Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

I grew up in the Midwest in the US.  What that means for our readers is pretty simple - I'm incapable of an unbiased review of classic rock since it was in the air we breathed and water we swam in during our formative years.  But also I love the genre possibly more than any other. I play a mean air guitar, as well as the air drums.  And I probably cannot listen to a stream of classic rock (just called "rock" when and where I am from) without being familiar with more than half the songs from way back.  I think, during the summer, too, when I was growing up, at any one time you could go see any number of bands that seemed perpetually on tour, wending their way across the plains and up and down the Mississippi & Missouri Rivers. When I go and visit my home city of St. Louis, a quick spin the dial will usually give you 5-6 choices of various forms of classic rock, where the library ends about the time Clinton assumed office.  For someone coming to his home ...

We added a new piece of reference music to our regular lineup - we mentioned it previously, but it has proven to be enlightening. Genesis Selling England by the Pound's second song "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" The track is full of stereo tricks - including a lawmower moving across the stage, but the most spectacular part of it is the lyrics are Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel singing in close harmony.  A system that isn't resolving will sound like Peter Gabriel with a little bit or reverb.  The more revealing the system, the more you will notice that it is the two people singing quite distincly form one another. The Quads sailed through this, where there was no way you could not tell it.  Martin Logan Spires was clear if you knew it already, the Thiel CS2.4s if you listened carefully, and the Bose 901's we own (that's audiophile sin #349, for those keeping track) it was reverb city but a stadium concert wide soundstage to make up for it.  W...

We just got back after a trip to Buffalo to demo a set of speakers for our blog - and I have to correct myself from an earlier post.  (And in Winston Smith 1984 style, it has been corrected in the blog as if I was right all along ... we are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia ... Eurasia is the enemy.  Eurasia has always been the enemy ... ). When you do any sort of demo ... bring your CD's - that is all you will need. In fact, I'd say if you bring your digital files - even if you arrange things ahead of time - you will spent 30-40 minutes fussing around with various USB ports, and consulting manuals rather than getting down to business.  And likely as not, if it isn't seamless in the first 10 minutes, you will end up deploying your secondary 'chute and using the CD's anyway. Thankfully we brought our CD's - since that's what we do as a "backup." They had a SACD* player, too, that we pressed into service - and...

We were talking about what sort of post should be next in our blog, and hit a bit of a snag.  We were driving to a friend’s son’s graduation party and the discussion went like this: B: “I think we should review one of our favorite albums, like Ella and Louis” K: “That sounds hard … and I’m not sure a review would work on something we are so familiar with” B: “It doesn’t have to be very long … but I’d rather start with something like that, otherwise we’ll be reviewing equipment we have purchased - which is kind of … lame” K: “We do have that thing from the Kickstarter project coming up” B: “Yeah, we do, but who knows when that’s going to get here” K: “Well, we could talk about our reference music - explaining why each one is there. That was definitely new to me.” B: “Hey yeah, that sounds good” So here we are.  And anyone who already has a set of reference songs, you can skip right to the end where we talk about our reference music.  If you are scratching your head won...