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A few systems heard at the Rocky Mntn. audiofest

I sure didn't hear them all, and I'm not about to say that my fave is the show's best system, but here are a few observations.

1. Most rooms I didn't even walk into as they were either too crowded or were playing diddeebopper trash that I RUN away from.
2. The Intuitive Design speakers room was playing an acoustic-bass recording that sounded EXCELLENT. It was closely miked and the bassist was doing lots of whacking and clacking, and the bass really did sound real. Didn't hear anything else there. Their literature reads as if their 2 systems will be QUITE expensive.
3. Herron was demoing prototypes of new, big speakers and subwoofers, and the short piece of the Reference recording of the Rutter Requium sounded VERY good.
4. North Creek's new Advanced Ribbon Technologies Division was playing their new Metro hybrid ribbon system. Only about 3' high, it used a single MR/treble ribbon and a 7" vented woofer. The system had almost no bottom-octave energy and a little too much treble for my taste, but it sounded VERY coherent. Too bad it'll retail for some $7 - $8K/pair.
5. Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology was demoing his new Thigpen Rotary Woofer (TRW) system. This thing is going to be a hit with well-moneyed home-theater fans, as it'll generate high SPLs with VERY little distortion at frequencies as low as ONE Hertz! Several of us heard continuous tones at 16Hz.; below that I felt rather than heard the energy. At 2 Hertz it was flapping the room's door about an inch peak-to-peak! 'Only' $13K.
6. The only ABSOLUTELY GREAT-sounding system for me was AvantGarde's Duo horn-based system, driven by Thor tubed preamp and amps. WOW!!!!!! I've never heard big, expensive, horn-based systems before, and it literally had me in tears with, again, the Rutter Requium. I played a lot of my CD of the EMI/Boult Holst Planets, and I was truly amazed at the tonal naturalness, soundstage size, imaging specificity, etc.
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jeffreybehr

Showing 5 responses by jeffreybehr

jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
1. Greg, no, I'm not, even if I already have a pair of great amps (ASL 805s, 50-Watt SETs) to drive them. I'm VERY happy with my Eminent Technology 8s, biamped, with Quicksilver V4s on the MR/treble drivers.

2. "They (sic) weren't even playing music through the horn (sic) it was all noise and I don't see there being a practical use for that thing any time soon. Even people with a big house would need an addition for the tunnel system that was setup in the next room."
Huh? It appears you're thoroughly confusing AvantGarde's horn system with Eminent Technology's Rotary Woofer. Those were sine waves, Nrchy; never heard any before? Yes, the Rotary Woofer requires another chamber to operate from, but that's just the price for SOTA bottom-octave and infrasonic bass. I HAVE the room; if only I had $13K to blow on a woofer system!

The 'noise' I heard at RMAF 2005 was all that diddeebopper trash that was thumping and screetching in so many rooms.
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jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
Nrchy, no problem. :-)

I think Bruce needs to increase his promotion efforts including bringing a full ET-based HT system to these shows.

We'll see.

The AvantGarde horn system still sounded WONDERFUL.
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jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
A dealer, Alpen Audio, with Thor electronics.
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jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
Golden, I wasn't there to hear every system in every room. I was there to see and re-meet a couple manufacturers who have turned into friends over the years, to attend several seminars that looked (and were) worth my time, and to hear some systems that seemed worth my time. I also think I was looking for a little validation of my goals in reproduced music. For instance, does my system really sound as good as I think it does? Have my tastes tilted the frequency balance* significantly? I had no responsibility to listen to all or even most systems there--I'm no reporter trying to cover everything and perhaps discover a jewel among the stones. I was there to enjoy myself, and 'enjoy' didn't include entering rooms with obnoxious music playing at too-high levels. We didn't walk the halls bitching about anything, we just went down the hall to the next rooms.

I found the people in the rooms I got into to be friendly and accommodating.

* My biamped system is HIGHLY adjustable in frequency balance, and I love to tweak, so 'adjustable' can be as much for the worst as the better.
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jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr OP
805 posts
 
One way to eliminate one variable--an unfamiliar piece of music or recording--is to bring your own. That's what I did. The Rutter recording played in the Herron room sounded very nice, but I had NO idea what it sounds like on ANY other system.

Because I am HIGHLY familiar with the recording I brought, the first 10 seconds in the AvantGarde room gave me a good idea how that system sounded, and 15 minutes of it told me the system sounded VERY good. This Boult/Holst Planets is simply my favorite piece of evaluation music--I LOVE the work AND the performance AND the recording.
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