Local Listening party

[hjames]

After some conversations over the summer, Opimax and I agreed to get together and listen to each other's respective systems, get a chance to hear other vintage gear. I'd been wanting to hear a set of 250TIs ..., he wanted to hear a pair of the pro monitors, but as luck would have it, he invited Emma and I to drop by today. He's got quite a system, with multiple speakers, a B-460 and Velodyne to carry the bottom end, and a gorgeous pair of 250tis that have been redone with revised drivers and CC networks. He's even had the supertweeters aquaplased. And what a sound! Very very nice.

With complex music, I think the 250TIs have a bit more resolving power - how you say it, better definition for each of the instruments in the music than our 4341s have. But he's more of a hard rock and blues guy, while Emma and I are all over the map.
That said - I think I prefer listening to jazz with horns on the 4341s - Miles, Ornette, Chet Baker - all of that, and at somewhat lower listening levels

But between the plasma and the power recliners, those glorious speakers and amps - what a fine place to enjoy music!

[Titanium Dome]

That's it? No more pictures or comments?

What music did you listen to? Was there a particular genre that came to life that your own system doesn't do as much for you? Did the physical size surprise you?

Can I ask any more questions? Have I lost the ability to write a declarative sentence?

[hjames]

Yes 'spose I hadn't realized just how big the 250s were until I stood by one!
Mark was quite hospitable and even had cut roses for us (to take home afterwards).

He tends to play much higher levels than we do, but the system was quite amazing. He runs his subs fulltime, and says he doesn't have movies, just concert and music videos (grin). We rarely run our B380 subwoofer on music, we only use it for movies. Room sizes were pretty similar, tho his is somewhat larger), but his home has a basement underneath, our music room is on a slab. We both have too darned much speaker for the room (ya think??) ...

He runs the subs fulltime, so the low low bass, say, under 120Hz is very full (expected, with 2 subwoofers to fill the bottom), but with the subs off it sounds like he may have a small hole in the bass range - he thinks its in the bass guitar range, but perhaps up into the bottom range of low (male) vocals.

We didn't know if his taste in music was different than ours, so we brought this stack of "test CDs" to try out:

Acoustic Alchemy - Positive Thinking (Bo tipped me off to this one)
Boz Scaggs - Dig (Mixed or tracks, plus 6-8)
Giora Feidman Magic of the Klezmer (Cut 14 - Gershwin suite - Delos CD)
Larry Carlton - Sapphire Blue (Most - bits & pieces as we spoke)
Lunasa (1st album) - (cut 7. the Kelzmer done on ullean pipes)
Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat (cut 2. Bird on a Wire)
Steely Dan - AJA (of course)
Beatles Love DVD-A
Hilary Stagg - too darned much low bass to listen to with subs.

Didn't get to Tommy Emmanuel - Only, or Goldfrapp - Supernatural, so I can't comment on them.

That's it? No more pictures or comments?

What music did you listen to? Was there a particular genre that came to life that your own system doesn't do as much for you? Did the physical size surprise you?

Can I ask any more questions? Have I lost the ability to write a declarative sentence?

[bigyank]

Heather is that a working fireplace? What are the center channel speakers? What is driving the analyzer program?

From the looks of the system must have sounded awesome!


Yank

[hjames]

Heather is that a working fireplace? What are the center channel speakers? What is driving the analyzer program?

From the looks of the system must have sounded awesome!


Yank

Working fireplace - yes (gas), but he said when he plays it hard the system creates plenty of heat.

He's currently using a high end Sony receiver as the control center, but, like most of us, he talked about swapping this or that piece for something different. It wasn't running in biamp mode with the 2 Perrault amps - his newer Perrault had crashed friday night so he just had the one in place, and had an Adcom running his subs.

Center channel speakers - I'm miserable on model numbers, but does 18ti sound right?
He had some software output from the Velodyne SMS on screen - just shows the low low bass response - had a mic input sweeping the room for a while ...

[ChopsMX5]

The screen and "right" center channel looks like they're ready to fall off the wall to the right!

[JBL 4645]

Heather is that a working fireplace? What are the center channel speakers? What is driving the analyzer program?

From the looks of the system must have sounded awesome!


Yank

Well I’m not too bright but heat raises doesn’t it! And there is no way I’d place electronics above a fireplace no mater lets not talk politics.

So I take it that’s you’re JBL B460 18” sub bass there? And buy the way you look fabulous you’re quite a dish.

“Northwood” showed me a link to one of those last year and I liked it straight away nice looking one and I bet she’s goes down low and with high SPL levels to match!

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=5382



(Shh, quietly) I like redheads.

Hmm I guess that would make you 4” tall than me judging by the height of JBL 250Ti.

[hjames]

So I take it that’s your JBL B460 18” sub bass there?

“Northwood” showed me a link to one of those last year and I liked it straight away nice looking one and I bet she’s goes down low and with high SPL levels to match!

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=5382

Nah - thats all Opimax's gear (thats him adjusting the 250TI connection).
The 250tis and the B460 are quite a nice set, but Emma didn't get a picture of the Velodyne subwoofer in the room - between the two subs, that system goes WAY Down deep!

I brought a copy of the deluxe 2 disc DVD of King Kong, but we stayed with music all night and didn't get to it. We get to any classical music so I didn't play my Telarc 1812 (with the digital canons) either - we'd blow the walls out with that, for sure!

[JBL 4645]

I failed to notice earlier there is that doorway on the left-hand side that leads to a kitchen I’m guessing. Now that will present a problem with the sound to some small dreg. Some more testing and place a door there I’m sure there would be a noticeable difference.

[opimax]

As I said I t was great having Heather and Emma come by for a listen. As with most here the system isn't finished and even was a little less finished than expected.

I had just got a 2nd amp for the 250s, to biamp them, 300 on the 14-3 and 180 on the top 3 drivers. Turns out 1 channel was blown and then I physically broke the inputs when removing it from the lower left compartment from the setup. After I broke the inputs I figure I can't go back to the seller. And it was 2am and company the next day...

We listened to some DVDs, nothing special or critical that I had in the player, Steely Dan Comes to mind remembering that Heather had posted she enjoyed them at some post. We (Emma) listened critically only to some music they brought over which they were familiar with. I only suffered when some Gershwin was on . My criticism with my system is too much highs (and a little to much S comes through on speech) and non even bass. I am little surprised about the tweets as they rebuilt and coated but Heather heard it too. The bass I have is uneven and boomy, I don’t think they completely agreed on that but they have a different taste in bass. I think my listening room is not the most acoustically friendly place and just sucks bass out my system…

I’ll answer some comments in my next post and Heather post any pictures you have that really is ok


Mark

[Rolf]

I can't believe you people did not tried some modern gear in the congest.

Do you people think that our JBL,s do not sound better with modern gear??

[hjames]

I can't believe you people did not tried some modern gear in the congest.

Do you people think that our JBL's do not sound better with modern gear??

what does "in the congest." mean?

I don't understand what you are getting at - does modern gear make it better?
Some gear, yes. Some gear, no. In short, not always. But that wasn't the point of the event.

Mark was kind enough to invite us over for a couple hours for an initial listen to the gear he has in his system.
We listened to the gear that he owned, and it actually sounds really nice.
I took the time to write a few posts to list what was there and what music we listened to.

I never said it sounded better or worse than anything - I just said what I heard.

Perhaps you'd like to explain a bit more?