrated for that room. It would be difficult or impossible to get it to function properly in some rooms. Irregularly shaped rooms like L shaped living room-dining rooms, discontinuities created by large archways or openings to other rooms, rooms that are acoustically on the dead side are its bane. The adjustments to the field to get it in exact balance are critical. Errors of as little as 2 db can be troubling. For example, the system must take into account that one wall which is mostly glass reflects sound differently from the opposite wall which is mostly sheet rock.

The system does not use special amplifiers, CD players, wires, or other audiophile paraphanelia. At the time I started building it, I could have incorporated them if I'd felt they'd have been of value. The entire system provides under 300 watts of amplifier power and cost under $3000 to build (much of the equipment was bought used.) The first prototype which used entirely different equipment relied on LPs as CDs were not yet available at that time. A pop or click on a phonograph record played through this kind of system sounds like a canon shot. The one type of distortion it cannot compensate for is where there is an imbalance of loudness between two instruments on the same recording. The system exaggerates the disproportionality so for example if a piano or violin is as loud as an entire symphony orchestra, it sound rediculous.

I'll be the first to admit that even after all these years of experimenting with this type of system and the model behind it, there's still a lot to be learned about it. There are still aspects to it which I don't understand. When you sail in uncharted waters, you are entirely on your own. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem yourself, there's no one to turn to for advice.

Well that's it. It's been a great toy to play with. It's why I'm not an audiophile anymore. BTW, absolutely nobody qualified for whom I had even the faintest hopes of developing it into a commercial product was remotely interested in it.

 

[FrantzM]

Nevertheless, when you really think about it don't most people here basically agree with Soundminded? Certainly those audiophiles in any way into vintage would agree. Even those of us who prefer modern equipment will most likely agree that improvements over the last 30+ years are incremental at best and haven't brought us dramatically closer to reproduced sound equalling live sound.

I mostly agree. I, however, believe that speakers have evolved quite dramatically to my ears, especially cone speakers. So have Digital sources have progressed ... Electronics? As you put it so correctly .. incremental.

 

[mep]

Nevertheless, when you really think about it don't most people here basically agree with Soundminded? Certainly those audiophiles in any way into vintage would agree. Even those of us who prefer modern equipment will most likely agree that improvements over the last 30+ years are incremental at best and haven't brought us dramatically closer to reproduced sound equalling live sound.

I think we have talked about this subject many times before, especially with regards to how far we are from capturing all of the energy of live instruments. However, what has set Soundminded apart from other people who have lamented over how far we are away from actually capturing everything there is to be captured is the tone of the writing. It comes across as a “sucker and con” mentality.

Here is my Reader’s Digest abridged version of this story: Two channel audio isn’t perfect and there are other people on WBF who like to give it a daily thrashing and some are so passionate against two channel audio they even wrote their tagline to denigrate it. For most of us, it’s the best we have to work with. And having said that, the better your system, the better your illusion. I don’t hear people with great systems bemoaning two channel audio and talking about how bad it is. I do hear the inverse though. Think about that the next time someone trashes two channel audio and go have a peek at their system gear (assuming they have it posted).

Now a different topic that could be fun to discuss is how far have we really come over the years with regards to the quality of our reproduction with two channel audio? And I think this would be a rabbit hole that would have to be explored to its depths to do the topic justice. For instance, just as there are people today who can afford the best systems that strive for SOTA along with the highest quality source material to play back on them, those same types of people and those same types of gear existed from the beginning of this hobby. Some people have always heard reproduction at a higher level than the average Joe from the late 1950s and 1960s. Well connected people had access to high quality tape decks and two track tapes and could afford the finest electronics, speakers, and turntables. We can all argue over the quality of the speakers and electronics of the day, but there were big speaker systems back then for those who cared and dared to try and create a bigger illusion. Look at something like the JBL Paragon and some of the monster Bozak speaker systems of the day.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

OK, here it is, prototype #2, being developed for 11 years so far.

About the room (which is critical) it's a rectangular prism about 30 feet long, 14 feet wide, 9 1/2 feet high. One long wall is mostly glass, there are windows at the front and rear. The flooring is low pile burber carpeting over wood. Acoustics are on the live side but not terribly so. There are no acoustic room treatments...deliberately. It is a standard Toll Brother's music conservatory with a flat ceiling due to a room above it.

The main speakers are modified AR9s. Substantial changes have been made to its spectral balance by virtue of additon of eleven 3/8" indirect firing mylar tweeters per channel that are aimed at the walls and ceiling. This results in the reflections from the main speakers having the same spectrum as the sound coming directly from them. Unfortunately, this corrects for only one type of geometric field distorions of three identified by the model but it's a critical one. If there's a future prototype, I will design a different type of speaker that will correct the other two.

Sixteen RS Minimus 7 speakers are located around the perimeter of the room. They aim their sound exclusively at the walls and ceiling. Small but effective enclosures for them prevent their direct radiated sound from reaching anyone in the room. Extensive signal processing generates the necessary time delays, changes to spectral content as the delays become later, and channels the appropriate delays to the speakers. The currnt version divides the room into 4 reverberant quadrants each supplied by four speakers. The system could generally be desribed in conventional terms as 6.2. The signals all receive extensive equalization. There are 16 equalization circuits including for the main loudspeakers. It is critical that the system sound flat and that means among other things individual equalization for each recording, even different cuts on the same recording. Very tedious to arrive at. Changes to the simulation of acoustics are achieved by changing parameters of time delay, rate of spectral change during decay, adjusting the relative and absolute intensity of the individual sound fields. Small changes can have a substantial subjective effect. The system is classified as an Electronic Environmental Acoustic Simulator and was described in vague and general terms in my now expired patent 4,332,979. Despite its complexity, in this class of equipment, it is a very primitive version. The patented version itself was severely chopped down and adapted for its use as an entertainment device compared to the full blown concept. I think of it as being like a very early color TV set, unique but difficult and quirky.

At it worst, it will produce sounds that are literally unbearable to listen to. Worse than you could possibly imagine. I am not one for hyperbole but this is what it strives to accomplish. Among its goals which it achieves fairly well with most recordings after enough tweaking are the following; Enormous and natural sense of space. Sense that the instruments are far beyond the front wall of the room and more powerful. That the sources of the reverberant field are undetectable by ear. That the reverberant sound field is inescapable in the room. That the musical timbre of instruments are reasonably accurate as they would be heard at a live venue. There are no sweet spots but there are sweet regions which are in about 1/2 the room. If there's another prototype, that's another engineering issue that will be addressed, to make every spot in the room a sweet spot to listen to.

The system is designed and adjusted to the room it's in, not in the usual sense of tuning but where the acoustics of the room itself is an inherent and indespensible part of the system. The system does not fight the room the way conventional sound systems do, it depends on the perimeter of the room to reflect sound to work. Any changes to the design of the system or its calibration to the room invalidates all prior settings for individual recordings. If the system were to be moved to another room, it would have to be completely redesigned and recalibrated for that room. It would be difficult or impossible to get it to function properly in some rooms. Irregularly shaped rooms like L shaped living room-dining rooms, discontinuities created by large archways or openings to other rooms, rooms that are acoustically on the dead side are its bane. The adjustments to the field to get it in exact balance are critical. Errors of as little as 2 db can be troubling. For example, the system must take into account that one wall which is mostly glass reflects sound differently from the opposite wall which is mostly sheet rock.

The system does not use special amplifiers, CD players, wires, or other audiophile paraphanelia. At the time I started building it, I could have incorporated them if I'd felt they'd have been of value. The entire system provides under 300 watts of amplifier power and cost under $3000 to build (much of the equipment was bought used.) The first prototype which used entirely different equipment relied on LPs as CDs were not yet available at that time. A pop or click on a phonograph record played through this kind of system sounds like a canon shot. The one type of distortion it cannot compensate for is where there is an imbalance of loudness between two instruments on the same recording. The system exaggerates the disproportionality so for example if a piano or violin is as loud as an entire symphony orchestra, it sound rediculous.

I'll be the first to admit that even after all these years of experimenting with this type of system and the model behind it, there's still a lot to be learned about it. There are still aspects to it which I don't understand. When you sail in uncharted waters, you are entirely on your own. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem yourself, there's no one to turn to for advice.

Well that's it. It's been a great toy to play with. It's why I'm not an audiophile anymore. BTW, absolutely nobody qualified for whom I had even the faintest hopes of developing it into a commercial product was remotely interested in it.

thankyou Sound, for taking the time to describe your 'Prototype #2' system. for me it helps to understand how a poster is forming their opinions to help me to understand where they are coming from......their 'context'. there is alot there to digest.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Nevertheless, when you really think about it don't most people here basically agree with Soundminded?

no one thinks we can 100% recreate live music. but i, for one, think we can recreate something almost as good but different with the best software. i think there is a bell curve of variable opinions on the degree of how close we can get to doing what we all might want in a music reproduction system for the home. also another bell curve on how good live music typically sounds and how we might typically encounter it. so we have no one view. it's not a yes or no question all one way or another.

Certainly those audiophiles in any way into vintage would agree. Even those of us who prefer modern equipment will most likely agree that improvements over the last 30+ years are incremental at best and haven't brought us dramatically closer to reproduced sound equalling live sound.

sources are much better today. certainly vinyl has dramatically improved over the last 10-15 years, although many are not aware of that. we now have 1/4" 15ips tape master dubs and high quality RTR decks for those who want them. opinions on digital are all over the board, and it has not really improved in 10 years, although access to hi rez software and hardware has improved.

i think electronics has improved. phono stages are much, much better. certainly amplifiication is better. and power grid improvements are significant.

speakers (top level) are much much better especially when you look at lowered distortion, bass extension and integration. and as speakers have become more efficient amplifiers sound better. and class d amplification for the bass frequencies has brought improvement in bass reproduction.

and lastly rooms are dramatically better and great purpose built rooms are more common.

is everyone exposed equally to all these things? of course not. but some of us are. which is why context of opinions on this subject is important.....in an i-tunes world.

 

[RBFC]

Moving forward, there are a few basic and necessary factors we MUST keep in mind as the discussion unfolds:

1. Human hearing is quite variable, so NONE of us hears the same event the same way.

2. Perception of sound, and the hierarchy of importance of qualities (tonal balance, dynamics, soundstage, imaging, etc.) are also individual preferences.

3. We typically don't know the actual sound of the master recording or the actual live event from which a recording is derived.

SO, PLEASE KEEP THESE FACTORS IN MIND AS WE "CRITICIZE" THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS! THIS IS A HOBBY, AND YOU WON'T DIE IF THE "OTHER GUY" IS LISTENING TO A SYSTEM THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR EARS BLEED!

Please keep all comments cordial, and direct criticism at the content of a post, not the person posting it.

Thanks,

Lee

 

[rbbert]

Everyone obviously has their own opinions, that's partly why we're here.

For me, a good open reel (Nagra, or maybe Studer) source, one (actually several) of Nelson Pass's amps from the early '80's and a big Infinity IRS (like garyprotein's) sounded (probably still does) pretty similar in overall impact and "realism" to the best systems of today (There was a system like that I used to listen to in the early '80's). So over 30 years the price of the top end has skyrocketed, and the performance of "affordable" systems has almost certainly improved, but the sound of the best then compared to the best now? Not much difference IMO.

 

[mep]

thankyou Sound, for taking the time to describe your 'Prototype #2' system. for me it helps to understand how a poster is forming their opinions to help me to understand where they are coming from......their 'context'. there is alot there to digest.

This system sounds like a variation on the Bose 901 theme in that he is purposely reflecting sound off his walls and ceiling to achieve an effect. And that is an effect I personally never cared for because the sonic thumbprint of everything played through a set of Bose speakers came out loud and clear. If someone was recorded singing in a closet, when played back it should sound like someone singing in a closet. With Bose speakers, the goal was to transform every closet into a large venue which isn't natural or accurate.

I can only imagine how Soundminded’s system would sound in his very large room, one wall being all glass, no room treatments, and speakers firing off the walls and ceiling.

 

[TBone]

Could you prove your statement that Fremer is dishonest!

Myles, please stop putting words in my mouth. At no point did I infer that MF is dishonest.

Again, you did not understanding the context, but you still came to a conclusion.

tb1

 

[TBone]

Really? That shows how little you know-or know me.

Myles, geez ... that sounds childish ... of course I don't know you ... should I?

Are you as "important" as Teresa?

That jackass took stuff that was sent to him with the explicit note at the very top of the letter THIS IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED. Not only did this moron publish MY NOTE but left the message at the top. And this was all about his seeing ghosts in the kitchen.

Well, that's has nothing to do with me, nor do I care ... your biz with AS is your biz with AS ... not "the rest of the worlds" biz ... but ONLY your own.

tb1

 

[Peter Breuninger]

Soundminded would have loved my old beach house system: Bozak Ceramic Symphonys, zip cord type speaker wire stuffed in the crevice between the plastic fiber wall-to wall carpet and the wall molding, blue thingie interconnects (for the cheapo turntable and BPS cart.) from Best Buy and a Fisher 500C receiver. This system sounded like real music, it imaged, it had that stupid audiophile made up term PRaT, it had that other stupid word 'jump factor" suffice it to say it trounced many many systems I've heard over the years. It was as enjoyable as my MBL based system. You can spend what Mike spends, you can review what HP reviews, you can drool over Dragons but you can't get any closer to real live music than that Bozak system, IMHO.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, geez ... that sounds childish ... of course I don't know you ... should I?

Are you as "important" as Teresa?



Well, that's has nothing to do with me, nor do I care ... your biz with AS is your biz with AS ... not "the rest of the worlds" biz ... but ONLY your own.

tb1

May I remind you what you said:

Well, think what you like, you've probably never met AS, so you're reading & associating, coming to your conclusions within the limited confines of your own living room ... which trust me ... is not "the rest of the world".

How am I coming to my own [baseless] conclusion based on what I've told you?

Now as far as the latter, not when you sing his praises.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles, please stop putting words in my mouth. At no point did I infer that MF is dishonest.

Again, you did not understanding the context, but you still came to a conclusion.

tb1

Again look at what you said:

... an honest appraisal.

I agree, however, sending any such component to MF could be viewed as "foolish", unless one establishes intent.

What other conclusion can one come to reading your comment, an honest appraisal.

Furthermore, I read Fremer's piece today and I really don't understand what all the hoopla is about. I suggest people get the recordings MF cited and listen to them in their own system and then listen to them with the ML and then tell us what you hear. That is why the better reviewers will detail their reference recordings, rather than just some flowerly prose that no one can follow.

Moreso, MF has had a hell of a lot of experience in his system with a variety of tube and ss amplifiers and has a better bead on things. YMMV with your speakers and system.

 

[amirm]

Moreso, MF has had a hell of a lot of experience in his system with a variety of tube and ss amplifiers and has a better bead on things. YMMV with your speakers and system.

Guys, let's move on beyond who MF is. I don't think that is productive. I do want to discuss this point though. When you go audition an amp at a dealer, show or friend's house, how are you able to isolate its performance beyond the speaker and room???

 

[microstrip]

(...) Nothing against ARC but one has to wonder where those Ref are coming from Rf4, 5 seemingly every quarters there is a new Ref preamp or amp .. in 5 years we will be up to Ref XX .. And of course It will be sooo much better than the Ref5 .. Will it really? Has there been so much progress in circuit design the past few months? (...)

Frantz,

I have owned REF2, 3, 5 and now own the REF Anniversary. I can assure you that the difference is more than just different views of the recording. However you have to use them in a system that allows them to show their improvements.

IMHO, recent - lest us put a number, in the last fiver years in audio were really significant. And just in the point of being able to create more systematically a great illusion with several type of music and recording techniques. I have found that I could have great experiences in the past with some specific recordings in some specific systems, but very often the same system that sounded great with one recording was unable to play others decently. Nowadays, systems seem to have larger bandwidth, but system matching became more critical.

I think it is fair to recognize that we can listen to this improvement in electronics also because the loudspeakers have improved a lot.

 

[Soundminded]

Soundminded would have loved my old beach house system: Bozak Ceramic Symphonys, zip cord type speaker wire stuffed in the crevice between the plastic fiber wall-to wall carpet and the wall molding, blue thingie interconnects (for the cheapo turntable and BPS cart.) from Best Buy and a Fisher 500C receiver. This system sounded like real music, it imaged, it had that stupid audiophile made up term PRaT, it had that other stupid word 'jump factor" suffice it to say it trounced many many systems I've heard over the years. It was as enjoyable as my MBL based system. You can spend what Mike spends, you can review what HP reviews, you can drool over Dragons but you can't get any closer to real live music than that Bozak system, IMHO.

My analysis of two channel audio is that insofar as accuracy is concerned, the best it can do is to reproduce the sounds of musical instruments as they would be heard in your listening room. This limits its usefulness to soloists and small ensembles. It's still not an easy trick to pull off. I was quite impressed with how well the two live versus recorded demos I attended that Roy Allison at AR pulled off in the 1960s using AR3s worked. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found out how he did it as well as he did. Not identical but close. I wonder now that I'm a much more attentive listener than I was then how I'd react to such a demo today. Maybe not so impressed. The guitar was nearly a dead ringer, the speaker actually being slightly brighter than the guitar. The 1905 Nickelodeon not quite as close as I remember it but the differences seemed at least in part do to the fact that the elevation of the speakers was lower than the Nickelodeon. So how was it done besides making the recording out of doors? Equaliztion. A treble boost compensated for the obvious rolloff of the AR3 loudspeaker's treble.

JA seemed to dance around the fact that the speakers at the LvR demo he was less than entirely successful at conducting, that he talked about in the interview propagate their sound differenly in a room from the way a grand piano does. And as a result, the field that reaches the listeners ears is very different, the room having an entirely different effect. If you want to figure out how to build an accurate sound recording/reproducing system IMO the place to start is to understand how musical instruments propagate sound into space. Then figure out exactly what the acoustics of a performance venue does to that sound before it reaches you. Then all you have to do is figure out how to do exactly the same thing...in room that's about 1/200 the volume That's really all there is to it. So where's the problem?

 

[A.wayne]

Everyone obviously has their own opinions, that's partly why we're here.

For me, a good open reel (Nagra, or maybe Studer) source, one (actually several) of Nelson Pass's amps from the early '80's and a big Infinity IRS (like garyprotein's) sounded (probably still does) pretty similar in overall impact and "realism" to the best systems of today (There was a system like that I used to listen to in the early '80's). So over 30 years the price of the top end has skyrocketed, and the performance of "affordable" systems has almost certainly improved, but the sound of the best then compared to the best now? Not much difference IMO.

I would agree somewhat , the difference today is in the refinement of sound , modern electronics are improved drastically in the refinement level , not the music....

 

[A.wayne]

This system sounds like a variation on the Bose 901 theme in that he is purposely reflecting sound off his walls and ceiling to achieve an effect. And that is an effect I personally never cared for because the sonic thumbprint of everything played through a set of Bose speakers came out loud and clear. If someone was recorded singing in a closet, when played back it should sound like someone singing in a closet. With Bose speakers, the goal was to transform every closet into a large venue which isn't natural or accurate.

I can only imagine how Soundminded’s system would sound in his very large room, one wall being all glass, no room treatments, and speakers firing off the walls and ceiling.

Im proud of you MEP , such control ..........

 

[A.wayne]

My analysis of two channel audio is that insofar as accuracy is concerned, the best it can do is to reproduce the sounds of musical instruments as they would be heard in your listening room. This limits its usefulness to soloists and small ensembles. It's still not an easy trick to pull off. I was quite impressed with how well the two live versus recorded demos I attended that Roy Allison at AR pulled off in the 1960s using AR3s worked. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found out how he did it as well as he did. Not identical but close. I wonder now that I'm a much more attentive listener than I was then how I'd react to such a demo today. Maybe not so impressed. The guitar was nearly a dead ringer, the speaker actually being slightly brighter than the guitar. The 1905 Nickelodeon not quite as close as I remember it but the differences seemed at least in part do to the fact that the elevation of the speakers was lower than the Nickelodeon. So how was it done besides making the recording out of doors? Equaliztion. A treble boost compensated for the obvious rolloff of the AR3 loudspeaker's treble.

JA seemed to dance around the fact that the speakers at the LvR demo he was less than entirely successful at conducting, that he talked about in the interview propagate their sound differenly in a room from the way a grand piano does. And as a result, the field that reaches the listeners ears is very different, the room having an entirely different effect. If you want to figure out how to build an accurate sound recording/reproducing system IMO the place to start is to understand how musical instruments propagate sound into space. Then figure out exactly what the acoustics of a performance venue does to that sound before it reaches you. Then all you have to do is figure out how to do exactly the same thing...in room that's about 1/200 the volume That's really all there is to it. So where's the problem?

I think you really need to get out and hear a SOTA system , its as live as the recording allows it , your issue is with the software more so than hardware , focus on the software and its delivery , your hardware concept is so far off base it renders most discussion useless ....

Carry your masters when you do go out to listen .....

 

[Soundminded]

I think you really need to get out and hear a SOTA system , its as live as the recording allows it , your issue is with the software more so than hardware , focus on the software and its delivery , your hardware concept is so far off base it renders most discussion useless ....

Carry your masters when you do go out to listen .....

You are certainly entitled to your opinion of my ideas. However never having heard the prototype it seems that it's rather academic to you, you have no way of knowing what it sounds like. I presume you have a different analysis with some sort of technical writeup so that I can see where your point of view is coming from. I'm always interested in new ideas. Got a reference to it?

Recently I heard a very expensive sound system, one costing at least several hundred thousand dollars. I found it disappointing but not surprising. I'm not going to say whose it was or what it consisted of because that person is known to others on this site and identifying the equipment could identify the individual.