# T. H. E. Show Newport, CA June 3-5



## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

Any one game for a romp next weekend?

Although primarily a high end home audio show, there will be luxury vehicles with "high end" stereos on site. The Magic Bus will likely be there with it's fancy Dyn's and Bass Traps. 

If you're looking to hear some reference sound, bring your CD's, flash drives or portable music players and come on down for a listen. It's great fun to hop from room to room and frown at $100,000 systems as if you could afford any of it.

Also, there will be live music and you might even get to beat box along with a Jazz singer as I did last year.

Interesting food trucks, a room with free liquor and tortillas chips and a give away plastic bag with marketing materials, what more could you want?

The best part? Hallways full of old, deluded men who complain about nuances in the shift of colors within the frequency range as if they could hear a foot past their ears.

Even better, all the Snake Oil you can drink.

Serious...


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

How was it? Did you manage to play Lil' Wayne in anyone's hotel room?


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## dgage (Oct 1, 2013)

I had a room there showing off my subwoofers last year and received many complaints. I'll present again next year when I get my speakers done. Good time though. Have fun! And if I pay for shipping, will you ship me a bottle of snake oil, I'm almost out from last year?


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

A subwoofer is not a gentleman's choice. They must have put you in the broom closet.


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## dgage (Oct 1, 2013)

My first year and they didn't know any better. I was going to exhibit at the Capital Audiofest in DC but one of the other exhibitors complained so I pulled out as it wasn't worth the expense.

Here are a few pictures of the room.
Deep Sea Sound: Newport 2015 - Audio Federation

And here is where some attendees chimed in on AVS.
Official Deep Sea Sound Thread - Page 16 - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews

We were told by attendees we were the only HT oriented room and some said we were the most fun. Others walked in the room and quickly turned around with a look of disgust.


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

Oh man, if I knew about your room I would have soaked up the T-Rex stomps.

I mostly listened to all the live music playing at that back building just reorienting my audio reference. I was impressing into my memory banks the visceral punch of bass guitar, the staccato drumming of the piano keys, the ethereal, breathy voices of the women singers.

I did manage to do an impromptu beatbox with a violin player. I'm not sure why I'm the go to guy for beats because I'm really not that good at it.

I did listen to a JBL setup where the image truly sounded as if it started at the back wall and went way past it. The demo guys did some kind of input switch at the wall and the music was playing behind them, the paintings, it was weird. Highly impressive audio trick but I could imagine it getting annoying. Maybe for theater though?

Took a listen to my favorite room, the MBL's. The more I listen to those speakers, the more I wonder if they sacrifice accuracy for oh so prettiness.

Hung out with Jon and his upgraded Magic "Sony" Bus. It certainly sounds better. The vocals were, dare I say, more dynamic. There was more space in his stage, although I wonder if was a product of his bleedingly high resolution files. When I played a standard ACDC disk, I could actually hear the background noise. It sounded like shoddy mastering. Crazy, huh?

Anyways, on the food tip, I had some kind of Texas fries that was full of cheese, crispy shallots, bacon, and some kind of grilled sausage off the Dogzilla Truck. Delish! I also had dinner with a few musicians and boy, can them people tell stories.

Unfortunately, I avoided all the Snake oil this year and my reserve is slated for the upcoming MECA shows and my commentaries concerning wire changes.


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## High Resolution Audio (Sep 12, 2014)

rawdawg said:


> Oh man, if I knew about your room I would have soaked up the T-Rex stomps.
> 
> I mostly listened to all the live music playing at that back building just reorienting my audio reference. I was impressing into my memory banks the visceral punch of bass guitar, the staccato drumming of the piano keys, the ethereal, breathy voices of the women singers.
> 
> ...


What separates a great system from a good system is the ability of the system to reveal minute details in the recording media. I'm glad Jon is taking steps to improve the sound of the bus. 

A great system easily makes apparent the flaws in the master recording. As a system gets better, vast differences between the quality of the recording becomes obviously evident. On a really good system, one can hear tape hiss when the master was recorded with an Analog Master Tape.

I know that Jon spent a lot of money on sound acoustical treatment. My comment earlier about the bus sounding "dull and lifeless" is IMO because of too much acoustical treatment. Although it is a good thing to apply treatment to get rid of first reflections...........taking it to the opposite extreme and getting rid of almost all reflections takes the "life" and the sense of realness and excitement out of the playback. 

Live performances are filled with reflections. That is what makes it sound live. All reflections are not bad.

You mentioned to me in the past that some people do not care for the sound of live performances. You specifically mentioned the harshness that some horns ( such as the trumpet ) can throw out. Yes a loud trumpet aimed directly at ones ears can take the enjoyment out of listening to a band play live.

However, this is where good tuning comes into play. Most people strive to get a flat frequency response curve. ( Or a waterfall curve depending ). IMO again, this is wrong. Fletcher Munson curve reveals that as the volume changes, the perceived volume of human hearing changes. Because I listen to my system at about 95 Decibels generally speaking, I make cuts at the frequencies that sound harsh at that volume level. But generally I like to boost both the upper and lower frequencies due to the Fletcher Munson effect.

Boosting the upper makes the playback have that sparkle and sound "alive". Boosting the lower frequencies makes the recording sound rich and full. 

A system is properly tuned if one can listen to it at a high volume (nearing 100 DB) without getting fatigued or hearing any harshness while at the same time hearing all the small subtle details that make the recording sparkle. The shimmer of the symbols should hang in the air as long as possible as they do in real life. 

I find that if one tunes this way ( to hear no harshness at high volume ) then one can listen to the system at any volume level and it will sound great.

Most systems that I listen to have one, or two issues, or both. As the volume goes up, the bass sounds distorted due to the levels being boosted too much, or from lack of time alignment. 

But the most prominent flaw IMO, is in the high end. To me, finding the right tweeter is the key to a great sounding system. Most seem too dull and don't have that shimmer and sparkle, or the other extreme, as the volume goes up the tweeter sounds harsh.

After being on this forum for a year or so and learning a lot, and from tuning myself and having my system tuned my an expert, I can tell you now that having proper time alignment and having near perfect L/R EQ far outweighs trying to tune for a flat response. So many of the people on here think that SQ is directly related to how flat or how smooth the FR curve is. Although having a smooth curve is desirable, being able to listen to the system without cringing ( cutting back harsh frequencies ) is far more important. 

This means that the FR curve will not be flat, and it may not be perfectly smooth in certain areas which is o.k. 

Months ago, Jon asked me for a photo of my FR Curve. After seeing it he stated directly to me, that;

"I'm sorry, but after looking at that curve, there is no way that your system can sound good." 

After hearing both systems in person, I can say that frequency response curve in itself, is not a good indicator how good or bad a system will sound.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Wow!!


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

But should the environment supply the reflections or should the playback system?
I've been pondering a bit more and I really think most of Jon's improvements came from his sleight of hand with the Helix.


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## dgage (Oct 1, 2013)

I used to install car stereos in high school, around 25 years ago so we didn't have many options in terms of DSP or treatments. And if we did, most of our customers weren't interested in treatments, just boom, boom. So most of my experience now comes from my experience in home theater but I find it transforms well.

I own JTR 212 HT/LPs, which are the sealed version of what is now the 212 HTR. They are a high efficiency speaker with amazing output, dynamics, and detail. The coaxial compression driver is $700 by itself so definitely a quality upper end speaker. I bring this up because I have heard the 212 in several different rooms, some treated and some not so good for audio. What I've found is that regardless of the room, I still like my JTR 212s, even when on one listening session we compared them directly to the $15,000/pair JBL M2 studio reference monitor. But I also noticed how HUGE a difference the room made in how they sounded in terms of smoothness and detail. So I'd say EQ is one part but the environment also plays a huge role. Then bring in different capabilities of DSP equipment and tuning abilities and it really is hard to compare different systems or even replicate someone else's system with the same equipment.


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## papasin (Jan 24, 2011)

rawdawg said:


> But should the environment supply the reflections or should the playback system?
> I've been pondering a bit more and I really think most of Jon's improvements came from his sleight of hand with the Helix.



You should experiment for yourself.


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## High Resolution Audio (Sep 12, 2014)

rawdawg said:


> But should the environment supply the reflections or should the playback system?
> I've been pondering a bit more and I really think most of Jon's improvements came from his sleight of hand with the Helix.


The magic is in the Sony Unit. The D/A converter does a really incredible job of converting files. It's a special ESS chip that is the secret to the unit sounding so good. A friend of mine has one and it was in his car. I had the privilege of listening to the best bass I have ever heard.

The environment needs to create reflections. Try listening to music outside in the middle of an open field with nothing for the sound to bounce off. You will find that lots and lots of information goes missing and it does not quite sound right. What is missing is the reflections of the environment. Play the same recording in a room, and that's when you should get the "ah ha moment".


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

Does the open field still apply if you are standing in the audio field of discrete multichannel set up? Wouldn't that type of playback give you the necessary cues to pretend you're somewhere else?

Jon said as much, concerning the Sony unit. He said he couldn't believe how much the F1 units were choking the music. The F1!!! If that's the case, then my iPod is a stone cold mass murderer.

As an aside, Sony had their official auto next to the Bus outfitted with all Sony Gear including the Super Saiyan head unit. Coaxials in the doors, supplemental tweets on the dash, sub out back, that thing sounded like it would place 4th or 5th in a field of 3 at a local no double points Show and Shine. Super nice guys though.


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## papasin (Jan 24, 2011)

rawdawg said:


> that thing sounded like it would place 4th or 5th in a field of 3 at a local no double points Show and Shine. Super nice guys though.



Something only rawdawg would say and would be awesome if you wrote that on someone's scoresheet. We really need to get you to judge one of our events!


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

What, and lose all my friends? Naw, I'd rather backstab people right here on the forum as most peeps think I look like a big bowl of punch.


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## papasin (Jan 24, 2011)

rawdawg said:


> What, and lose all my friends? Naw, I'd rather backstab people right here on the forum as most peeps think I look like a big bowl of punch.


I told a buddy recently: "Man, with all your friends, who needs enemies.  ". In the same stead, if you can't tell your friends the brutal truth about how things sound, well....  For me, I'd rather you not sugar coat and tell me if my car sucks....so am I to assume you've been sugar coating all this time?


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## High Resolution Audio (Sep 12, 2014)

rawdawg said:


> Does the open field still apply if you are standing in the audio field of discrete multichannel set up? Wouldn't that type of playback give you the necessary cues to pretend you're somewhere else?
> 
> Jon said as much, concerning the Sony unit. He said he couldn't believe how much the F1 units were choking the music. The F1!!! If that's the case, then my iPod is a stone cold mass murderer.
> 
> As an aside, Sony had their official auto next to the Bus outfitted with all Sony Gear including the Super Saiyan head unit. Coaxials in the doors, supplemental tweets on the dash, sub out back, that thing sounded like it would place 4th or 5th in a field of 3 at a local no double points Show and Shine. Super nice guys though.


Even with the multi channel, a ton of the sound would be lost. It needs be contained to sound right. 

I had much fun last year at T.H.E. Show. Flying across country again, was not on my list of favorite things to do. I went to the New York Audio Show last fall. It was like a very small, mini version of the one in Newport Beach. 

It seems like this side of the country does not have a ton of audio enthusiasts as does your side. Oh well.


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

....so am I to assume you've been sugar coating all this time? 

You should really check your A1C...


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## rawdawg (Apr 27, 2007)

High Resolution Audio said:


> Even with the multi channel, a ton of the sound would be lost. It needs be contained to sound right.


Interesting. That doesn't quite jive with what PBates had experienced. I believe PB auditioned a system at CES that was elevated above the booths in the Great Hall and he said it was one of the best things he's listened to, specifically because of the lack of environment induced reflections.


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

I learned that lesson with the first F1 system.

I had a Nak CD700II feeding my Rane RPM88...then switched to the H900 and 7990. Complete disappointment. Dynamics- gone. That stayed in the car for bit and eventully the Rane went back in with the 7990.



rawdawg said:


> Jon said as much, concerning the Sony unit. He said he couldn't believe how much the F1 units were choking the music. The F1!!! If that's the case, then my iPod is a stone cold mass murderer.
> 
> .


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## High Resolution Audio (Sep 12, 2014)

rawdawg said:


> Interesting. That doesn't quite jive with what PBates had experienced. I believe PB auditioned a system at CES that was elevated above the booths in the Great Hall and he said it was one of the best things he's listened to, specifically because of the lack of environment induced reflections.


I'm sorry, but forgive my ignorance. I've never been to the C.E.S, but isn't the Great Hall inside? Even if the ceiling is extremely high, the sound is contained and it is reflected back from floors and ceilings, and walls. 

There are reflections...... they are just not near reflections but far reflections, ( but reflections nonetheless ) These far reflections will present a more open and spacious sound field, different from what most people have heard. 

This concept is not new. Years ago, the massive churches with grand pipe organs on all four walls presented music in such a way as to almost transport the listeners to another place in time and space. It was a very spiritual experience. 

Totally different from being outside in an open field. This scenario for sure will sound very weird.


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