Well RPS you pulled it off! I mean like Burger King's impossible burger your space does not warrant what was heard in the 12 hour session spent with you on Tuesday. Like the sweet beef undertones missing in that burger, even with my eyes closed, my senses could not escape the confines of the room. Small room small stage - mere physics that can not be eliminated. However, you recently added a piece of equipment that makes your room complete and defies physics.
I totally enjoyed my visit with you. Another time warp that was very hard and pressed to end. We will continue in time. I feel like your a brother from another mother now. The food was good, conversation rich, and atmosphere becoming. Thank you all.
The speakers you designed are with no doubt the best 2 way implemented set that crossed my ears. Bass is well defined and tactical. Mids play well with the lows and highs - vocals are crisp with emotional attachment. Highs are sublime with delicacy.
Feeding the 2way gems is nothing special like the 12 gauge OFC, Torii 3 with stock tubes, microphone cable ICs with one way shields, basic Brown Burr DAC, and a Tascam transport. The music heard did not show, by any means, any degradation with this setup.
Your admission of how terrible and unsustainable those 2 ways was in the room before any treatment has been cured. The 12 hour session we completed on Tuesday is proof of that. Your listen db level is a bit higher than mine and I thank you for doing a slight adjustment for my pleasure. But I think it was your need to impress that got you to turn up the volume at the onset. The sound was the same but eliminated the chance of fatigue when lowered a bit.
We listened a couple enjoyable hours with your new blast from the past piece bypassed. The only negative was Ozy's CD seemed a bit edgy at times but had great special effects. I think it had to be the mastering causing it because it was only noticeable on that disk. Then you initiated the C-9! Woweee! The hugh sound stage was not meant to be in your space. It grew by leaps and bounds. Vocals became very intimate in presence. There was zero artifacts. The performance became live. The new experience was like headphones without the cans and gave tactical body resonance! Something that tires me quickly when using headphones, that is my ears get some good vibes but the rest of my organs do not.
RPS, the only negative to me when it came to tactical experience was the dual 12" push and pull setup behind the listening chair. The timing was off a bit that distracted from the main speakers at times. This is surely caused by the direct connection with the Torii speaker outputs. A time delay would help this. It kind of reminded me of when I had transducers installed in the home theater couch which gave a sense of vibration without aligned impact.
I could go on and on about the music but will pin it down to one CD that everyone is familiar with, Pink Floyd's "Dark side of the Moon" Played to death but a well done work using "Q". The C-9 is a phasing tool that eliminates crosstalk between our ears. Yup that space between our ears is wide enough that causes our sense of hearing confusion when we hear music in stereo. RPG's C-9 is 45 years old and works like a new item. There is no signs of bypass interference to the signal and what I am about to describe works as intended.
The second act(track) "On the Run" starts with Q(time delay sceme used in many recordings that places sound in space at various locations using the space between your ears and two speakers as leverage) within 3 seconds of track start. I've always heard the mechanical sound created after 3 seconds in that track as an oblong sound circulation. With the C-9 it made its rounds perfectly around the circumference of my head. It was a hat of moving sound. Outstanding!
Then I asked you to bypass the C-9 after 6 or so hours and this was rather revealing of the unit's capabilities. Vocals became somewhat subdued. Loss of vibrancy was evident. Just to recall that I spent a couple onset satisfying hours listening with this unit bypassed is telling in itself. One does not know until it is placed at earshot side by side(A-B).