Jealous!!!

They let a Decatur guy come once.
Springfield is the more or less the same except they have a Chili's and Decatur doesn't.

Jealous too ProggRob.

I woke up this morning thinking that I might need to take a nice motorcycle ride north, perhaps to Lisle, but my wife pointed to the stuff that she needed done today. Oh well, perhaps the next meeting.
Please keep us updated, I'm truly interested in what DBC's SLABS sound like in Palo's "Room of Truth".

Yes, fast articulate with the Alpha's is what I wanted and expected. I do not prefer up to 3.5k.....between 55 to 80Hz....I'm awash in musicality right now. .......80Hz today...... .

Oh yeah, my beloved SE84CS.....Aniversary Amp might be coming in! LR WOULD NOT LEAVE IT PAL??

I know he/DBC is using Alpha's...... I will have to learn more about it and inquire with DBC+ your ongoing opinion. Cool, DBC let you hang on to them for awhile.
I have an Internal Xover switch ~to~ Direct on my Velodyne plate amp. I will continue to try. Even though I'm summing and should hook it up to just one channel again. Or, better yet get my 2nd Alpha ASAP.

Now LR, .....geez, what do you do Pal.

Man, my Alpha is breaking in nicely....following bass lines and filling out the soundstage.

cut out the holes tomorrow...

thats right, alcohol and power tools!

Want to thank Palomino for being such a gracious host today. I know he put fourth a lot of effort to get the room cleared out to accommodate our meet. Also want to thank his wonderful wife for putting up with our nonsense when she could have been outside with her husband on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Pal knows a keeper when he sees one.

Many thanks to Lonely Raven as well. He went to a lot of effort to box up his Omegas and cart those over. This added a great contrast to Pal's Decware monitor clones. I own a 15 year old Select and a 5 year old Super Zen upgraded to UFO. Was really a treat to hear LR's tricked out UFO.

Pal's Rachael and LR's UFO both sounded great with the SLAB's but it was very interesting how different the flavor was. Seemed to me like the UFO had a little More Balls when both were teamed up with the SLAB's. Bias Alert: I'm a big fan of the UFO.

As far as how the SLAB's sound / integrate, I will leave that up to Pal & LR in the coming days and weeks. I feel fortunate to have escaped Palomino's Audio Den of Lions with his kind words above.

As I said to Pal and LR as we parted, we will know how the SLAB's stack up in about a month. If the SLAB's are sitting in Pal's corner with three weeks of dust on them, then there is a lot of work to be done.

Thank you gentlemen.

DBC

Did you guys try using the SLABS and the Augies together at the same time?  

Glass half full...maybe with some crossover adjustment on the Crown, you could make this work and get the best of both worlds.

Glass half empty...it sounds like a hot mess and you have woofers all over your room.

Any comments on holographic imaging and "you are there" for the different combinations, etc?

Dave 1210 wrote:

Quote:


The answer is NO. I'm guessing Pal's room is approx 12' across the front and 16' deep at most? Four 15" drivers in their baffles would be a real crowd. Perhaps possible in a dedicated room but probably not practical for most where the listening space doubles as a living space.

DBC

Ok, so maybe I won't shut up.  But I wanted to offer some Zen thoughts.  I don't know how much of what I was hearing was UFO related, but I think based on my past listening on the UFO Zen there was something more.

The only observation I had that I didn't like was that I felt it had a less wide soundstage.  Would that loosen up with seasoning and/or tube time?  I don't know.

The tweeter is just below ear level if I recall correctly.  I could always put them sideways on the monolith stands a-la-Stone to see if that helps.  I've never had an issue with soundstage height with those speakers running on the base cabinets.  

I'll do some mixing and matching.  Tonight I want to try the Tang Band OBs without the Augies running to see how they mate with the SLABS wide open.

I think we did handicap the situation but I also think that my OBs have a larger soundstage than either of monitors we listened to holding the listening distance constant.  It could be that monitors require more distance but OBs do not.

Last night I did have those old wooden stands going.  The soundstage was smaller and seemed more compressed to the back of the room.  I think with some playing around, this could be rectified.  But I was just digging the bass too much to fuss with it.

No nulls since going to the OBs/OB bass.   I think I can get the soundstage better using the 945s and maintain that listening triangle.  I think that more toe in might help.  It's been so long since I have run them I don't recall the optimal position.  I'll keep fiddling.

I just think OBs present a better soundstage overall.  It's the reason I am experimenting with them despite's ow their other quirks.

I hadn't thought of that. We did have the foam balls in Eric's omegas but then pulled them out.

I did some experimenting with my OBs and the SLABS last night.  I ran them with and without the Augies.  I adjusted the crossover on the Augies down to 50hz.  I also played with the volume on the crown.

I couldn't get the three combined to sound as good as just the SLABS with the Tang Bands or the Augies with the tang bands.  But it did fill in the very bottom on songs that needed it.

I wanted to get the soundstage topic off the table so I fiddled with it last night and got to about the best it is going to get with my monitors in my room.  Had I not started my journey into OBs I would be perfectly satisfied with this soundstage.

That leaves me three questions to be answered in the coming weeks:

1.  Do I need amplification of my bass drivers to achieve satisfying bass across a range of music?

2.  If I maintain amplification of my bass drivers, does that alter the bass sound too much?

3.  Does running 15a’s full range alter the mid-range in a good or bad way?

Oh, and one more question....how many times can I say the word SLABs in a Decware forum thread?

Sorry I've not chimed in sooner - I got a poke from Palomino via E-mail, so I figured I'd drop in with some notes. Doug also didn't want me to "make up my mind" till I've had the SLABs(1) in my room and played with them with my various gear.

Now, before I go on, I want to preface this with my biases to help the readers understand where I'm coming from.

First and foremost, I'm not an Open Baffle person. ProggRobs setup was one of the first that even interested me, and that was really only because of his tweeters. But then Randy's Betsy Baffles made me go Whoa, I can work with this. They do something special where they throw this huge wall of sound without need for a room full of diffusers. Not the Holographic, precision imaging I strive for, but something really beautiful and listenable.  So in short, OBs aren't my thing. Add to that, multiple drivers not perfectly time aligned...yeah, I can hear that time smearing. Add to that, to me, a subwoofer is a *sub* (below) woofer. So coming in, the SLABs(2) have everything against them in my biased mind. But, as I think many here have seen, I try to come in and listen as a clean slate, and leave my biases outside the listening room and just let my senses and my gut tell me what's what. For the most part, I think I do this pretty well.


So, Tom's room is well done. I've said this time and again. But in this session, we spent so much time swapping in and out, plugging and unplugging the SLABs(3) to A/B test and see what they bring to the table. Add to that, in order to get all this stuff in the room, Tom had the main drivers wider than I'm used to him setting them up, and while there was a clear and wide soundstage (clearly hearing instruments 45 degrees to the left and right, as well as roughly center and off center), imaging just really wasn't the focus of the day. Mostly it was trying to wrap our heads around what was going on when we added the SLABs(4) to the mix.

This is my short list of notes - and I wouldn't call this my final thoughts by any stretch, as I've not had time with them in my setup - so my thoughts could change completely. I also have photos to follow.

First off, Doug's slabs are slick - well designed (which means to me simple while still being stylish). Double layer Baltic Birch plywood with a nice looking clear coat. Black brackets with tall, durable, and slightly yielding rubber feet. They are an inspired design in their simplicity, and that appeals to me in a big way.

Going in, I didn't expect to like running them full range - it just goes against so much I've learned about speakers and design and sound in general - the truth is though, they sounded good! First thing I noticed, is they projected a big wall of sound, much like the Betsy speakers do (huge plus). They add punch to the upper bass, and boost mids that reach into guitar, sax, and vocal range.  This made me realize that (IMHO) these aren't *sub*woofers, but midbass woofers that reach lower than our small 6" or 8" based main speakers do. Doug would probably disagree, but that's how I see them - and no matter how we poked at and reconfigured them, I kept coming back to this.  I'm not saying this is a *bad* thing, in fact they sounded good...it's just a different thing than I strive for.  It made me think they would mate quite well with my Betsy Baffles, and I'm really hoping that's going to be true - because I'm practically salivating at the idea of something that does what the Betsy speaker does, but just at a specific frequency range.

Now the stuff I didn't like. Again, grain of salt, this was in Tom's setup and some of this can probably be mitigated with tweaking - and I'm trying not to let 25 years of driving towards a different sound color these notes.

When we had the SLABs(5) placed poorly, the sound went to hell fast. I could hear major comb filtering and time smearing - this was especially apparent on cymbals where the SLAB(6) frequency overlapped with the more beamy upper frequencies of whatever speakers we had them paired up with. To some extent, this was also apparent in guitar, sax, and vocal sounds, though much less so. It's a trade off, more punch and room filling sound, at the expense of slight loss of detail and holographic imaging due to time smearing. I tried to mitigate this by connecing the SLABs(7) to Tom's Crown amp, and dropping the crossover, and it was better (less overlap so no comb filtering), but the drivers simply lost their magic when run through the crown - probably due to another layer of gear and/or crossover.

We went back and forth on this most of the night - while the SLABs(8) did what they did well, they go in a different direction than I build my systems around. Absolutely listenable, and quite nice, but takes away from that micro-detail and time correctness I favor, that gives you spacial cues and holographic imaging.

However, we finished up the night with the bigger SLABs(9) connected to my one off Zen UFO, and a lot of that high frequency comb filtering and smearing went away...it was as if we had a crossover very invisibly cutting off that mess - and the bigger SLABs(10) reached slightly lower. Now, I'm just going by what I heard - I liked this even more! But Doug sent me the frequency response charts of the two sizes of drivers, and they are so very close to being the same - but it doesn't take much to make a difference I guess!

I know Tom is doing some tweaking - as with the Betsy speakers, there is something special here, so it's worth the effort. I do intend to give them a fair shake in my setup - but that's probably 3-4 weeks away. But again, to me, a *sub* woofer covers the LOWEST octave - these are mid-woofers and in the long run I'm not sure they are right for *my* setup.

One of the tests that I hope to try out with these, once they are in my room; I'm hoping to get these as time-aligned as possible with my Betsy baffle speakers, run both the SLABs(11) and Betsy off my Decware amp, and supplement that with my 18" sealed box home theater style *sub*woofer crossed over at something like 55Hz. I have a feeling this would be pretty damn amazing, having both that huge wall of sound that both the Betsy and SLABs(12) produce, and the visceral bottom end that a large, long throw subwoofer gives you. Hmmm, now that sounds like some great "break out the good whiskey and zone out till 4am" listening.

Photos to follow.

I got some more SLAB time in last night and again this morning.  This was the SLABs with the 15" driver.

I'm ready to answer question 1 above.  Do I need amplification of my bass drivers to achieve satisfying bass across a range of music?

The answer no.  I have listened to rock, jazz, techno (with pounding bass) and the SLABs performed well.  However, placement is key.

If I had to do anything over from our last CDApS meeting it would have been to spend more time on setup.  What we had was not even close to optimal.

Doug kept saying that they need room to breath and felt my equipment table was choking them.  The side of the table was somewhat perpendicular to the SLAB.  We did a few experiments and determined that might not be the case.

By experimenting around with them over the last couple days, I have determined that the openness behind the speaker is key to them providing enough room to breathe.  I now have them (and my DIY 945s) on the same plane as I run my OBs.  As a result, there is a much wider opening available to the SLABs before the sound wave hits the side of the table.  And it is pretty open on the other side as the 945 are on stands.

As a result, there is plenty of bass on all types of music.  Yes, they still lack that hit you in the chest bass feel, but I only look for that when I am rocking out.  Otherwise, I am looking to hear the quality of bass and these provide that quite well.

I like musical bass and have found the SLABs to be quite engaging.  Only on a couple of songs did I strain to hear the bass line.  Otherwise, they provide a nice pleasurable bass "buzz."

This morning I was actually thinking of transitioning from the SLAB 15s to the SLAB 12s because the bass was a touch too hot on a few songs.  That's how big a difference placement makes.

I'll probably move on to question #3 as the jury is still out on that one and I can address it without a bunch of getting up and down changing things out, etc.

Yeah, I think that kind of placement would be optimal for these.  Real estate availability is one consideration for the SLABs.  

Not much I could do here except elevating them above the low slung table.  I might be able to do that with the 12s, but I'd want the stand or whatever to be pretty solid.  I think the thickness of the baffle and the rubber feet help in this regard but ideally they are coupled with the floor.

By the time Palomino is ready to hand the SLABs over to me, I'll have my living room/listening room/ theater cleared out in the front again. So I'm looking forward to more time with these!

I have some new silver plated Cardas binding posts for my Zen UFO on the way (don't tell Steve I'm messing with the amp! LOL), some Xhadow silver speaker spades, and I've set aside some 8AWG Zen Styx type wire to make a nice 9' long power cord, and 10' long speaker cables.

If it wasn't Mother's Day this weekend I'd have time in the workshop to be building all this stuff (including some progress on my Betsy baffles). Hopefully I can get a couple hours of work in. I'm getting closer to being ready to try out the SLABs at my place, and getting closer to clearing out and painting the 3rd bedroom as a dedicated Zen chamber. You'll for sure see this in future CDApS) meetings.

Also, I've been trying to talk Tom into selling one of this (two!) Rachel amps and use that money to send in the other one for UFO upgrade. I'm betting Steve could do to the Rachel what he's done for my 20 year old Zen amp. We're both pretty broke with money needing to go to silly things like bills and college funds. (sigh) Good thing us Decware listeners are frugal and clever.

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I think this is why Steve.

Well, this, and the fact that you're so open with your knowledge, give the forums lots of room to breathe, and you cause us to question everything.

All of that attracts the clever and provides fertile ground for ideas to grow.

Quote:


That's the American way! Ugh.

Call Steve and see if he can soup up a Rachel like my Zen UFO!

That said, I've still not heard my Zen UFO next to, say a Select UFO. But then ProggRobs Zen UFO was the best I had heard till mine.

Also, my upgrade was about $700!!  And that was with a small  "friend discount" or something.  So yeah, I put $700 into an amp I paid $499 for, and had previously spent $350 on upgrades and retubing.

But now I'm super happy with it. The little Zen does stuff even the ZMA can't, but nothing can touch the grunt of the ZMA - so I swap them back and forth.

Thought for the causal follower of this thread I would try to update from time to time a running "Condensed Synopsis" of observations / comments by Palomino and Lonely Raven relating specifically to SLAB listening impressions. Recognizing that I am biased, I will do my best to include performance observations whether Positive or Negative.

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Palo, The secret is 4 15's!
Nothing needs to be pushed, just bass floating in your room, no pain no strain.
But then I am kind of known as a wildeyed cornfield dweller!