Well what fun that was!!
In contrast to last year everything worked when I plugged it in, no smoke and no electric shocks!! It was a good start to a great couple of days. After confirming that my system worked I enjoyed a few pints, some curry and some good company in various rooms. This is my favourite bit of the show, the rooms are much less crowded and there is more time to have a relax and listen to few choons and chinwag. The lodgeosound room was for me the best room that evening, sound aside it was simply wonderful to see these machines still working and still sounding spot on, I reminisced about using these types of decks back in the day and spent a lot of time with a silly grin on my face. If I'd have had to go home after that I'd have been happy TBH. I listened to some of the horns as well, again I was impressed, I've said before I'm not a natural fan of horn systems, but when everything else falls into place they do offer an ease which is seldom found elsewhere and lets face it, having the commitment to run massive horn speakers in a domestic setting is worthy of anyone's praise. The best for me was the Somerby room, very nice presentation, Good banter and lovely lovely plinths on both decks - anyone know what the plinths were?
After a poor night sleep I woke excited, had breakfast and ran back upstairs to move the furniture out and run a few room sweeps before the punters arrived. I suspected when I had arrived the day before and measured the room and ran a quick sim that it might work out OK, measuring confirmed it. The corners of the room collected some 35hz so I had to pull the speakers forward a bit and I popped the mattresses there which seemed to sort the worst of it. There was a little 60hz bump in the middle of the room where folk would have to sit so a 1q -3dB filter tamed that a bit but other than that no real need for room correction.
Having only just completed the speakers like the day before I was hearing most stuff along with the punters for the first time. I was a bit gutted that I had to sit at the side while they got to enjoy my shiny new speakers in the 'hotseat'! Even so I spent most of the day grinning like a cheshire cat and tapping my foot. A lot of folk were complementary in the extreme and a lot of folk left quickly which just goes to show the breadth of opinion this hobby engenders. Some folk returned a few time to ask further questions and showed a genuine interest in how it all worked, I can waffle about filters, FIR, baffle diffraction, driver damping etc all day (and did) so that was nice.
One man came in with his young son who wanted to listen to Jay-z as he liked Rap. After playing that I ran him through some Young-MC, NWA, De La Soul etc. He noted straight away how much more dynamics and light and shade and even soul these older recordings had - job done
Last year a lady actually cried in my room when I played her 'Stairway to Heaven'. This year I saw her and her husband in the corridor on one of my short trips out and almost dragged her to my room to have another go. It's funny how we can get fixated on things, but as conveying emotion is something that is very important to how we listen to music, I've often pondered over that lady crying and had wondered if I ever met her again would the new speakers be able to pull it off as well? I nearly cried myself when I saw a tear roll down her cheek. Ain't music great
We ended up with a funny selection of music in my room, I normally have a penchant for acoustic guitar and a voice, folk, and that sort of thing. However word seemed to get round that the speakers could do low and tight bass and folk kept turning up wanting to listen to Kraftwerk, daft punk, and Dub regge tracks. All good fun.
I only got to visit a few rooms myself during the day and they were all brilliant in their own way, not a duff sound amongst them. Edd9000, big ballsy huge sound, what's not to like. Grimm audio, refined, laid back, transparent, lush, everything I wanted them to be. Greybeards LS3/5a clones were lovely indeed, similar in many ways to the Grimm speakers in that see through precision, no bass at all obviously but it was actually a refreshing change, made me want to build some small speakers myself. That was about all I got time to have a reasonable listen to, I so much wanted to have a look at other things but hey ho.
All in all i'll definitely be back next year although I've no idea what I'll build.
Thanks to everyone who came with all thier kit and thanks to James for organising it all. Best audio show by miles.
Stefan
