Visit from a true audiophile!

[Hydrolastic]

Hello guys, A few years ago I met a coworker that was into stereo gear. I mean really Into it. He has measuring instrumentation and can analyze sound. Makes his own speakers. Can evaluate and make custom crossovers. He is aware of tube systems but is mostly solid state oriented. He is also 20 years younger
He moved out of state but is coming by my house on Wednesday on a swing through the area. I intend to show him the 60 Concert grand as it is the only console that runs right now. Actually not totally accurate the upstairs console runs but has a very boomy sound hard to explain but its has a lot of bass even on minimum setting.
Just to be clear he is not coming over specificaly to evaluate the console. I will be playing the console and I intend to see his opinion of the quality of the sound. It currently is set up with the bluetooth through the tape input jacks. I also have both of the converted SO37 speakers on the aux speaker terminal strips.( total of four drivers and 4 horns) I feel the sound is great, But I am also inexperienced in evaluation since I had my ear operation five years ago. It should be interesting. Totally intend to let you know how it goes. Hydro

[TC Chris]

I hope he's polite. Most of our old stuff won't measure well nor compare favorably to current high-end equipment. Old consoles had limited bass extension to avoid acoustic feedback, and limited HF extension because they used ceramic cartridges with HF limits.

Old males, and I'm one of 'em, lose our HF hearing usually. I have. There are many things I can't hear now. There is some dispute about the importance of HF extension for people whose HF response has diminished. Some feel that it improves the aural experience even for people who technically can't hear that high. It may be because systems with good undistorted HF response are generally of higher quality in other respects; some think that even f the ears can't hear any more, the body still responds in some manner.

I look forward to what your friend reports.

Chris Campbell

[William]

I too am one of the old men that have hearing loss, but not high frequency. My loss is in the human voice range, especially women or men who talk really soft or when I'm in a big room or a room with a lot of people talking and being noisy. I have hearing aids that help somewhat with that, but I hate them they when it comes to listening to music, they suck. Needless to say, if I'm listening to music, the hearing aids are not in my ears.

Bill

[electra225]

I believe everybody is an audiophile to a certain degree. My hearing isn't good enough anymore to worry about all the little nuances of audio reproduction. I'm glad I'm not totally deaf and can still enjoy the music I have on the reproduction equipment available to me.

[Conelrad]

An easy way to start arguments is to have several audiophiles at the same gear audition...

Conelrad

[Firedome]

Luckily my hearing is still pretty good so no need for a hearing aid yet, the audiology exam said my hi-freq hearing is still pretty good too, fortunately. But I've never claimed to be a "golden ears" anyway and am satisfied with the kind of audio stuff most so-called audiophiles would turn their nose up at. My main listening system now is a cheap no-name CD player, Zenith console amp, and 2 BOL 50 yr old ADS bookshelf speakers, sitting on my office bookshelf. I add an AT-6 Garrard if I want vinyl. No longer feel any need to shake the rafters and honestly rarely have time to sit and just listen to music, it generally happens while I'm doing other things. As someone said, love the one you're with!

[Hydrolastic]

Hello Guys, Wednesday was busy I had an errand to do and fast to meet Nate after work. It was 5:00 pm when he got there. First item was to get the subwoofer hooked up. It was hooked up to his small amp and power supply kind of hard to explain but its a tiny board with 5 knobs and a small power supply of 24 volts. Since the magnavox is bi amped we could not hook it up too the CG but he spotted the klipsh heresy's I had and we hooked the amp up to them, we gave the subwoofer a workout with it.
After awhile I wanted to get the magnavox going. I gradually brought it up with just the console speakers and played a few different genres of music. Adding in the extension speakers was good you could defiantly tell the extension speakers had less bass than the speakers in the console but they really fill up the sound. When I asked him later what he thought about the console he said that basically he felt I needed to experiment with speaker placement getting them closer to the wall or further apart. He also was not aware the they were just completely open until later and he said they need to be in a bigger room to sound good when they are not ported. He did like the sound of the internal console speakers. They are better even to my ears but still lack low bass response. Overall though he was very impressed with the low to mid volume of the console and he had no idea that the console could attain the volume it did. I never went over 3/4 volume. From what he said he was really impressed with the sound quality of a 63 year old console which he wasn't expecting. He also really liked the styling of the consoles. We pulled out the magnavox so we could look at the rear and he just stared at the back for 20 or 30 seconds it was a revelation that it took all that to produce the amount of sound coming out of it. That's it for the audiophile visit. I learned a lot. Hydro

[TC Chris]

Interesting update!

Chris Campbell

[William]

Thanks, Hydro. I believe you shared photos of you console in the past, can you refresh my/all of our memories what post they might be in?

Bill

[Hydrolastic]

Hello Bill, https://classichificare.com/viewtopic.p ... 1009fac61c
and https://classichificare.com/viewtopic.p ... 104af35c38

[Hydrolastic]

Hello again guys. One thing I have to say about the other day. We had the 100 watt amp on bluetooth adapter fully modern component there with the subwoofer going it was a lot of sound. Still it was clear that except for the very low tones (subwoofer) the CG walked away with better and more sound than the Klipsh Heresey's Something I didn't think I would have said before the test. The Klipsh speakers have volume but the CG has a lot of body in its sound and in a way sounds clearer more natural. That's probably the tubes but if you were wondering like I was how it was comparing the two. To me the CG wins !

[William]

Thanks for the link, Hydro. I could not remember if your photos were here on Classic or Vintage, I'm glad they were here on Classic. I feel the same way as you do with your CG. I do not have a CG, but I do have a big Imperial and that thing blows my mind with the way it sounds. The other interesting thing, mine has bass, lots of bass. I usually have my bass control set on one of the two lowest positions.

Bill

[Motorola minion]

Luckily my hearing is still pretty good so no need for a hearing aid yet, the audiology exam said my hi-freq hearing is still pretty good too, fortunately. But I've never claimed to be a "golden ears" anyway and am satisfied with the kind of audio stuff most so-called audiophiles would turn their nose up at. My main listening system now is a cheap no-name CD player, Zenith console amp, and 2 BOL 50 yr old ADS bookshelf speakers, sitting on my office bookshelf. I add an AT-6 Garrard if I want vinyl. No longer feel any need to shake the rafters and honestly rarely have time to sit and just listen to music, it generally happens while I'm doing other things. As someone said, love the one you're with!

Im going for a free hearing test, to see how accurate it is. Maybe a bit early for correction at 59, but in my business, I need to know if its accurate. Like Bill said, I am expecting my midrange to be affected most.