Give Up on Bacch?

It’s hard to advise because the finance is part of the equation.  If you are Jeff Bezos than you won’t notice the $200.  If you are like the rest of us then the dilemma of being out the $200 versus the total cost for a component that you may have lingering doubts about is a real one.

  I would keep it and give it a year.  Odds are that it’s well made and will provide a lot of satisfaction.  It’s possible that if it doesn’t quite get there for you, they might do a software update sometime that might change something for the better 

@treepmeyer It sounds like you have many hesitations but are wanting to be convinced. You should follow your instinct and return it, perhaps with the intent to revisit it at a later date. You can also ask Edgar to extend the trial period, which he may be amenable to. 

I was also in the room at AXPONA and was underwhelmed, but I have also heard both the BacchForMac and the Bacch-SP in a friend’s very high end (over $1MM) system with really great results. My consensus is that it basically eliminates the room, but it is really hard to get the staging to sound realistic, even if the individual performers sound  clearer with more realistic presence. In the system I’m familiar with, when the Bacch is enabled, the stage depth flattens a bit, and the stage widens to the point where some performers are playing way off to the sides, leaving very big gaps between each of them. The end result was music that sounds and feels less cohesive and simply a very impressive sum of its parts. 

That said, it is obvious that, especially while I was playing with its settings, the presentation it delivered is very configurable. In this case, it is exactly what my friend wanted. It became clear to me that while the intent of the software is to replicate and restore what the recording and mastering engineers intended, the levels of customization allow for a very personalized result which may not be “accurate” in its presentation. 

I have heard many well-designed systems that sound as good or better without the Bacch, but I’ve also sound a few well-designed systems that sound really good with it. YMMV, and you need the time to properly evaluate it, so make sure you have that. 

@blisshifi Yes, I do want to be convinced and so my disappointment was confounded. 

I spoke with Edgar this morning (I don't know where he finds time for his day-job at Princeton).  He said the trial period runs 14 days from installation, not the ship date although that's what the website says.  In any event I will install the Bacch system and have enough time to evaluate it.  I'll post my thoughts afterwards.  

Thanks for all the comments and advice.

Looking forward to your thoughts and glad you have the time to evaluate.  

@treepmeyer, when I’d read the previous comments from the ’who’s going to Axpona’ forum post-show, there was the impression of the need to be ’sweet spotted’ due to the camera and the ear mics.....

I’ll not surmise or comment further, as it would seem beneficial to you to have your in-home experiences as free of any conceptions from ’outliers’, esp. ones’ that didn’t attend the show and the intro to the system.

It does present a potential to achieve more ’stable and fixed point localizing’ of players in recordings, which is a leap forward for all. The entry fee does limit it to whomever has the means to apply it to their equipment, which does hint loudly that it ought to as du jour as possible....

Hope the rabbit in their hats contains a coax adapter to make the install go better....