[[email protected]]

On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 8:21:57 AM UTC-8, Peter Wieck wrote:
Not bad for something posted 11 years ago.=20
=20
I am highly prejudiced - I think the coolest systems are the ones that ar=
e most accessible to their users.=20
=20
Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA
_____________________________
I think the coolest systems are at both extremes- stratospherically expensi=
ve and demanding of resources, and inexpensive but cleverly designed to off=
er most of what the expensive systems delivered at 1% of the cost and vast=
ly reduced demands of the room and ancillary equipment and bank account. th=
at said, I was most impressed with [on the cheap end] a Bose SR-1 Cinemate =
that painted the whole front half of the room with seamless and mellow soun=
d and with non-position-dependent imaging. but on the sky-high end [circa 1=
982], at Definitive Audio in Seattle, I heard a pair of Magnapan Tympani mu=
lti-panel speakers that dominated one end of the acoustically correct liste=
ning room, on the other end were a pair of dorm- refrigerator-sized class-A=
monoblocks that put out 50 watts each [barely enough to drive the Magnapan=
s beyond background level] and heated the room past the limit of comfort. i=
t also did the "disappearing speaker" bit regardless of listener position, =
but also offered a degree of transparency [compared to the Bose] where one =
felt transported to the original recording venue, in this case a direct-to-=
disc record of a Bach organ performance. one could "feel" the ambience of t=
he church where the recording was made, one could "feel" the presence of th=
e organ and its interaction with the room, and the phonographic surface noi=
se, curiously enough, seemed to float mid-room, almost palpably cloud-like.=
it had absolutely no fatigue to its sound quality, I could have listened t=
o it for weeks. to this day, I consider that a mental reference of what "go=
od and accurate sound" is all about.=20