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Amir's 2023 Pacific Audio Fest Report Day 2

The what???
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Now you know everything ;)
Switch is more important then everything else you ignorant!

ps. an active lan cables. WUT?!
 
Thanks for your effort but the pictures are not visible to me ? tried on 3 diffrent devices and 3 different browsers ?
 
Thanks for your effort but the pictures are not visible to me ? tried on 3 diffrent devices and 3 different browsers ?
Each image is full resolution at 2+ megabytes. Depending on your internet speed, it may take a while to load. If you waited a while and it still doesn't work, can you show/explain what you see in place of the pictures?
 
Each image is full resolution at 2+ megabytes. Depending on your internet speed, it may take a while to load. If you waited a while and it still doesn't work, can you show/explain what you see in place of the pictures?
The broken link placeholder.

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Each image is full resolution at 2+ megabytes. Depending on your internet speed, it may take a while to load. If you waited a while and it still doesn't work, can you show/explain what you see in place of the pictures?
I'll try again at home .

Dropbox may be blocked by my employer so i cant watch from work ;) my iPad is old so it struggles with these treads especially if they are multiple youtube videos in them .
Will try with chrome at my gaming computer later...
 
Great report! I'm pretty much in alignment with many of your perceptions of the rooms. It's been a blast going through this and listening to all the tracks you noted at the show and listening to them at home now on my system.

Indeed, the Dutch & Dutch room was a standout. Most amazing was the lack of anything much in the room at all except the speakers, right up against the glass. No acoustic treatments, no cables and wires all over. Just great sound! They're really amazing. People use these for both professional mixing and mastering, and hifi playback. The weird thing we notice with our customers in the pro world is that they rave about them and we're reluctant to sell them acoustics since the speakers seem to work so well without help. But, when they call back 6 months later they've switched to some other speaker. No complaints, just moved on for various reasons. I've read in other forums glowing reports from audiophiles as well, and when I check back on their latest posts they've moved on. This is a mystery.

Any long term 8c owners out there with no complaints and no urge to try something different?

One thing I learned from going to the show and listening to these systems is just how much I've tuned my setup to my taste. To my ears, my room at home beats everything I heard there by a significant margin overall. It's amazing to hear pieces I did not like the sound of at the show sound quite good at home. And while it's true I have some exceptional bass horns in use, I'm also using cheap Sony SSCS5 speakers for the mids and highs, and powering them with a bottom-of-the-line Denon 5.1 receiver, with sound all routed through my TV, coming off the optical output.

One piece I said I didn't like at the show is Out of Reach by Technimatic. I heard a hashy yuckiness that I just couldn't believe people liked the sound of. Other songs struck me that way too, and I wasn't any happier with it listening on my headphones in the hotel room. On my home system I can clearly separate that "hash" from other sounds. It's a background high frequency airiness and it comes across as a pleasing enough ambience at home. I still don't particularly love it, but I can understand now why they went for this effect.
I heard this track at the show playing through a 300b SET amp, which I would expect from all I've read about tubes to warm and richen up the sound, adding some kind of moody atomospheric magic. It came across thin and flat to me.
Installed the Dutch&Dutch in 2020 in a room appr 4x6 meters, and still love them! The room is acoustically not ideal, but to perform EQ on the speakers is easy and effective.

In a slightly smaller room I have a set of Genelec 8331´s with a Genelec 7350 subwoofer, which is very satisfying as well, but on high volumes the D&D´s perform effortlessly and without distortion, whereas the Genelec´s start to struggle a bit.
 
RE: Your audition of Stax headphones "Sounded exceptionally clean at low to medium levels. Sadly, just like my vintage stax headphones, got severely distorted and output no more power past 3:00 pm on volume control."

Try them on a better amplifier like a KGSSHV or Carbon amp. The Stax amps are inferior, they can't swing enough undistorted voltage to really bring the Stax headphones to life. Also, with more clean voltage swing available, you can EQ the bass to be closer to the Harman curve without causing the amp to clip. The SR-007 (original version) on a Carbon amp with the appropriate EQ are the best 'phones I've ever heard. I like them even better than my Dan Clark Stealth 'phones, though I do love those too.
 
Loved the inclusion of headphones (the Stax looked like the SR-X9000 model btw), smaller active speakers, and more affordable speakers and amplifier. Also, some of the demo tracks are pretty eye (or should I say ear? :p ) opening
 
Indeed, the Dutch & Dutch room was a standout. Most amazing was the lack of anything much in the room at all except the speakers, right up against the glass. No acoustic treatments, no cables and wires all over.
I agree. Seems the common denominator of the rooms was the spaghetti wires ruining the view. Even the half million $$$ speakers.
 
Nicest decorated room at the show! :) They turned on the lights for me but otherwise, it was dark with just the candles lighting up the room. I am told the owner is into showcasing the gear this way. The person manning the room was actually a customer that was helping out with his own personal gear:
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The owner had wisely disconnected the lower driver as he said the room sounded too boomy with it on.

Amir doesn't seem to mention the make of those speakers but they look a lot like the sealed, 2.5 way version of my Zaph Audio ZRT speakers. The drivers are or strongly resemble the ZRT's Scan-Speak drivers.

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