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30.7's in New Haven -- in a word, amazing.
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Posted on March 7, 2019 at 09:09:16 | ||
Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010 |
Well, it seems I lucked out -- Wendell said that the room at Take 5 in New Haven was one of the better ones he's been to. And since as he put it, some of the rooms he's gone to made 30.7's sound inferior to 3.7's,- and, as he also said, he's been to 49 rooms and heard 49 30.7's, it seems I really was fortunate! The room itself was nicely sized, 22 x 18 with really high ceilings, thin panels on the walls (still wondering what they were -- scatter plates?), acoustic ceiling and carpet, tube traps in the corners. The 30.7's were maybe six feet from the front wall. That's Ralph Cortigiano, Take 5's proprietor, to the right: (Apologies for the quality of the photos, I just took a few quick snapshots and I was in the crowd.) Wendell began by explaining that the purpose of the North American tour wasn't primarily to sell 30.7's -- flagships don't sell in large quantity -- but to connect with audiophiles and promote the brand with an interesting demonstration. He described how he had been looking for a solution to the usual demo problem, namely, that almost nobody gets to sit in the sweet spot, and came up with the idea of removing the chairs and letting people circulate so that everyone had a chance to listen for the center. And this provided an opportunity to say something interesting about the effect of power response, which is at least as important as on-axis response in determining what the listener hears. [My nerdy addendum: subjectively, power response predominates at lower frequencies, on-axis response at higher ones.] Wendell also explained that he had set the midrange-tweeter panels with the tweeters on the outside rather than the inside and otherwise set them up to optimize performance for the whole room rather than a sweet spot -- something he describes as more of an art than a science. This meant that the imaging in the sweet spot wasn't as precise as it would normally be. Then Ralph started playing the music (the dealers choose the playlists and provide the equipment -- in this case, the source was an Aurender server feeding a Moon preamp and amp at 500 watts/channel into 4 ohms). He began with the Minnesota Orchestra's recording of the Dance of the Tumblers -- Wendell tells me that he'd set the speakers up so that the perspective was similar to what he heard from Jim Winey's seat in Row 11 at the hall. As the regulars here know, Wendell has had some frustrations on this tour, both with the varying and often substandard acoustics at dealers, and the fact that he didn't think the sometimes critical comments on the Internet reflected the audience reaction. So he asked me to observe the audience, and make some notes of the reaction. But first, my own. From the time I heard the opening chord, I knew I was listening to something special. Two things stood out.One was the remarkable image. When someone in the audience asked him about the sonic difference between the 30.7's and the 20.7's, Wendell said that his wife Galina had been on one of the listening panels and, when asked to compare the two speakers, said that the 20.7's sounded like a tunnel, and the 30.7's like a waterfall. And that's exactly what it sounded like, a waterfall! Of course I'm familiar with the imaging of the IVa's, which is of similar design. So what I heard first, and what really blew me away, was the purity and accuracy of the 30.7's. It was essentially the performance of the Maggie ribbon extended down through the midrange to touch the bass. And the naturalism just blew me away. Between that and the planar imaging, I could hear immediately why the critics had said you'd need to spend in the $100,000 range to equal it. With Wendell's request in mind, I took some notes on the audience reaction. "Unbelievable," one guy said. Others shook their heads. Then someone said "I need to win the lottery," and everyone cracked up. I took a snapshot that I think illustrates the typical reaction, including mine -- look at the expression on their faces! Interestingly, the most powerful reaction, mine and it seemed to me others as well, came not from the orchestral music or the Brubeck cut (need I mention which one?) or Louis Armstrong singing "Saint James Infirmary," but from the smallest piece Ralph played, Beethoven's F major quartet (nah, I didn't remember which one it was, I looked on the display :-) ). It was far and away the best rendition of a string quartet I've ever heard, because between the ribbon and the new high performance midrange and the midbass coupler it had *none* of the glitz and glare that you always hear on strings, but rather the purity that I hear at live performances. There was a moment of skepticism, too -- someone in the audience said he didn't care about symphonies and listened to nothing but rock, and an interested discussion occurred as Ralph described the differing demands of different kinds of music, accuracy as opposed to slam. I want to stress that this isn't a review. People were moving around, casting acoustic shadows, and we were all too guilty to hog the sweet spot, which frequently went empty as a result. You just can't hear all of a speakers virtues and flaws under such circumstances. But knowing Maggies and my IVa's as I do, it was easy to hear that they'd been remarkably effective at improving the midrange and that it had the spectacular spatial imaging of the IVa's. Which brings up another issue. The day after I came back, I naturally searched out some of the recordings we'd listened to and tried them on my IVa's. I was of course a bit afraid to do this, knowing how unrefined they'd sound compared to the 30.7's. And of course I heard that. (Though I was also reminded that they're pretty damn good! Definitely a first world problem.) But what struck me was that the IVa's were giving me clean, gut-punching levels that they hadn't even tried to achieve in the larger room, and more specific imaging. That in turn helped me better appreciate what some who are listening at the demos have been writing. You just can't optimize speakers for a large audience and play them into a big room full of people with the same imaging and levels that you can in your room at home. And this is more true of planars than dynamics because while Tympani-size planars can have good dynamics, they don't have the headroom of something like a big Wilson that says "6dB more for the show? Fine by me." I just measured a 113 dB peak on the Organ Symphonyand the IVa's didn't break a sweat, while you could hear that the amp or speakers were getting a bit uncomfortable at times during the demo. So at the demo, I was making allowances for these artifacts and listening for the improvements that I could hear. And I found myself wishing, after playing the cuts at home, that everyone could have heard the 30.7's up close and personal just to hear the dynamic impact that large planars are capable of. So that's about it. I was in one of those periods where I get bored with audio and don't feel like tinkering or listening, but this lit the fires again. It was that kind of experience, with the kind of magical quality that had me wanting to email people and thinking jesus.fucking.christ. I haven't had that kind of experience in a long time. And I could see that others were having a similar reaction. |
RE: 30.7's in New Haven -- in a word, amazing., posted on March 7, 2019 at 11:56:50 | |
Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010 |
Makes sense -- I'll ask him. |
RE: 30.7's in New Haven -- in a word, amazing., posted on March 7, 2019 at 14:38:45 | |
Posts: 3913
Location: Baton Rouge Joined: December 23, 1999 |
Must have been quite a demo. |
RE: 30.7's in New Haven -- in a word, amazing., posted on March 8, 2019 at 05:30:23 | |
Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010 |
Do they have a cylinder player as well? |