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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: New superlative horn build - ESD acoustic
Post Subject: Failed installationPosted by martinshorn on: 5/18/2018
Interesting. Also to be put in relation to the other things reported there.
I came Saturday Sunday to ESD. Sunday, they welcomed me
Dai:
"hey you have been here before" ....
me:
"yes yes i need to see if what i heard yesterday was really that good because sometimes, first impressions can fool you"
(thinking I fooled myself enough years before with pursuing to copy technology from one-time experiences that were not good enough the second time)
Dai:
"yes in fact its even better now, we have fine tuned the crossover and made room voicing"
me:
"you dont do that before the exhibition starts? 
when did you arrive? Monday?"
(you have to know that only Fri,Sat,Sun is private / public. Thursday (1st day) is closed / open for professional journalism only)
Dai:
"yes we arrived even earlier for that purpose. But the speakers arrived to late. The Chinese courier failed to be in time. We could not setup anything, but just put things here and plug them in. First day we even started without the woofer horn. Then just in the evening when the exhibition was closed we have time for fintune. I think only today (sunday) it actually sounds good. But what can you do"
So thinking stereophile was there thursday... I dont want to sound like a defender making excuse for everything, but make up your own judgement, this above, i swear, was just a quote 1:1.
Now, I did listen to the Stein couple of times intense as well. The integration of dipole subs into room acoustics is great. The overall system was good. And the tweeter was screaming my ears off. Same i heard from friends (who also listen DSP linearized @home and know what is tonal balance). That buddy also came to ESD on friday and did not like them at all. Many complained in fact. Others, like Hifipig and Avantgarde team themselves (yes) were there sunday and loved ESD. So, no common agreement.
I think we are all humans who react to stress, run around, have better worse room setups. And we all need to focus more on judging fair.
For me this means, i dont go for 1 day rushing through, 10 minutes everywhere.
I go 3 days. I go slow. I have a coffee break every 2 hours. I walk slow. I listen long and close my eyes.
In the morning i put my earplugs, in the hotel, and take them off when the music plays and i sit down. To have silence from all the humble around.
Then, if something is unexpectedly bad or good, i go next day again. And even third day if im still surprised.
I walk through the room and accommodate to the room acoustics (clap, clear throat...)
Check different seats, stand up, listen from end of the room, etc...
Back in bed at night between those days, i recalibrate for the next day on my stax reference headphone, playing the typical songs of the day i just heard.
Its difficult to judge on exhibitions, but you can make up your strategy to do way better.
Biggest obstracle to me remains the surrounding noise.
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