The first day or two of the show, when it became 3 or 4 o’clock, with just a few hours to go until closing at 6:00pm, I thought: “Everybody [including myself] is getting tired, we should play some nice loud rock and roll to wake people up!”

But on average people did not seem to react all that well to this.

Then It finally came time to have another thought: “Maybe people are burnt out, their ears are so blasted by loud unpleasant sounds, that ANYTHING loud is just too painful to bear”.

So, to test THIS theory, I played opera and jazz and country music at modest volumes instead.

People seemed to like this a lot more – their faces had a relaxed look as they turned around to leave and resume walking the gauntlet of exhibit rooms.

So, taking this model into account, that people come in with ears affected by the sound in other rooms, as well as by the time of day and blood sugar level, I came up with this tentative optimal schedule:

Morning ear wake-up: classical, new age, …

Morning pick-me-up: rock and roll

Before lunch blast off: heavy metal, techno

Post lunch digestive period: anything but heavy metal and techno

Nap time: gentle jazz and classical, opera and ‘audiophile music’

Closing wrap-up: quietly play gentle jazz and classical, opera and ‘audiophile music’

——

And, if the show ran long enough, and for those unfortunate enough to venture into enough unpleasant rooms, then the mere drop on a pin! would cause the most hardy of audiophiles to flinch :-).

I am not sure the above schedule has all the bugs ironed out yet – but you get the idea, the idea that the groups of people coming into an exhibit room have by-and-large experienced the same thing all day, whereas at home, some of us had a bad day with the boss [Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal, Gangsta Rap], or a bad traffic day coming home [new age music, baroque, slow saxaphonish jazz], met a potentially significant other [Neal Young, Pink Floyd – or maybe that was just me :-)], … etc.

This room played modern tube equipment on old Western Electric 757 speakers from 1947.

These speakers sound very different from most speakers of today. The resolution was much less than average, the notes ended a little too quickly, lots of midi-dynamics, but minimal micro- and macro-dynamics.

But the sound was immediate and very, very honest. – by which I mean that nothing was exaggerated and the sound was very predictable [lots of speakers sound different if a note happens during a complex passage versus happening during a quiet passage].

Silbatone preamp

Silbatone amp

So, as the world turned and the decades passed by like cars on a train…

So some companies built speakers with lots of resolution, some with notes that decayed slower and were ‘warmer’, some added lots of micro-dynamics (ceramic drivers) or macro-dynamics (big tall speakers with lots of big drivers)… AS IF many of these companies tried to address a weakness in this classic design while ignoring its other weaknesses and ignoring its strengths.

So now we have a plethora of flavors, a veritable Wall-mart of flavors, some even fashionable for a year or two, and only a very few designs that actually improved on this original by doing many things better, and very few things worse.

Anyway, that is what I think is the attraction to so many people when they listen to this system – and those like it. Its like a body-builder who only worked on their biceps for 64 years seeing a Olympic gymnast for the 1st time. It’s like ‘uh, maybe some of the ways we have been doing things have gotten kind of to the point of grotesqueness…?’

Joan waiting for the music in the last few grooves on the LP to be played.

I love this photo because, if you have ever done this yourself [and who hasn’t?] there is a interesting state of mind that occurs [usually]. You now just have one single task in life: listening to the music until the music’s over. A good deal of calm settles in and one [me anyway] listens to the music not so much intently as in this casual, enjoying the moment kind of way.

Serious Stereo’s 2A3-based amp

The Galibier turntable

For me, this was the best this room has sounded over the last few years. Simple, enjoyable, musical. [Never did get to hear Blows Against the Empire though, you guys. 🙂 Then again, the end of Sunrise should approach (virtually) 150db reflecting the dawn-apocalypse that is humankind’s arrival on this planet 😉 and I’ve never heard any system be able to do this… yet. We’ll have to try it with the Gaku-On’s someday]