East Coast tour - Marty's system, Pipedreams + Tact, etc

[bonzo]

The founder of WBF forum, Steve Williams, often says that there is a guy named Marty in New Jersey whose room is one of the top 3 he has seen in his 50 years in Audiophilia. Therefore, I decided to pay Marty a visit. Ended up in a 8000 sq ft house with a beautifully designed acoustic room, the ceiling of which, with all the internal bass traps, must be in multitude Ks. As you can see from the pics, there is a piano between the listener and the wall behind.

The speakers were Pipedreams, with 2 JL Gotham sybs (the biggest of JL). VTL 7.5 Mk III, Spectral monos, MIT cabling - but the key component that I had gone there to check out was a modded TacT, introduced after the preamp stage. Initially we played the music streamed through a Meitner, and then we moved to an old Goldmund TT (not the reference, but much lower down). Man, the difference was astounding. I am a believer (Bernard, you were right). And the TT was going through the Tact.

We played for 3 hours, everything from plain vocals, blues, pop, to chorals and Piano and classical. The imaging and soundstaging was astounding. The key thing was, this was the first time I heard a system where the drummer or the orchestra player with abandon. In every other system, it looks like they are playing suppressed because the volume can't be turned up as it would cause a boom or harshness.

Putting orchestral through it took it to a different level. I will later this week produce some of the superb pieces I heard. Lots of lighting tricks. When we played Scheherezade, he put on a desert theme where everything was dark and there were stars all over the room lol

Learnings:
1. Marty mentioned that 99% was managing the frequency response. He has been through ARC and VTL, Valhalla, Kubala, and MIT, those things don't make a big diff. Sub integration and the curve does.
2. TTs can make a difference even with Room correction
3. Systems can indeed play all genres, if done correctly
4. No point just comparing two speakers to see how low down they go, if one that doesn't go down low enough integrates well with a sub to produce a better range
5. Was this more musical than an Analysis or more dynamic than a horn, may not be, but the principles can be incorporated to any speakers of your choice
6. It is impossible to get here, since I will never spend this much on a room.

 

[bonzo]

It will be interesting to compare GregG's and Jonfo's system to this to see how Mch does against this.

 

[hifinutt]

oh my gosh bonzo , you do get around . !! looks fantastic

 

[bonzo]

oh my gosh bonzo , you do get around . !! looks fantastic

You didn't think I would go only as far as birmingham, did you?

 

[RUR]

Always wanted to hear Marty's system, which has a terrific reputation with several folks whose opinions I trust. I'm surprised he's still using the TacT, though. The company's dead and buried, and there are newer, better products nowadays*.





*Yes, that would be Trinnov, Kedar!

 

[bonzo]

Always wanted to hear Marty's system, which has a terrific reputation with several folks whose opinions I trust. I'm surprised he's still using the TacT, though. The company's dead and buried, and there are newer, better products nowadays*.





*Yes, that would be Trinnov, Kedar!

I don't deny the Trinnov, or Datasat can do good room correction Ken. What the two of us disagree on are using these things as the source. I still maintain the dacs of all these suck. Marty uses his own sources, edorr (whom you would know from AVS), puts his Trinnov digital out to his MSB, Brucemck2 uses his Trinnov for Ht and bypasses it for 2-ch, using Acourate from his PC to his MSB, and Joel, 6 moon reviewer, does the same as edorr, as it makes a big difference. Nick, the datasat guy, maintains the same thing, that he could upgrade his system when he introduces a NAD dac.

People are also getting great results using exasound Mch dac. One guy here in the UK sells Deqx with modded dac. I think there is a market there to mod the inbuilt dacs

 

[bonzo]

As for Marty, his Tact is modded with a power supply, and he uses it because he has mastered it. He knows there are other prodcuts but doesn't want to get into more complexity. Great host though. He had a CD cut for me of all the songs he demoed. the only thing missing from his system were Shun Mook resonators, he was using something else on granite.

 

[RUR]

I don't deny the Trinnov, or Datasat can do good room correction Ken. What the two of us disagree on are using these things as the source. I still maintain the dacs of all these suck. Marty uses his own sources, edorr (whom you would know from AVS), puts his Trinnov digital out to his MSB, Brucemck2 uses his Trinnov for Ht and bypasses it for 2-ch, using Acourate from his PC to his MSB, and Joel, 6 moon reviewer, does the same as edorr, as it makes a big difference. Nick, the datasat guy, maintains the same thing, that he could upgrade his system when he introduces a NAD dac.

People are also getting great results using exasound Mch dac. One guy here in the UK sells Deqx with modded dac. I think there is a market there to mod the inbuilt dacs

The value you place upon most of those folks' opinions is very different than my own, Kedar.

As for Marty, his Tact is modded with a power supply, and he uses it because he has mastered it. He knows there are other products but doesn't want to get into more complexity. Great host though.

My TacT had all the same mods as Marty's, but yes, the Trinnov is certainly far more complex due to its far more complete feature set. Yup, the folks I know who've spent time with Marty all found him to be a wonderful, gracious host.

 

[bonzo]

The thing is many were advocating not to use a RC with an analog (to keep things in digital domain), but Marty's system showed that is not necessarily the case. Also he preferred to keep it after the pre, not before it, because he did not want it to participate in any gain

 

[RUR]

The thing is many were advocating not to use a RC with an analog (to keep things in digital domain), but Marty's system showed that is not necessarily the case. Also he preferred to keep it after the pre, not before it, because he did not want it to participate in any gain

Again, the "many" you're referring to may or may not have opinions I value. YMMV.

I'm well aware of Marty's atypical TacT use because we corresponded about it and I tried it in my own system with no joy. Clearly, it's working for him. One could do the same thing with a Trinnov Magnitude or, on a budget, with miniDSP's new 10x10 Dirac-enabled processor. Preamp analog out>miniDSP>amp(s). Me? I prefer fewer D/A/D and SRC steps, all of which are potential sonic problem areas.

 

[bonzo]

Again, the "many" you're referring to may or may not have opinions I value. YMMV.

I'm well aware of Marty's atypical TacT use because we corresponded about it and I tried it in my own system with no joy. Clearly, it's working for him. One could do the same thing with a Trinnov Magnitude or, on a budget, with miniDSP's new 10x10 Dirac-enabled processor. Preamp analog out>miniDSP>amp(s). Me? I prefer fewer D/A/D and SRC steps, all of which are potential sonic problem areas.

So would you put it after a pre, or with a TT?

From what I have read of Dirac, while they prefer its RC, they prefer other things for the crossover, e.g. DeqX

 

[RUR]

So would you put it after a pre, or with a TT?

Which "it"? TacT, Trinnov or miniDSP?

From what I have read of Dirac, while they prefer its RC, they prefer other things for the crossover, e.g. DeqX

Dirac, itself, provides no crossovers. Every company which implements it must provide its own xover functionality to work with Dirac. Not sure what DeqX has to do with Dirac, since DeqX has it's own EQ model, which is very different e.g. no target curve(s).

 

[bonzo]

Which "it"? TacT, Trinnov or miniDSP?

By 'it' I meant any room correction

 

[RUR]

So would you put it after a pre, or with a TT?

By 'it' I meant any room correction

You know the answer, Kedar. I'd have the RC contained within the preamp. Single component, single setup, single GUI and fewer conversion steps. Turntable's just another source.

 

[Gordon Gray]

bonzo,

What type of isolation devices (cones, still points, spikes, etc.) did Marty have under the PD speakers?

Gordon

 

[User211]

TTs are annoying things. They can sound utterly wonderful and at the same time totally dire with some discs. With the right ones, especially 12 inch 45 records, you can be amazed.

 

[bonzo]

bonzo,

What type of isolation devices (cones, still points, spikes, etc.) did Marty have under the PD speakers?

Gordon

Actually, I forgot - it wasn't Stillpoints or a brand I was familiar with. But then he wasn't particularly into isolation, his speakers were only on a base, though he might have made it, but not on any type of isolation. In fact "Try out Shun Mooks" was the only value add I could give his system. A lot of his sound comes from the room, Tact, (sub integration and managing the frequency curve). All his gear is in a cupboard, not on a rack.

 

[bonzo]

TTs are annoying things. They can sound utterly wonderful and at the same time totally dire with some discs. With the right ones, especially 12 inch 45 records, you can be amazed.

I also went to a guy's place who had Vandersteen 7's and a Rives Audio designed room with high end AR amps. Lots of tweaks. His ceiling was also over 20k, and his skylight reflected the bass into an attic using it as a bass trap. His rack hung by strings with tons of isolation. Not very involving, tbh, and I think it's the Stillpoints - all over the place. Nice sound otherwise though. He also had a Techdas TT that did much better than his Meitner dac. But then here his TT was much more expensive unlike Marty's. HE had OCD. He had been all over the wall with his Synergistic HFTs to determine the best positioning for them. He took out just one tiny transducer and his sound collapsed.

 

[hifinutt]

wonder if he ever tried one of these ??? !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KVu5NXEHns

 

[User211]

I like the 3-4 hour warm up. For generating RF. LOL.

There's an English phrase for those two. Dickheads, I believe.

You can hear changes it is quite a good recording for a YouTube video. It isn't due to that device, though, IMHO.