Lone Star Audio Fest, Dallas this weekend ... come see me and Pete!

[DoubleTap]

http://lonestaraudiofest.com/

Pete and I will be there showing off a pair of my Cirrus speakers. A nicely upgraded pair with Amorphous Core RAAL and V-Cap OIMP's with CuTf bypass. We'll have fantastic front end gear, and the room should sound very nice.

If anybody is local to the Dallas area and wants to grab dinner and a beer Friday or Saturday night, PM me and I'll give you a cell phone number. I'd love to meet some new faces.

Even though we're DIY'ers here, and I doubt anybody will be buying a pair of my $4000 speakers, I'd really love for you to come by and give me your thoughts on them.

[johnnyrichards]

I'd love to, but a little late notice. I do have family down there, though.

[PassingInterest]

I hadn't planned on attending, but I might make it after all.

[fntn]

I couldn't think of a better way to spend an afternoon - sweet music on beautifully crafted speakers followed by a nice medium rare dinosaur cut Dallas prime rib and a glass of Wild Horse Merlot....but alas, I'm about 1500 miles away....

[Pete Schumacher ®]

I couldn't think of a better way to spend an afternoon - sweet music on beautifully crafted speakers followed by a nice medium rare dinosaur cut Dallas prime rib and a glass of Wild Horse Merlot....but alas, I'm about 1500 miles away....

I think you just picked my dinner menu. Thanks!!!!

[fastbike1]

I'm planning to be there first thing Saturday morning. Won't be able to do dinner, but I'll look you guys up. Definitely would like to hear the RAAL.

[Ray Tremblay]

I'd love to, but a little late notice.

Yeah. If I would have known ahead of time, I could have booked a flight with a rental car for around a hundred bucks. It's closer to four hundred to fly on short notice. I'm close by (Austin), but flying is the only way I could make it to work on time on Saturday night.

I just can't justify spending $400 to go to Dallas just to argue with Double Tap all day.

[DoubleTap]

I hadn't planned on attending, but I might make it after all.

Make sure and bring some music!

[killa]

http://lonestaraudiofest.com/

Pete and I will be there showing off a pair of my Cirrus speakers. A nicely upgraded pair with Amorphous Core RAAL and V-Cap OIMP's with CuTf bypass. We'll have fantastic front end gear, and the room should sound very nice.

If anybody is local to the Dallas area and wants to grab dinner and a beer Friday or Saturday night, PM me and I'll give you a cell phone number. I'd love to meet some new faces.

Even though we're DIY'ers here, and I doubt anybody will be buying a pair of my $4000 speakers, I'd really love for you to come by and give me your thoughts on them.

Maybe if you offered them in kit form without the fancy cabs (fancy in a good way) and xo's we could almost afford them. Your just trying to torture us. lol

[critofur]

Yeah. If I would have known ahead of time, I could have booked a flight with a rental car for around a hundred bucks. It's closer to four hundred to fly on short notice. I'm close by (Austin), but flying is the only way I could make it to work on time on Saturday night.

I just can't justify spending $400 to go to Dallas just to argue with Double Tap all day.

You might hookup with a bargain last minute flight? If the airline has an empty seat, no sense not letting you sit in it for $100... Priceline.com or such on the same day as the flight, maybe?

Maybe if you offered them in kit form without the fancy cabs (fancy in a good way) and xo's we could almost afford them. Your just trying to torture us. lol

The cabs may be the single most important feature - most DIY cabs are not adequate to deliver that last step up to excellent sound quality. The BEST drivers available in a typical cabinet are not going to equal a well designed system using $50 drivers in an excellent cabinet. DT's cabs look good to me (by that I mean the insides, not talking about the finish).

I am disappointed at the Teflon caps however, pretty much every test I've seen them measured in they perform worse than polypropylene; also, "bypass" caps have been shown time and time again to be ineffective (don't make much difference).

I'm not saying don't bother with decent quality poly (such as "Crosscap") over electrolytic, but "beyond" that doesn't get you "better", just different, if anything.

[killa]

You might hookup with a bargain last minute flight? If the airline has an empty seat, no sense not letting you sit in it for $100... Priceline.com or such on the same day as the flight, maybe?



The cabs may be the single most important feature - most DIY cabs are not adequate to deliver that last step up to excellent sound quality. The BEST drivers available in a typical cabinet are not going to equal a well designed system using $50 drivers in an excellent cabinet. DT's cabs look good to me (by that I mean the insides, not talking about the finish).

I am disappointed at the Teflon caps however, pretty much every test I've seen them measured in they perform worse than polypropylene; also, "bypass" caps have been shown time and time again to be ineffective (don't make much difference).

I'm not saying don't bother with decent quality poly (such as "Crosscap") over electrolytic, but "beyond" that doesn't get you "better", just different, if anything.

I agree on the cabs both looking nice and being important but they add a lot of cost.I actually think the price on these are very reasonable. I don't think I have seen that kind of quality for that price.That being said I could diy cabs just as dead as those and probably save a little. Mine wouldn't look as good though.

[DoubleTap]

Maybe if you offered them in kit form without the fancy cabs (fancy in a good way) and xo's we could almost afford them. Your just trying to torture us. lol

A kit would still be around $2000 ... just take a look at the price of those drivers alone.

[DoubleTap]

I am disappointed at the Teflon caps however, pretty much every test I've seen them measured in they perform worse than polypropylene; also, "bypass" caps have been shown time and time again to be ineffective (don't make much difference).

I'm not saying don't bother with decent quality poly (such as "Crosscap") over electrolytic, but "beyond" that doesn't get you "better", just different, if anything.

These speakers are simply capable of a level of resolution that most people are totally unaware of. I should post some emails I've received in the last couple weeks from a recent customer who upgraded from a $15000 pair of Revel Ultima Salon 2's. This guy has a room that was easily at $50K construction, designed from the ground up as an audio only room ... perfect in every way. Everything about his setup was incredible before with the Revels, but once he got my speakers he's been caught completely off guard at just how much more detail is there that he never heard before. His pair btw had Clarity MR capacitors, and the difference from them to my standard Jantzen Z-Superiors in these speakers is readily apparent.

I have plenty of other speakers here with lesser drivers, and yea with them the high dollar caps are a waste. With the RAAL and C-Quenze in that cabinet however, it's a totally different ball game.

[ttan98]

These speakers are simply capable of a level of resolution that most people are totally unaware of. I should post some emails I've received in the last couple weeks from a recent customer who upgraded from a $15000 pair of Revel Ultima Salon 2's. This guy has a room that was easily at $50K construction, designed from the ground up as an audio only room ... perfect in every way. Everything about his setup was incredible before with the Revels, but once he got my speakers he's been caught completely off guard at just how much more detail is there that he never heard before. His pair btw had Clarity MR capacitors, and the difference from them to my standard Jantzen Z-Superiors in these speakers is readily apparent.

I have plenty of other speakers here with lesser drivers, and yea with them the high dollar caps are a waste. With the RAAL and C-Quenze in that cabinet however, it's a totally different ball game.

Sound an exciting pair of speakers, BTW can you tell me the approx. total retail price of all the drivers, i.e. 2*Raal and 2*C-Quenze.

[DoubleTap]

Sound an exciting pair of speakers, BTW can you tell me the approx. total retail price of all the drivers, i.e. 2*Raal and 2*C-Quenze.

Just a bit under $1500 ...

[Leroy R]

I would have liked to have driven up from Austin, but I will be flying to New York for my daughters wedding this weekend.

[critofur]

Have you also heard the Revel Salon Ultimas? Are the Ultima 2s as good, or are they just a cheapened immitation? I've heard the Ultimas, but not the Ultima 2. I found the Ultimas to have plenty of "detail" without being fatiguing. Almost all "high end" commercial stuff I find to be quickly fatiguing, perhaps because they are generally a little bit "hot", among other things...

"Detail" is something I've not found missing to an extent that I'd be bothered by the lack of it, relative to other aspects I find lacking in speakers. Or, perhaps it's partially a matter of semantecs.

I can't seem to find a proper objective description of what it is I find lacking in most "good" speakers - the words that come to mind are "vibrance", "energy", and a visceral feeling that seems to vibrate the hairs on your skin. I have NEVER heard a commercial system, regardless of cost, that can make me feel like a cello is right there in the room playing. It's as if the real cello can reach loudness levels that vibrate the floor, the arms of your chair, even your skin feels like it's buzzing, without hurting your ears. If I turn up a stereo loud enough to replicate those sensations, my ears hurt (of course, part of the blame has to be placed on the recording, I have a demo CD from a microphone company which may serve as a better source than the other classical CDs I have).

I did once hear a single (not stereo pair) prototype pseudo-omni-directional speaker that created the sensation that miles davis was playing his trumpet right there in front of me - so real that I expected to feel some sprayed saliva hit my face if he turned to the side a little... Unfortunately the driver was never put into production due to a lack of funding nesc. to create the tooling as it's not a standard type of speaker and we had to have all the parts custom made at varoius machine shops, cone manufacturing companies and a voice coil winding company.

[jmb]

I am planning on coming with my two sons. See y'all there,
Jay

[Pete Schumacher ®]

I have NEVER heard a commercial system, regardless of cost, that can make me feel like a cello is right there in the room playing. It's as if the real cello can reach loudness levels that vibrate the floor, the arms of your chair, even your skin feels like it's buzzing, without hurting your ears.

To do that requires a large woofer. That very thing is what led me in my voicing choices for where to cross the RSS315 to the Scan mid. Stand up bass (and cello) are large instruments that excite the air over a very large area. That sound was the goal in mind while finding the right XO point.

I've got to say that my Byzys come as close to sounding like those real large instruments as anything I've ever listened to. (The source recording is paramount, in that it has to include the lower octaves at their real levels). No small woofer two way I've heard can quite produce that visceral quality I get from the pair of 12" woofers. Ears don't complain at all when turned up to that visceral level. I'm sure the RAALs do a better job at eliciting the finer details in the upper registers than the RS28 can do. (I wonder if I can retrofit the Byzy's for a RAAL and still achieve a 2nd order XO.)

Now, we just need to make that Cirrus 3-way you were talking about Ryan!!!

[critofur]

...I'm sure the RAALs do a better job at eliciting the finer details in the upper registers than the RS28 can do....

I wouldn't be surprised, if the RS28F is better than the Raal.

Let me see some distortion measurements of this Raal tweeter. Put up or shut up, right?

Here's the RS28A, RS28F is at least as good, if not better [than the A] (Zaph's measurement):