Hi Costin

So If I came to you and said I can produce that for you inside of two thousand dollars would you be interested or would you still push on for the expensive units?

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Now I must tune the room (variable tuning, if possible).

Hi Costin

I tell Harold all the time, if some of these guys on Stereophile went low mass, variable and simple they would be madmen listeners.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

No kiddin, how and where do I start?
But please, no taking apart my equipment, just tune the room.
Tell me what details you need to start me going.

Costin

Hi Costin

We should start you a thread on TuneLand. It's a lot easier to be focused on your particular system and sound there, plus I can talk freely about my products. You'll want to start it here http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/f3-home-audio-systems . Let's post pics of all the angles of the room so I can get a good view of what is going on. We'll talk about the sound you are getting now and how you got there, and might even want to do a recording reference so I can again hear your room and system from a distance. Then we'll make a plan and start tuning.

There's a lot of guys who want to do the acoustical thing only so that's no biggie. If I see/hear something obvious I'll say but there's no pressure to do what I say, it would just be something you could look into if you ever want.

The guys on TuneLand are all cool too, no flaming at all just guys listening, tuning and having fun.

will be fun!

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

michael green wrote:

I was pointed to a review on here today and so I went and read. About fractured a rib laughing at the thought that some idiot out there somewhere would consider spending $43,000 on a preamp that had horrible sounding umbilical cords, rubber feet, terrible chassis design, too thick of a circuit board, tie wraps on the capacitors and internal wiring, and 45 station click attenuators. But it gets better. The reviewer didn't have anywhere to set these preamps so he set them inbetween his speakers on wooden shipping crates. Four wooden shipping crates in the middle of his soundstage space, plus he dampens his room. How could any real listener read this and take it serious?

While I may not have an opinion about the technical problems that michael outlined I still think dumping the boxes on their shipping crates does not do justice to gear costing as much as a BMW. Or if you guys think this doesn't matter I recommend you stop reviewing racks, footers and amplifier platforms - looks like you have no use for them!

As much as I think Stereophile has helped this industry grow and take shape, I must agree with Costin here. The standards in which the reviews are made need to be raised (shipping crates was a no no, along with the setup if it was as described). We need to be an industry that is able to deliver the sound and the know how to make this sound. In my book if something cost 43,000.00 that's a lot of sound to deliver. No disrespect to the product or reviewer but reading the review, I'm pretty sure I could have wiped the sound of that system fairly easy inside of 10,000.00 for the whole system. I hate to be rude to the industry I love and serve, but there is probably more research and developement that went into that BMW's driver seat than most of high end audio components combined, if your comparing design, cost and results. The buyer deserves the price to be in line with the performance, and this has been out of balance for quite a few years now. I'm not saying this is Stereophiles fault, but I am saying that sometimes I see reviewers with eyes bigger than their stomachs and the need to discover the next greatest component put over the reality of the performance actually delivered. I trust the M5 to corner, but when I hear a $100,000.00 component or whole system not produce a stage bigger than 14 feet wide and 6 feet deep, questions arise.

As the industry moves forward it's important that we raise the standards in which we judge ourselves by. I can see 30 years ago being a little skip-a-dee-do-da about setups cause we were just getting serious about it, but by now it should be about the entire system synergy, and I personally think we need a serious testing facility, one that is able to cover a wide range of conditions for the reviews.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

I always had the feeling that the Absolute Sound was more of a democracy with writers writing their own stuff not bothered by an editorial policy while Stereophile was more of a dictartorship in the hand od J.A. That said both had just one writer with writing skills well above the others, Tom Norton being one. Ken Kessler was above the fray too