my friend jazdoc was over last night; and we have always had different sounding systems and musical compasses.....his tubes and tone.....mine solid state and information. none-the-less he has been a great tempering influence on me and kept a level head to my excesses. I knew when I first heard what the Hardpoints were doing on the Tripoint Elite that the FR balance change would appeal to him. but over a few days it's become much more than just that. and last night he reacted to my system in a completely different way that he ever has in 10+ years of frequent visits. and that was quite a profound data point for me.
Yup, Mike and I have been friends for a long time, and I have been a frequent visitor to his room which has afforded me a front seat to witness the evolution of his system. For me, last evening's long listening session represented a milestone in his system's development. Mike had made multiple changes to his system related primarily to resonance control since my last visit one week(!) ago which he discusses on multiple threads. He offered to spend 20 minutes describing all of the changes...I declined
. Before describing my personal impressions, by the end of the evening it struck me that what I was hearing was the result of an ongoing journey in system optimization (aka 'tweaking') during the past couple of years focused on:
1. Optimizing room acoustics
2. Clean power
3. Improving speaker/room interaction
4. Grounding
5. Resonance control
These tweaks have sometimes occurred isolation making it easy to isolate their effects, other times the tweaking has run in tandem, making it difficult to characterize individual changes. Not all of Mike's experimenting has been successful, but to his credit, he has tenaciously pressed forward. What follows is an overall impression of the current sound of Mike's system as of last evening (something may have changed since then
) with my perception of the overall evolution of the sonic signature during the past few years. I am unable to ascribe a sonic attribute to a specific tweak; rather this is an overview.
As a little background, like all visitors, the first time I walked into the barn, I was overwhelmed. As you know, the room is aesthetically gorgeous: the scale of the craftsmanship and attention to detail is otherworldly. But the space is also warm and inviting and Mike is the ultimate audio host. The system has always been impressive and I've never had anything but a great time during my many, many visits. More than once, I have left happy but confused, unable to sort out Mike's latest change(s). Other visits were sonically disappointing as the latest changes were not pleasing to my ear, despite Mike's enthusiasm. Usually, I could usually go home and feel comfortable with the sonic compromises of my system which reflected my personal audio compass. Last evening's session was different and extraordinary; and the longer we listened the better things got.
1. The system has always been impressive with large scale pieces, i.e. orchestral works, Led Zep, etc but seemed to struggle with smaller ensembles which seemed unnaturally large. This has improved over the last few months, but last night, the sense of scale was uncanny. Where before Charlie Rouse sounded 10' tall on Sphere's "Flight Path", now he was more visceral and scale was human, but there was no diminution of scale during Reiner's "Scheherazade".
2. The sense of ambience is delightful. We played a Redbook CD rip of "How Deep Is The Ocean" by Nicholas Payton and Doc Cheatham and I realized that you could visualize the recording booth where the vocal tracks were laid down. I've listened to this CD hundreds of times; never heard that before. (BTW, CD rips sound amazing with Mike's system!).
3. Noise...there isn't any. I mean none, zero, nada, zilch zippo.
4. My perception of system stridency has been resolved. Initially I thought that things might be too 'soft' on the top end, but with more listening, I believe that it is software dependent. Brass instruments retain the expected 'bite'. (Note to Mike: let's play with analog set up during next visit.)
5. Bass goes deeper but is more tuneful. (Again, let's check analog set up to see if we can take things further....)
6. Tonality of percussion has made a quantum leap forward. There is something about a stick hitting a drum head the really challenges an audio system. I heard terrific percussive tone color...live percussion instruments are not monochromatic!
7. Over many visits, I have been of the opinion that the front to back depth of the rig was exaggerated and instruments did not project much in front of the speaker plane. This is unnatural, resulting in a 'hi-fi' quality. It was oft times mind blowing hi-fi, but hi-fi nonetheless. This has been fixed and IMO, helps create the illusion of real musicians in the room; the music is much, much more visceral and realistic.
8. Mike's system could always play loudly without losing the grip on the music, but couldn't always pressurize the room realistically a al #&. The dynamics were literally startling last evening during Ben Webster's "Live At The Renaissance" on vinyl and Pablo Aslan's "Avantango" via Redbook CD rip.
Whew! Sorry about the length of the post, but there's a lot going on at Mike's! IMO, last night was the best I have heard in the barn during 10+ years. I won't call it a culmination, rather an important landmark on the journey...