Todd's AG Trio G3 System -- it's about time

[Carlos269]

Carlos, have we seen a video of your rig?

Tom

Tom,
Many videos of my systems can be found in the following threads here:

Friday night listening

There is a smarter way

Many Videos of my latest reference system can be found here:

Designing and assembling the ultimate horn based system

 

[sbnx]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

probably the most real world agenda less system video post ever. you just used the same low key, first things first approach, you have taken to the speaker set up process. thank you.

 

[Carlos269]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

Completely agree that the video at the Korean dealer sounds horrible.

Listen to the videos of my new Ultimate horn system. I think that the system sounds phenomenal in the room and pretty wonderful to me on the videos. I refuse to believe that all videos sound terrible beside mine. So why do my videos sound so good? Could it be that the system sounds great? Just asking.

 

[treitz3]

This is why I do not post videos of my rig. You do not want to know my observations of what you consider, as you say, "phenominal".

As sbnx has mentioned, a video is not representative of a system, as one listens to it in the actual room. It may offer a glimpse but that's about it.

I'm in no way digging or confronting you but just saying, what you think sounds great on video? Well, it may not to others, TBT.

Tom

 

[Carlos269]

This is why I do not post videos of my rig. You do not want to know my observations of what you consider, as you say, "phenominal".

As sbnx has mentioned, a video is not representative of a system, as one listens to it in the actual room. It may offer a glimpse but that's about it.

I'm in no way digging or confronting you but just saying, what you think sounds great on video? Well, it may not to others, TBT.

Tom

The good news is that hopefully one is just trying to please oneself and not anyone else. It also helps to have a number of systems at home for references.

 

[Carlos269]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

While we do not hear like microphones, the auditory system continues to perform its processing and arbitration on the sound on the videos. Because of the polar response of speakers the reflected sounds are lower level, which incur additional attenuation due to absorption, refraction & dispersion at the reflection surfaces. The auditory system continues to perform discrimination processing on frequency, amplitude, temporal masking and interference.

Just think of the fact that the music that we listen to are recordings and the same conditions as on the videos apply and often with less temporal correlation.

 

[treitz3]

Huh? Most of the videos we see that are offered of member's systems are taken from phones and not professional equipment to be mastered. We are also introducing a MASSIVE amount of generational reproduction.

Did I misunderstand?

Tom

 

[Argonaut]

Your assessment of Leif’s system is pretty good. Tang also had a great video of this on his Cessaro and iirc Aries cerat contendo had as well. None emphasised the treble balance and all had great midbass weight

I think that this is the particular audio vid that you make reference to Kedar … perhaps bear in mind that we are listening to electronics during their development stage as well as a different recording of DM .

 

[sbnx]

One additional thing... If we are going to post and compare videos of the same song on different systems then it needs to be the same recording. Both the Avantgarde Trio Video at the Korean dealer and the video of the Aries Cerat horns are from the Minnesota orchestra (Eiji Oue) Mephisto. The video that Ked posted is from the new symphony orchestra of London Witches Brew. I believe most consider the Witches Brew album to be the best recording of the Danse Macabre but the point is that different recordings can have wildly different balance.

A few weeks ago I was playing around on Qobuz and listening to different recordings of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. If you are interested compare these two. They could not be more different in how they present the percussion. The one by Telarc is really bright and lacks the low end oomph that I think most (all) of us like about this piece. If I were to record the Telarc recording on one system and the Eiji Oue on another system it would lead to the wrong conclusion about the two systems.

 

[bonzo75]

Yes but both recordings of those on different systems do not show the sharp treble tilt only the AG one does.

i posted it to show it is not an iPhone issue, it is pretty easy to record and play back on phone show that the sharp treble tilt and lack of low frequency is not a phone issue. You can play it back on both phone or stream to a speaker and you will get these differences. Whether you choose to blame it on the system or recording is a separate issue, let’s not blame the phone videos

 

[hopkins]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

If the room is an issue, as it almost always is, then you can simply minimize the reflections by placing the microphones close to the speakers, but that only works well with point source systems.

When listening to speakers at demos, shows, or even other people's homes, at some point I always place my ear against each driver to see what they are really capable of.

 

[Lagonda]

There was a whole thread on videos which I abstained from. While they may be entertaining I simply don't think they can convey anything close to the experience in the room. mic's do a horrible job of picking up bass and of course there is no sense of enveolpment and no soundstageing etc.

Of course I experimented to see what could be done. I bought a binaural dummy head and a good digital recorder. I recorded some videos of a system I setup in my front room with this system to see what that would sound like if played back. Here is a link to one of them. It is Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 Allegretto. In particular listen to the pizzicato strings at about 29 seconds. They sound like a hot mess. The timing is all smeared because of the reflections. They do not sound like that when listening in person. Why? Becasue the mic is picking up all of the room reflections and treating them equally. Our brain does not do this. The brain distinguishes between direct sound within a small window an treats all the rest as a seperate sound. So, in person I can easily hear the precise plucks of each of the strings as they progess up and down the scale. To my brain the rest is ambient hall noise.

Also, woodwinds like the clarinet at about 20 seconds sounds wrong. The "woody" timbre is missing. Again, it doesn't sound like this when sitting in the room. Why? Because again the mic is picing up all of the reflections and recording them equally as if they were part of the orignial sound. This is tilting the spectral balance up.

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

I did a small recording of my trios this evening of a female vocal. I listened to 30 sec. Then recorded it. Then listened to the recording. Then listened to the song again. The recording sounded nothing like what I heard in the room. The same thing is happening. The female vocal lost all body in the recording.

I realize some like the videos. So at some point I will post some of the trios. But I don't want to debate the merits of videos. If you like them and find them useful then great. To each their own.

I have a suspicion that the people that like recordings like this are very good at imagining what is going on in the room, maybe even substituting it with a aural memory of what they have heard earlier maybe even live.

 

[Al M.]

I have a suspicion that the people that like recordings like this are very good at imagining what is going on in the room, maybe even substituting it with a aural memory of what they have heard earlier maybe even live.

Yes, good point. You can fool yourself easily if you are not cautious.

 

[bonzo75]

You can fool yourself easily if you are not cautious.

guess you threw caution to the winds a long time ago

 

[Maril555]

I lived with Trios and 4BH's for eight years. I REALLY enjoyed them. That was in 2002-2010. I guess my taste has changed as I now prefer this type of horn/tube sound. I know the Diesis are not a full horn system etc. but I love them with the 1-2 Watt 45 based Triode Lab mono amps.

Is it just me, or Bob's videos of Diesis Triode are the best sounding ones posted here? Different recordings admittedly, but still- very balanced, open, great detail and texture. No significant faults really.

 

[sbnx]

Ok. I think we know everyone's stance on videos at this point. I am good if you want to post some videos of AG systems or even other horn systems as a reference point.

But we should pivot the discussion back to AG Trios and maybe other horns if you have something juicy to talk about.

 

[Kozak170]

Look at the Tio video that was posted from the Korean dealer. That room looks like it has zero room treatment. and the mic is a pretty good distance from the speakers. This means a lot of room reflections bouncing around. So yeah, I expect it to sound bright.

So on the records with less HF, the sound not going to be bright in the korean dealer's room..

 

[caesar]

i expect Jacob is writing a full review on the G3, so we can read his views about this. i view the itron as a wonderful approach, with many real world advantages. love the elegance of it. i have not heard a mature system fully sorted with it, but i read Todd's system is getting there......not personally heard Jacob's system. likely the itron's upside is amazing. i know Roy Gregory liked it in his G3 review.

finally figured out who you really are......Oliver Stone's son. right?

i assume you don't bet any of your rent money on your hunches.

Hey Mike,
that's funny. But let'ss not confuse "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns". The Spanish Wadax dude is only a call or email away, so we can verify that one... And of course, not everyone is going to like every product...

 

[caesar]

i don't personally know horns from a bale of hay. i'm just on the outside looking in.

Interesting comment, Mike. "Knowing" aside, have you ever heard one that made you feel?