Paul posted a couple of pictures on Instagram at: http://instagram.com/psaudio1
@SF, I’ll be posting some thoughts in a bit. Still trying to shake the sleep off after a late flight back home.
Would love to hear what everyone thought of the Sprout. The setup looked very nice. Scott nailed the living room look.
Scott - where can I buy something like the white piece of furniture you used? Was this one of your brother’s pieces?
This year’s RMAF was smaller than last year’s, which was smaller than the year before, which… you get the picture. That part was both a concern and a benefit. I think if anything we have too many regional shows right now, or they’re not spread apart far enough throughout the year. It certainly didn’t help that Chester Group moved NYAS to the week before RMAF. I know that lost some foot traffic (some of my friends decided to go to that rather than RMAF this year) and some exhibitors. But by the same token it made it very easy to get the hot seat in just about every single room I cared to stop into.
I stopped into the PS Audio room right after opening registration on Friday, to find Paul and the crew in the midst of recovering from the breakdown of one of the prototype new amplifiers feeding the IRS Betas (Paul had one set up for the panels and the other for the low end cabinets). Fortunately another was speeding down the highway from Bolder and showed up just in the nick of time. In the room were none other than our friend Ted, and Bascom King, and Arnie Nudell himself. I thought with all of that talent in there (Paul and the PS Audio team included of course), if there were some unfortunate seismic event there would be too many valuable folks in one spot!
I chatted with Paul and Scott for a bit - Scott really did a great job setting up that room. The Sprout sounded very nice through those GoldenEar speakers. I helped out a bit listening while Scott was zeroing in on the final placement of the speakers. Vinyl was playing and it was an easy, non “digital-crunchy” listening experience.
I knew enough, though, not to make any real impressions on the big rig until at least the next day (what with the new amp rushed in), so on Saturday I came back up and listened. The new amp had been set up and given a good half day’s playing on Friday. My friend and I chatted with Ted for a bit and I guess I had the “beta tester stink” on me, as when I asked one of the younger PS Audio crew (I’m sorry I didn’t get his name) for the remotes he handed them right over.
I started with Bill Evans and hesitated a bit. Everything was there bit not quite in control and a bit “disconnected”. Ted was watching me and saw the look on my face in a flash. Listened to a couple of additional tunes and knew I had to wait. I won’t hold you in suspense - by Sunday everything sounded very nicely integrated. I can only guess some settling in was needed for all that new gear, especially for the pinch hitter amp. This is nothing new, really; most rooms sound their best on Sunday. I also met Ted’s lovely wife (what a nice person!) and saw Paul rushing back and forth greeting one and all. Oh BTW, I also met Gus Skinas on Saturday. All the big guns were there!
At the Sunday listening session it was clear things were sounding very nice. I’ll be honest and say I think the IRSes were a technical tour de force in their day, but even back when I heard them in the 80s and 90s I thought it was just too hard to seamlessly integrate those big-a$$ low range dynamic drivers with those EMIM and EMIT electrostatics. The Betas sounded as good as I’ve ever heard IRSes sound - and frankly was even among the top sounding rooms at the show - but I still heard that tradeoff in the low range dynamic drivers not quite being able to keep up with the speed of the 'statics. Here’s the important part - that didn’t get in the way of how much MUSIC was coming out of that system. I was in plenty of rooms where I heard the current highly lauded mega-buck gear and said “that was great sounding equipment”. I was in precious few rooms this year where I walked out and said “that was great music”. Paul’s was one of them.
Oh, and when I walked in who else was there but Cookie Marenco!
I expressed my thanks for the fine sounding stuff she’s been producing. There was a track playing from one of the room discs and I asked that young fellow if after that I could play a few more tunes before I left. I sat down with the remotes and like I said before, by this point there was no question how good the system was sounding. I even got choked up listening to one of the tunes I selected. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Cookie pausing and listening to what I was playing. After I was done she asked if that was my disc; I said yes. She was impressed with my selections. Folks - Cookie awarded me the “best DJ of the show” prize!
I said thanks and that I just wanted to bring music that I liked listening to instead of 50 copies of Keith Don’t Go.
Paul and the team did a great job this year, IMO. Even putting my own biases aside I will say that this was one of the best sounds at the show. I’ve attached some pics.
Tony, thanks very much for providing us with your detailed impressions from the show! With all due respect I have one point to correct if I may - the Infinity EMIM and EMIT drivers are not electrostatic but rather planar magnetic drivers. If I recall correctly the EM portion of their acronym names stands for Electro-Magnetic. Of course this doesn’t affect any of your commentary on their performance, just clarifying a small detail.
tony22 said She was impressed with my selections. Folks - Cookie awarded me the "best DJ of the show" prize!
What were those selections?
What is between the PWT and PowerBase on the top shelf?
Thanks for the correction, audio.bill. I always get them confused with electrostatics and always wind up getting corrected.
I think you’re right it may have something to do with seeing the “E” in the EMIM and EMIT.
st50, let’s see while Cookie was there I played Amy Duncan’s Song To Myself, some Edgar Knecht, and Fields of June from Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo. Just tunes and performers I happen to like. All are reasonably well recorded. Maybe she wasn’t so much impressed as thankful to hear some different things that also appeared to interest her. I typically go out of my way to load up my CDs with tunes from discs or downloads that I bought and like to listen to at home, although once in a while one of the “standards” sneaks in.
Here’s a flip side true story that happened on Saturday. I was in another room that was playing a very high end DAC in a very nice sounding system (the particulars don’t really matter here). A fellow walked in, and very seriously conferred with the designer that he has been looking for a high end DAC that he has spent a considerable amount of time saving for. He asked if he could carefully listen to just one tune to be the arbiter of whether this DAC could be the one. The designer was very happy to play this fellow’s CD. Said fellow sits down and we all pause, waiting for… “Keith Don’t Go”. I mean, that’s a great catchy tune and all, but am I to conclude that this is the piece of music he enjoys the most when he’s sitting at home listening to music? That’s the piece of music that will decide whether he should spend $10K plus on a DAC? I’ve got nothing against these tunes that people keep trotting out, I occasionally do it myself since it’s so easy to do. But if I were trying to figure out whether to drop 5 figures on a piece of equipment I’d like to use as broad a range of music that I actually listen to, instead of listen for.
tony22 said . . . waiting for... "Keith Don't Go". I mean, that's a great catchy tune and all, but am I to conclude that this is the piece of music he enjoys the most when he's sitting at home listening to music? That's the piece of music that will decide whether he should spend $10K plus on a DAC?It does nothing for me on any level, but if that is what he listens to and he knows the recording well it is the perfect choice - for him.
I agree
Thanks Tony! Great show report and appreciated. It was wonderful to see you there.
Yeah, looking back on it this morning I guess what I wrote does sound a little snobbish (chalk it up too being worn out from the show). At the time it seemed a little weird that this fellow would be using just this one tune to base spending a significant amount of money on a DAC. But since this is not about the DS or Paul’s sound at the show I suppose it’s not really on topic anyway.
Paul, just saw your post! Thanks. It was great seeing you and Ted and so many other folks in the industry. Just so I know, just who was that youngish fellow in the main room?
busterfree said What is between the PWT and PowerBase on the top shelf?That's the servo crossover for the IRS Beta woofers.
Paul, also WRT the PWT, what footers were those being used under the transport? For a second they looked like Stillpoints.
Critical Mass Systems footers.
Gaa! Those aren’t cheap either.
BTW, any hints from JA or Steven Stone on what they thought?
tony22 said At the time it seemed a little weird that this fellow would be using just this one tune to base spending a significant amount of money on a DAC.It does, and it is not what I would do, but some people can get an incredible amount of information out of listening to a single track or short sections of multiple tracks. It's a highly subjective process.
Thanks for the report from the show. It is fun to share vicariously.
No problem. The few comments on Audiocircle have not been positive. I’m wondering if some were from either Friday or early Saturday (the system was much better on Sunday), or if the listeners were thrown by the IRS Betas. They are obviously not “speakers du jour”.
What were the comments? The system was unchanged between Friday and Sunday.