Nice system. Good reviewer considering the music he uses to review with (usually way too much artificial digital reverb). House is a mess, has a garbage pail for a mouth, and his politics totally sucks.
What I like about Mikey, he seems to be a real good listener who tells it like he hears it. He's straight up honest about letting you know he prefers a fast technical analytical style sound. So no wonder he has what he has. Because he is honest and open however it makes him super useful as a reviewer.
He's also super helpful. When shopping for my first big rig many years ago I was torn and wrote to Stereophile hoping Mikey might help me out. The guy not only helped, he called and we had a good long talk. Never told me what to do. Never even told me his preference. But by letting me know his first hand relative impressions he was a huge help and I wound up very happy with my Basis/Graham/Glider. Lasted me a good many years.
Mikey lives in his own world manufactured from his teens on and God bless him, he seems very happy in it. He has seen it through to it's logical conclusion, thousands of records and an ultra expensive system. He is not the worlds best house keeper but neither is he a malodorous hobo. He seems to be enjoying himself at least I hope he is. It is not my place to evaluate his system or his lifestyle. I can't have any of the equipment he has because I do not have any connections and I can not afford it. On the other hand there is nothing he has that I lust after. I am of the opinion that you can probably construct a better sounding system for much less money.
What would I change? Why the location of course--to my house. The equipment seems very synergistic. Dartzeel-Wilson seem made for each other. Caliburn tt with SAT arm? divine. I'll say this---Mikey always gives honest reviews even re his friend Chad's vinyl pressings or Harry's turntables. I think he knows what he's doing despite the naysayers here. If you haven't heard it--you just don't know. Could the Maxxes be better in a different room designed for them? I'm sure. But is he getting a better return for $ based upon his likes and dislikes than any other speaker in his space? I think so. As for those who say his speakers are too close to the back wall, my Alexias sound best about 2 feet from the back wall. Further out and the bass is diminished. The rule of thirds does not apply to all speakers in all rooms.
Frankly I don't really care, yeah he's not getting the best out of what he got but that's his perogative and choice. If he reviews equipment in that room does that really negate the reviews? I dont think so. He is intimately familiar with what his own sounds like so he can easily determine a quality piece if it sounds good to him in the same environment. If it sounds good there just think of how great it would be in a properly set up room. On the other hand that room would certainly bring out the crap from a component that was not up to participate in a terrible environment. Can't think of a better way to seperates the wheat from the chaff Genius!
He most certainly did not. He has paid for almost everything in his system. Unlike Johnathan Valin who reviews the best stuff and keeps it on long term loans forever. Where did you get that info from?
I like what I know of Michael Fremer, indeed I once emailed with him and he was very nice and helpful. But that has nothing to do with what I think of his system or listening space, both of which I would enjoy immensely ...I am sure.
It is interesting to me how divergent a view some here (and elsewhere) have of the system, the space and the man. Some of these views are quite unkind in tone. Bugs me that some adults act like that.
I have found that when building many systems of cost ranging multiples of 2, 3 or even four times the cost that making a cost-effective system sound as good as a much more expensive one is fiendishly difficult. Even making a rig half the cost sound as good or better is exceptionally difficult. The idea that diminishing returns kick in early is bunk. Unless you have handled such systems ranging in price from low to high, I don’t expect you to understand or agree.
Clutter makes surprisingly little difference in the overall sound in the room. I have cleared the room, and I have had extra components on the side and cables in the back. Perceptually there is a negligible difference. One might think the difference would be large, but it is not. However, I can easily hear the distinction between switching a couple power cords or a set of interconnects.
MF knows what he is doing; you guys do not understand it. :)
I do not follow Fremer all the way to his conclusions about wires and tweaks.
But he is for me one of the most trustworthy pair of ears when it comes to describing the sound of a speaker. Over and over through the years I've found his descriptions of the sound of a speaker I have heard to be extremely accurate.
And given that he does all his reviews in his room, that would seem to say something to me about his ability to get a good indication of the qualities of a speaker in that room.
Fremer addresses the replies he has gotten to this video in the Jan. Stereophile. He mainly talks about people criticizing him and Stereophile because they don’t do blind listening tests, but there is something he says that is applicable here:
"When I review a speaker I put my listening skills on the line in describing the sound I hear. The measurements come afterward and then I get to see them in print in the magazine. Do you want to try that?"
No one here gets their opinions tested by actual measurements. Fremer does and usually passes the test. So that gives him credibility, more credibility than anonymous posters who opine that they get way better sound quality for a fraction of the price without ever having heard Fremer’s system. So, I just have to say that I find it hard to believe that Fremer spends more money, lots more money, for worse sound. Especially when he has audio professionals in his room from time to time. I think someone would have told him by now that his speakers are too big for his room and brought by a pair of smaller speakers and demonstrated that they sound better.
So, as long as we are all just speculating, I have to give Fremer the benefit of the doubt. I say if his system was not working in that room and he could get better sound at a fraction of the price, he would do it. So until someone produces evidence to the contrary, I believe that Fremer has that system because it sounds the best of the options he has tried. Sounds best to him, of course.
Odd that MF ears are so golden he can hear huge differences in gear and even ordinary bits of wire but the clutter in his room apparently doesn’t matter. I guess he hears only what he believes. Perhaps there is no money in promoting room acoustics so it isnt a focus?
Please bear with me a second. Not only is it bad for the sound to have SO MANY records in the room - or CDs, or books, any media - but it has NOTHING to do with absorption of Acoustic Waves or any such thing. The odd thing is that some of us have known about this for a very long time, at least 20 years, yet the average Joe Audiophile never heard of it. That’s probably why I have Advanced Audio Concepts in my name. 😃 It’s a Peter Belt (RIP) thing. Stereophile magazine even has two of Peter Belt’s products on their recommended components list. Come on, people! Wake up and smell the coffee! ☕️
“The great sound was in the room the whole time. You just couldn’t hear it properly.”
The video reveals that Mike is much more passionate about LP's and phonograph playing equipment than the rest of a system. As to the size of the room and bass reproduction, though the area he has the speakers in---back behind the aisles of LP racks---appears rather small for the Wilson's, the room itself is not that small. If the LP racks were to be removed from the room, it might appear much larger.
I don't know how much those LP racks affect the propagation of bass frequencies, but I believe that is more determined by the dimensions between the room's walls---left-to-right and front-to-back, and perhaps it's floor-to-ceiling height. It may be that the long bass waves just pass over and around the racks, as if they weren't there. But the position of the speakers so close to the corners of the room can't be a good thing.
I haven't heard MF's system but have heard quite a few megabuck systems in inadequate rooms (too small, large, irregular, bright, ETC) to know that he is not getting anywhere near the sound he has paid for in that space. I would posit that a system costing a quarter as much in a dedicated room sized to the speakers would sound twice as good. I'm sure many of us have been around long enough to recall how Stereophile and TAS would periodically profile the room and system of each reviewer so that readers could reasonably contextualize their conclusions. This should be standard practice--not a solution to the problem of reviewer/listener bias/preferences but it would certainly go a long way to helping all of us make purchasing decisions where an in home demo is not an option.
MF system makes me uneasy about everything I think I know about hi-end: I thought that I have an excuse for Not going after Wilsons because I cannot afford one of those castles in Malibu Colony... But... coming from the Academy mind-set I have this "the authority" variable. And Mikey is The Authority to me, so unless I can walk into his den and get unimpressed, there is not much to discuss. As a sidetracking note: the Dude looks amazingly fit for an audiophile: I followed his ramblings 15 years ago and reverted back to analog, after watching this interview I am thinking about extra workouts ;-)
@robd2 made an interesting point about the records with the room acoustics. My concern with large speakers in small rooms is the issue of bass. Simply put when we go lower in HZ the wave becomes longer - that is why bass is so hard to damp and control. In addition to this a small room simply won't go low -I though that is a scientific fact (or have I got that wrong?) - I always thought the whole point of large multi driver speakers is largely their dynamic range - in particular the bass.
Shadorne, your point is valid about the bass hump. The Vapor Audio Joule White (reviewed) has a circuit which addresses that, and it's quite significant in its effect. It's a valuable feature of the speaker which I use depending upon the system. I can see some being put off enough by the bass hump that they would opt out of the larger speaker. Personally, if I had to live with it versus a less capable speaker, I would. Thankfully, I do not have to. But, a great deal of bass contouring can be done by treatments, amps and cables, much less the source. It's not like a person is stuck with wretched results simply because of a bass hump.
We have people thinking they should expect ruler flat response and supposedly "perfect" results. Not gonna happen in probably 95+% of rooms. Of course, you can simply cut out a ton of low end! Problem fixed. Except for the fact it's not as convincing a reproduction of the real music experience. :( Who needs LF? The music lives in the midrange, right? Ugh. Like putting a speed governor on a race car.
Someone will mention subs with a smaller speaker, but you are still stuck then with the compromised mains.
You also bring up a good point in regard to driver integration. Everyone is different in how accepting of less coherence they are. Having used coaxial and full range speaker drivers I can appreciate that caveat.
There is no doubt that provided you can get enough distance away from a large three way for driver integration and still have at least 3 feet behind the listener to any wall then the bigger more dynamic speaker is going to be better!
The only issue with small rooms and big speakers is the bass. Too many big Wilsons, B&W, Focal and countless others have a big bass hump which sounds awful in a small room. Also there is a natural bass boost from the roo below 60HZ - so a 6 db per octave roll off usually is better than flat or boosted bass hump.
I'm guessing there is more base absorption happening with all the racks of records, etc than we think so the room is probably bigger than it seems in the video. Any idea what the ceiling height is in that room of his?
Michael Fremmer is doing one thing with his system/room that goes against convention, and is very smart. He is using a big speaker in a smaller room. He has thought things out and arrived at what I consider the correct conclusion. Most it seems don't. (I didn't bother to read all the posts here, but I caught a general sentiment regarding room size over the course of discussion.)
If I had listened to the purported authorities, and the talking heads about rooms and speaker size I never would have had such glorious experiences as I have over the past decade or so.
tommyc is on the right track, "Fremer does not seem like a dumb guy to me. He has heard a great many systems, probably more than anyone here. It’s his job. So don’t you think that he would know that he could get better sound with a nice pair of monitors, maybe a sub, and a low power tube amp at a small fraction of the price of his current system, if that was the case?"
Kudos, Michael, you know what you're doing. It's wonderful to select the path less traveled and be richly rewarded. :)
Fremer does not seem like a dumb guy to me. He has heard a great many systems, probably more than anyone here. It’s his job. So don’t you think that he would know that he could get better sound with a nice pair of monitors, maybe a sub, and a low power tube amp at a small fraction of the price of his current system, if that was the case?
I think he owns the equipment he owns because he has listened to a lot of gear in his room and he likes the sound he gets with the big amps and big speakers best. Better than all the high priced monitors and SET amps and headphones he has heard. That seems the most likely explanation to me.
Or has listening to all that vinyl addled his brain and he no longer behaves rationally?
But that’s not the argument. The argument is whether you can get good sound in a small room with a huge number of LPs and other clutter. I say you can’t. It’s the old entropy problem beaming down at you, in spades. ♠️
As for "not getting great sound" in a room like that...
Some of the best sound I've ever heard were large speakers in small rooms. (That includes mine, but I've heard higher end speakers in other small rooms). Often a small room means the speakers end up closer to nearfield, taking out some of the room. That's also how I listen to my floor standing speakers and they usually sound much better than demos even in larger, dedicated high end audio store rooms.
Of course not every large speaker will work in every small room. But, so long as we aren't talking about someone placing speakers haphazardly in a reflective tile bathroom or something, someone who knows what he is doing can render terrific results in atypical rooms.
Great kit, but I am surprised that he has such huge speakers in a near field set-up. I appreciate he says that this is his workspace, and a tool, but surely to make a tool operate properly it must be put in the conditions to make it work - you ain't gonna use an F1 car on a rally track...
Whatever that was about, it is just a New York way of saying hello and acknowledging the other, as surprising and uncomfortable as this might be. And I am only partly kidding.
I am not at all sure the point of the video was to convince anyone of anything. On your suggestion I watched for about 6 minutes, then I I put some music on and opened another bottle of red wine and relaxed....
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