It is also interesting to note that the same company produced the kit's that took the top kit category in the last two Contests. I believed that the company's designer owed a great deal of inspiration to his exposure to the legendary Hydro Klammodyne (Red Tide Edition) speakers, that he heard at VSAC some years ago.
Best Regards,
TerryO
Those are my personal reference. I still don't have the "Super Tweeters". I thought those were going to be a personal gift?
Lets be fair.... there were not many kits two years ago so the competition wasn't exactly stiff. Don't tell Jerry but the Kepler is much better than the KIT61s.
Your Super Tweeters are waiting for you and are currently heavily guarded, as well as being locked up. It doesn't pay to take the chance of them falling into the wrong hands.
I agree about the Kepler design and I believe that you had some "expert" help in the early stages of development, which evidently you were able to overcome and go on to produce an excellent design.
Best regards,
TerryO
Terry, next time you host one (I know it's a couple years off) allow me to bring some room treatments. I can bring down a diffuser or 2 and some broadband panels at least. I loved seeing all the designs, but the acoustics left a little to be desired. It was very fun, it's a shame the next one is so long from now.
Jerry had about six large panels (absorbers) and four ASC tube traps (one each corner) in the judges room. Any more and it would have been over-damped (might already have been for my taste).
Some diffusors in the back could never hurt but it is a one day event so there is only so much room tuning that you can realistically employ.
It's easy enough to design traps that diffract the mids and highs and absorb the lows. I agree some diffusers would of been nice in the judges room, and the listening room undoubtedly could use a ton of help.
I've always been curious about the ASC tube traps. Based on the info they made available if you were to cut a hole in the top of the trap, the effectiveness should drop off. I've looked at the design and can't help but think it's no different than any other broadband absorber. Unfortunately it's hard to convince anyone to destroy something that costly for the sake of knowledge, understandably. Anyways, my original point is, I've got a bunch of stuff I'm building for testing purposes that'll work great for events like this. Next time I can bring some along to help improve the event.
Sorry guys, perhaps in the judges room these absorbers might be a good idea, but when you got about 20 people trying to get a listen, I don't see how room absorbers are going to help. From what I heard, it was pretty obvious everywhere in the listening room which speakers were going to make it and which weren't.
I'm not against room treatments, just not in this situation.
I'm not against room treatments, just not in this situation.
I think most of these devices are just primarily good for broad-band absorption. I built some big tubes out of fiberglass once... compressed it with chicken wire and they were very effective but much larger than your average ASC tube trap. They sure were ugly.... but cheap and effective.
According to Toole we can identify good speakers from bad even in a bad environment. I tend to agree. I can often identify a better design from another room. When I first heard Terry's famous Klammodynes I was three blocks from the listening room. As soon as all the neighborhood dogs started howling I knew something special was playing.
I would agree with this. However, I still want to appreciate the speakers as well. The room essentially becomes a filter that colors the reproduction. I'm building up some extra diffusers for some A/B comparisons, assuming I don't give them away between now and the next competition I'm sure they wouldn't hurt, lol.
I do have a question, were the speakers that were judged level matched? Human perception is as such that differences in levels can be perceived as improvements in quality. It's one of the tricks they use in the monster cable floor demos (quite shady if you ask me) among others. I'm not familiar with the testing procedure and that was something that crossed my mind.
That's good, I didn't plan on entering a pair so I didn't noticed the criteria.
Did someone mention my name.? My ears are burning...
John
Hey John,
Have you had a chance to listen to the bookshelves? I thought they ended up with a nice relaxed sound.
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