Next Austin meet - June/July? (1 Viewer)

[Scott Oliver]

My Theta CasaNova does not have DTS, I chose not to purchase that option since my Sony DVD s7000 doesn't have DTS out.

 

[Jonathan DA]

Colin,

Yes, Scott is planning on attending. In fact we were putting the finishes on the 6.1 system today. We're going to bring 4 in Mahogany and 2 in cherry, just so everyone can see the different stuff available.


Mark,

I think we're good on amps and speakers, so I wouldn't worry about taking them out of your system and risk damaging them lugging them around (though the Initiums do sound good with higher powered tube amps if anyone wants to bring one just for fun). If you want to bring your cables though, that would be cool.



Jonathan

 

[Rodney McNeel]

Well...It looks like July 13th is out fer me. My wife is having a birthday party for me on that date. God, I Love her. I guess I'll be demonstrating my meager system to friends and family here. Take lots o pictures and post the good ones. Wish I could be there.
Rodney D.

 

[brian a]

If my schedule allows me to attend this time, I'll be able to bring a Rotel 1066 for the comparison. I hope to be able to make it this time.



brianca..

 

[Scott Oliver]

Man that Rotel would complete this shoot-out perfectly.

Acurus
Classe
Outlaw
Rotel
Theta

That is some good variety.

So with those processors we will use this system (although I think we still have some holes):

Sony 9000ES DVD/CD Transport
Tara Labs D-2 digital coaxial cable 1.5M


inteconnects? Of course we will need 5.1 of these, are we going to use Frederick's Monster Cable stuff.

Adcom GFA-7400 100Wx5
speaker cable? Jonathan you and Frederick probably need to coordinate for this one.

Sony 36" XBR400 dsiplay

Mirus Audio Initium 6.1 speakers

I am guessing that we will also need a rack to put the processor, amp and maybe the DVD player on. Frederick do you have something that will work? That green rack at Greg's house would work nicely.


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Frederick you alluded earlier to putting the processor testing in the bedroom. Why are we not going to do it out in the living room where there is more space and more opportunity for people to listen in?

I suggest the bedroom be set-up for other stuff to be played around with. Such as the other Mirus Audio speakers, Mark hayenga's HDS speakers, different amps, cable testing etc. The processor shoot-out system has got to remain the same however throughout the testing period outside of the processor itself, otherwise it will make the listener's opinions all the more questionable, and also extend the listening timeframe.

I just feel that the big draw of this meet other than your good cooking will be the processor shoot-out, thus it should be in the larger of the two spaces. Sticking 2-4 guys in a back bedroom room and asking them to listen to five processors with no outside interaction for hours on end is not exactly very appealing. And also switching out different groups of listeners is not going to be very feasible due to time constraints, that is if you give each processor ~30 minutes of playing time.

IMO

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

My 950 will do DTS. I'll try to make up some 5.1 interconnects. If I have time, I'll do some in top-notch Canare cable and their true 75-ohm RCA's, AND I have an idea for some "botique" type interconnects using some military grade teflon/sivler plated wire that I'll braid. I'll also do up a custom power cable using 12-guage of that teflon/silver wire.
Scott: good point about using the big room for the processor comparison.
Speaking of "botique", we should have a fun meet sometime wherein we bring our esoteric, "snake oil" products. Things like green markers to color the edges of CD's, little wood blocks to lay power cords on to keep them off the floor (believe it - I've seen threads about that) for better sound. I could make some vibration-absorbing isolation pads with discs of MDF I have (not going to disclose the source) and will aply a couple layers of snake oil compounds to them. Such a meet could be a late-summer total fun time. We could post "serious" comments for lurkers to marvel at.

 

[Colin Dunn]

My Classé processor will decode DTS.

 

[Frederick_Falk]

On using the back bedroom, what I had envisioned there was a simple two channel setup where we could compare power cords, interconnects and speaker cables. There could be some back there do comparisons while others were in the front LR doing a 5.1, 6.1, etc. comparison on the big boys. But whatever works for the rest of you is fine by me. Just wanted to make that room available for testing if we decide we want to use it.

The Sony DVD and TV are in the main LR and it would be very difficult in moving the set back to the back bedroom as the set alone weights 238 pounds.

Scott: I have a small rack cabinet that we could put the equipment in. I will check tonight to see how many rack spaces it has and get back to you on it later.

Colin, Hank and Jonathan: Did you get my pictures of my place? What room treatments would you suggest for that room?

 

[Mark Hayenga]

FYI, my center channel is not shielded....

BTW, does anyone have a copy of Avia that I could borrow for a week? Thanks,


Mark Hayenga

 

[Greg Risley]

My Acurus Act 3 does DTS and I have a few cool dts disc.
I also have 6 Synergistic Research Alpha Sterling inter. that are 1m each I can bring also have that Synergistic power cord to.
Greg

 

[Scott Oliver]

Sorry guys but in order to make the test even we will have to avoid DTS material.

I did not purchase the DTS option for my Casa Nova since my current DVD player cannot send out a DTS signal, thus saving myself a couple hundred dollars.

 

[Scott Oliver]

Frederick sorry about the confusion on the room issue. One of your above posts had led me to believe that was what you had planned. Anyhow ignore, sounds like we are thinking alike .
Also my Theta does not do 6.1 stuff, 5.1 only. I believe I am not alone in this respect, at least.
So looks like we are close to getting all the equipment in order.
Lets start laying out suggestions for what to use as playing material for the shoot-out. We need both Dolby Digital movie suggestions and stereo CD suggestions.
For movies list Title and what chapter to use within the movie, and of course for CD's which song to use.
My nominees are -
DVD:
"Heat" Ch.32 - gunfight scene
CD:
FIM Gold HDCD - Patricia Barber "Cafe Blue" Nardis
Nils Petter Molvaer "Khmer" Access / Song of Sand 1
FIM XRCD - Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio "The Super Extended Resolution of TBM" Misty
Reference Recordings - Rachmaninoff "Symphonic Dances"

 

[Colin Dunn]

The car chase and shoot-out scenes in "Ronin" also have really good sound. I like those scenes better than the famous "Heat" gunfight scene that Scott suggests...

 

[Mark Hayenga]

I LOVE Nardis! That is such a cool song.

 

[Frederick_Falk]

As far as keeping the main sound room to just 5.1 speakers is fine by me. I had read someone's post that they were going to try and do a 6.1 setup. Either way is fine by me. Maybe after we do the main tests, we could throw in a 6.1 comparison to a 5.1 setup (if we have the time).
I checked on my rack cabinets and I have one on wheels that is 14 rack spaces and one small one in a wooden cabinet that is 8 rack spaces. This whould be plenty for what we are doing.
I am not sure of chapter numbers (as I do not have them memorized ), but I would suggest the following:
Disney's Dinosaur (Meteor scene)
MI2 (Dancing scene)
U-571 (depth-charge scene)
Saving Private Ryan (Tom Hanks shooting at tank scene)
Castaway (Plane crash scene)
I also have "MIB" and "Lost in Space". I also have AVIA and VE disks. I also still have Greg's copy of Highlander although I am not sure if we can use it as a refernece disk.
I also have the Heat DVD and several music DVD's including the Eagles "Hell Freezes Over".
I also have the SACD sampler disk, BUT that is all the SACD disks that I have at this time. If we want to use the SACD part of the 9000ES player for a demo, then someone needs to bring some additional SACD disks with them. ANyone have the Stevie Ray Vaughan SACD "Texas Flood"?

 

[Scott Oliver]

SACD would not work for this shoot-out either since not all the processors are equipped with direct analog bypass and SACD cant be sent via digital quite yet.

The reason I like that Heat sequence is the reverb of the bullets off the buildings. This can be something that is difficult for a transport or DAC to get lifelike.

This scene is one where the Theta Carmen DVD transport really put my Sony S7000 to shame.

What about Titan A.E. and the Ice field scene? If I remember right that had alot of delicate sounds good surrounds, and deep bass to boot.

 

[Frederick_Falk]

Scott: On the SACD, that is why I brought it up as I was unsure if everyone had an analog bypass as my receiver does not and that is why I only have the sampler disk (it came with the unit). Can't see spending money for something I cannot enjoy now when there are so many DVD's that I want right now.
The Titan A.E. is one disk that I do not have. If we want to use it in the evaluation, someone please bring it. I think we need to choose around 6 to 8 scenes for our evaluation. I want to give all of the processors a fair evaluation but I don't want the judges getting fatigued from all of the listening. Once we decide on the chapters to watch, we need to calcualte the total time for all of the scenes and make sure we can get through all of them in the time alloted.
Question: Are we going to play a scene on each processor and then swtich scenes, or are we going to play all the scenes on one processor and then switch to the next processor? OR, are we going to do a combination?

 

[Jonathan DA]

Frederick,
I didn't get the photos you referred to. You may have my old email address, the current one is [email protected].
I would still like to do some DTS and SACD tests if we have time. We can exclude any pros that don't have the right feature set. I'd like to do this for my own personal edification more than anything, so if everyone thinks it's too much that's okay too.
Jonathan

 

[Scott Oliver]

I think SACD and DTS tests would be cool too, but lets just do them after the official 2 ch stereo and 5.1 dolby digital tests are over with. Then the processors that have other features can strut their stuff. It migh also be interesting to have at the beginning of the test a quick run-through of feature sets and useability of each processor as well.
If we limit the tests to 30 minutes for each processor I think we should be able to play 2 to 5 songs depending on length, and about 4-8 movie scenes again depending on length.
Personally, I think all the testing should be done on one processor, then switch processors play the same set list, switch again, so on and so forth. Between each switch the speakers will be calibrated to make sure each processor is playing at the same volume level.
If I am throwing out too many opinions someone feel free to tell me to shut up.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Okay, shut up. Just kidding, sounds like you're wanting to do some serious comparison testing. Say, if you boys want to go nuts, my 950 will do 7.1.
Anyone started any new D-I-Y projects? I think Colin might be close to wanting to build a frame for his PlasTex FP screen.