I had a fun experience over the weekend.  

Each Spring, I head downstate to pick up my sailboat which I store in my brother’s machine shed on his farm near Peoria.  I typically pick up the boat and then head to my friend’s lake house near Bloomington.  This guy loves music and would listen daily even if all he had was an old AM radio.  His wife is also a trained vocalist and can keep up with any Broadway show recording.

Anyway, I told him that someday I would bring my tube amp down for him to listen to.  Given that I am used to packing up my stuff for excursions to Lonely Raven’s house or up to my cottage, I loaded up the van with my complete system sans Power Plant Premiere.  I even took 5 absorber panels given that his room is quite large and I thought it would be difficult to get good imaging.

After dinner, I asked him if he would go along with me and let me set up my system.  I said all he has to do is listen to a song or two and if it wasn’t any good, we could switch back to his system.  He’s always up for an adventure so he made his special martini recipe while I hooked everything up.

With him in the listening chair, I put on the first song.  I was patient and waited until the end of the song and then asked him what he thought.  He just turned his head and said very slowly in and even tone “What the @$%# was that?”  You kinda had to be there to get the full gist, but basically he was completely blown away but what he just heard.  I simply said, “Tube amp.  Decware.”

That was about 8:30.  We listened till just past 3 AM.  He turned me on to some fantastic live Jeff Beck and his wife sang along with some show tunes which in and of itself was an interesting experience.  It was hard to get the mix right, but it was like having two soloists in the room.

So it was a great experience turning somebody on to the SQ and imaging of these amps and made me feel like the time I’ve spent on this hobby is a worthwhile pursuit.

That sounds fantastic! I love when people really "get it", but I think they need to be a good listener. My home system is pretty good, and I had a friend sit down in the sweet spot, listen to three tracks. At the end he's like "um...it sound good....very...um, even".

It's not that he didn't like it, just that he had trouble really getting into it. When I mentioned it to Steve, I likened it to a little kid seeing a masters painting...like the Mona Lisa. All they see is "a lady" and maybe even catch the smile. But it really takes someone who at least has a little bit of understanding of the arform to appreciate it.

Palomino's system is really imaging well, I think his system might also go a little above and beyond and even catch the attention of even casual listeners. I hope to get mine that good sometime soon.

That's pretty much how I would describe your system as well. Sounds like they really listened.

Nice that it worked so well in his room, presumably, untreated? How would you relate it to your room Palomino?

My listening room is only 17'X13' and I have six 24"X48"X2" absorber panels, 2' face X 24" long triangular bass traps in each corner up high and two 24"X 48" X 4" bass traps down low in the front two corners, and two 24"X24" X 2" ceiling panels plus two DIY curved diffusers in the room.

His room is huge so I brought 5 24"X48"X2" panels with me.  I put two behind the speakers, two at the first reflection points and one behind the listener.  I actually tested this setup on my other system in a big room in my basement to see if I could pull off anywhere near the imaging as in my listening room.  It didn't sound bad at all so I loaded up the van.

I measured the listening triangle and used the patented Lonely Raven laser guided speaker sweet spot pointing methodology.  My hosts got a big kick out of just the setup ritual itself.

Generally, the bass sounded muddy, but there was a very believable deep and wide soundstage going on.  Instruments were not as 3D as in my room, but the vocals did sound quite good.

Yes, it was pretty good.  Overall, everything is better in my room at home (especially the bass) but it was respectable imaging.  He certainly appreciated the sound.

I got the idea off of a YouTube video where the guy didn't want a bunch of treatments in his apartment so he would just pull out some absorbers each time he wanted to listen.