by Michael

RMAF 2011 – Setup is tomorrow

Neli drove some of our stuff down today. A couple of more trips tomorrow and we’ll be ready for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

This year we are showing a 100% Audio Note level 5 system on HRS platforms and rack. This is the first time we have shown 100% Audio Note systems in both our room and the Audio Note room – but as we try and change things a little each year we thought this would be fun.

This will consist of:

AN/E SEC Signature speakers
Kegon Balanced monoblock amps
M9 Phono preamplifier
Fifth Element DAC and Fifth Force power supply
CDT-5 transport
SOTTO and PALLAS cabling
Sogon power cords

Peter Qvortrup – Audio Note founder and CEO will also be in attendance.

At this time I am planning on doing an ‘abbreviated’ show report, like last year.

Interesting things pre-show? It looks like Cessaro and GOTO and maybe Silbatone will have some interesting horn speakers for us to listen to.

Here’s hoping for some good drug-like sound at the show – I can really use it. I bet all of us could. 🙂 On the other hand, we’ve been getting good druggy sound here and it makes me not want to post on the blog or read the trade rags and visit the forums… or go to shows – been a very quiet summer… 🙂 Maybe some drug-like sounds are a little too relaxing? Nahhhhh….

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 by Michael

RMAF coming right up

Got this in our email box. Kind of hard to read there… so hopefully easier here:

… and it is. For me anyway.

This whole idea that people can say “XXX mixed on XYZ equipment and therefore – how did they put it – playing the music on their equipment is ‘exactly how it was intended to be heard'” is really kind of BS. Don’t you agree?

I mean lots of music gets mixed with EmmLabs A to D equipment. Great bragging rights but IMHO the music produced with their equipment is intended to sound good. Period.

Play it back on better equipment it is going to sound… better. Period.

I mean, they mix using Genelec speakers? What then? What about old Watt Puppy 5’s? From my conversations mixing engineers use speakers that they feel comfortable with, that they can stand listening to for many hours at a time, and that they feel reveals nuances that they believe they need to hear in order to conjure the best results – i.e. it needs enough bass, for example, so they can make sure the bass is not too soft or too overwhelming.

This has nothing to do with enjoyment, or accuracy, or drug-like effects or anything that we who are playing back music are concerned about [in general. for some people making it sound like it did in the studio, no matter how good or bad, is what they want. It is like wanting the original lighting that a painting was painted with, as opposed to optimum lighting to highlight the overall viewing pleasures]

Anyway – curious to see how these sound in surround sound – all but abandoned by the audiophile world and a goodly amount of the home theater world, if the show setups and economy are any indication . I mean, Wish You Were Here *is* my 5th fave Pink Floyd album … or so [ which is one of my top 5 Rock and Roll bands, so, yeah, I like it OK :-)]

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