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Hey, big surprise - I agree with your first point!

...where the second and third octaves were almost always so weak that recordings of a Steinway grand piano sounded more like a toy piano ... is not acceptable to me. That is NOT what high fidelity is about.

First of all, audio shows are really not good places to audition gear. It's like going to a car show. You can look and touch but not really experience. They serve to narrow down the auditioning process in your home later. The environments are rarely if ever designed for good acoustics. Further, there are compromises made to accommodate either displaying other gear or more folks in the room. The speaker is not given its "choice" in the matter. All you can expect to glean is an idea of a system's potential.

This past Sunday, I spent about four hours optimizing the position of my (picky to place ) bipolars in their new room. I began with the golden triangle method and experiemented from there. The initial position resulted in a 16 db variation in one of those octaves. It sounded heavy. After twenty two trials of moving speakers, moving listening couch, bass traps, and bass contour control (yes, there is a "three band EQ" built into the transformers), I found the smoothest overall result. This was verified by using an RS SPL meter and a test CD with ten test frequencies ranging from 25-200 hz. While the room does exhibit an inherent peak at 40 hz, I was able to get no more than a 3 db variance from 60 hz to 200 hz. 4 db to 50 hz.

"I recommend that you listen to real music for a change and you will get to understand just how awfully inadequate most audio reproducing systems are even when cost is no object...especially when cost is no object." (damned HTML tag problem!)


So how many years have you been a child molester? I do listen to live music almost every day (wife's baby grand) and like you, use classical music as the reference point. The very best systems I've heard (certainly NOT limited to mine) do convey many aspects of the live experience, especially when that is an intimate venue.

rw

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