Hey Srajan....Nice Move !!!

lonewolfny42 · « **on:** 4 May 2006, 02:30 am »

I was over at the 6moons site looking around, and spotted this post by Srajan Ebaen .... http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/srajan/cyprus.html

Seems he's moved...to a very nice location........ahhhh.... the waves, the breeze, the beach , and the fruit trees....nice !!!

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TheChairGuy · « **Reply #1 on:** 4 May 2006, 02:53 am »

He visited in January 2005 and moved not but 18 months later - bold guy (no kids, no doubt).

It's a beautiful island (my dad's family is from there and I've been 2x), but the Western side is the more remote section of a fairly sparsely populated island to begin with (about Nassau/Suffolk/LI sized, but with 1/4 the population).

Pity the poor US vendors that have to ship their heavy gear there....it's not going to be cheap waiting to get a review from Srajan from Cyprus.

I'd like to go back soon myself

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #2 on:** 4 May 2006, 02:58 am »

TCG/John :

Quote

Pity the poor US vendors that have to ship their heavy gear there....it's not going to be cheap waiting to get a review from Srajan from Cyprus.

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Posted that he's going to check out the equipement in Europe....and the U.S market will be covered by the other reviewers living here in the U.S.[/list:u]

Tweaker · « **Reply #3 on:** 4 May 2006, 03:29 am »

Cyprus, Panama, and Costa Rica are the three places my wife and I have entertained as possible places to retire to. All very affordable and beautiful. Lucky dog!

nathanm · « **Reply #4 on:** 4 May 2006, 05:48 am »

Srajan takes some of the most beautiful ambient-light indoor photos. How the heck does he do it? What camera is he using!?

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #5 on:** 4 May 2006, 05:54 am »

Quote from: nathanm

Srajan takes some of the most beautiful ambient-light indoor photos. How the heck does he do it? What camera is he using!?

Yes...they are very good photo's !! Maybe you could ask him........

Tweaker · « **Reply #6 on:** 4 May 2006, 07:31 pm »

Quote

Srajan takes some of the most beautiful ambient-light indoor photos. How the heck does he do it? What camera is he using!?

I think the key to his great shots are that he appears to be using a couple of studio flood lights.

IronLion · « **Reply #7 on:** 4 May 2006, 09:28 pm »

Quote from: nathanm

Srajan takes some of the most beautiful ambient-light indoor photos. How the heck does he do it? What camera is he using!?

I'm a photographer and while I agree that he takes good photos, I don't think he uses studio floodlights. It looks like all-ambient light to me, but whats evident is that a) he probably knows how to do a custom white balance on his camera (I'm guessing a DSLR) and b) he has a and more importantly, he uses a tripod.

As is quite obvious through the 6moons layout, he has some knowledge of Photoshop which is critical if you actually intend on publishing photos or printing them if you want them to look their best; color and tonal correction as well as sharpening are just scratching the surface of what can be done in Photoshop with digital photos. In any case, his photos are proof of how important tripods are; people buy expensive digital cameras and are disappointed when they get blurry or grainy pictures because they neglect tripods, arguably the most important photography tool you can own other than the camera and lens.

Tweaker · « **Reply #8 on:** 4 May 2006, 10:02 pm »

Those big white circles on the wall on either side of his rack sure look like reflections of undiffused studio lights to me. Not to mention how well the room is flooded with light. Not the lighting of a typical Cyprus home, I'll wager.

IronLion · « **Reply #9 on:** 4 May 2006, 10:15 pm »

Quote from: Tweaker

Those big white circles on the wall on either side of his rack sure look like reflections of undiffused studio lights to me. Not to mention how well the room is flooded with light. Not the lighting of a typical Cyprus home, I'll wager.

Those are omni-directional wall-mounted light fixtures. The reason you can't see them and that they look like spotlights is because they're omni-directional design makes them cast light throughout the room, lighting everything slightly but not very effectively. In order to expose the room correctly, an exposure is required that will bring out the details of what is not that well lit, which is mostly everything in the room; the result of this is that while the room is exposed properly, the light fixtures are completely blown out and appear as white spots.

An undiffused studio light would cast very clear shadows in the room, but as you can tell the shadows are fairly soft which eliminates this possibility for me. In addition, everything in the room is softly lit without harsh shadows, which is usually a telling sign of ambient light being used.

Also, if you look at the way shadows are cast in the room, they are basically all coming from those wall-mounted lights. Look at the last picture on the bottom and this is fairly clear if you look at the shadow of the hanging bird; if there were spotlights in the room lighting up those areas where the wall fixtures are, there would be secondary shadows of the bird cast somewhere in the area of where the fire-place looking corner of the room is. These shadows would come directly from the light coming off the spotlights, not from the reflected light. Or so my theory goes, anyways.

Tweaker · « **Reply #10 on:** 4 May 2006, 10:33 pm »

I will have to concede you are probably right. Did not pay attention to the shadows. He really has those wall mount floods cranked!
I think the other thing that made me think studio floods is the color temp is what I would expect to see if they were being used. I'm going to have to bring myself out of the dark ages and start playing around with some photo manipulation software.

Daemon · « **Reply #11 on:** 4 May 2006, 10:49 pm »

I'm not going to buy into the lighting arg (even though I think Iron Lion's right).

Has anybody ever personaly heard those gallo speakers he's using? In Australia you can only get those in Harvery Norman and Domain, both chain furniture and home electrical stores. So I'd always assumed they must be a bit dodgy. It's hard to describe to non-ozzies how ozz audiophiles feel about those chain store products; we assume they're rubbish and rarely ever give the benefit of the doubt. For example 25 years ago in Aus you could only buy Marantz at a chain store called Norman Ross wich subsequently became Harvey Norman. Now most audiophiles still poo poo Marantz gear here (even their top of the line way good stuff) and we're only just begining to accept that some of it might possibly be OK. So just knowing that Gallo speakers have come from a chain store makes us ignore them instinctively (they probably sit right next to pioneer all in one mini systems with grahic eq), and I've never seen them so much as mentioned on an Aus audio forum. Even the glowing 6 moons review isn't enough to brake through the cringe barrier.

nathanm · « **Reply #12 on:** 4 May 2006, 10:59 pm »

I got a response from him, he says he's using a Nikon 5400 and he also does some post-processing in Photoshop. Whatever he's doing looks good to me!

I used to own Gallos like those myself. They are very good speakers, but I am a bigger fan of the Solos\spherical earlier models. I would definitely recommend (if you're looking for used that is) getting the Solos or Reference IIs instead of the 3s. I don't think the woofer design in the IIIs works all that great. But of course room cancellation is probably a big factor as well.

Horizons · « **Reply #13 on:** 4 May 2006, 11:32 pm »

Quote from: Daemon

I'm not going to buy into the lighting arg (even though I think Iron Lion's right).

Has anybody ever personaly heard those gallo speakers he's using? In Australia you can only get those in Harvery Norman and Domain, both chain furniture and home electrical stores. So I'd always assumed they must be a bit dodgy. It's hard to describe to non-ozzies how ozz audiophiles feel about those chain store products; we assume they're rubbish and rarely ever give the benefit of the doubt. For example 25 years ago ...

Personally, I don't get what all the fuss is about with the Gallos. They are reasonably transparent and have decent bottom end considering their footprint but their image height sounds like you are listening to minimonitors playing on the floor. For me, that was fatal. If you buy the Gallo 3s you better get a LOOOW chair or sit on the floor.

Cheers!

Horizons · « **Reply #14 on:** 4 May 2006, 11:33 pm »

Quote from: Daemon

I'm not going to buy into the lighting arg (even though I think Iron Lion's right).

Has anybody ever personaly heard those gallo speakers he's using? In Australia you can only get those in Harvery Norman and Domain, both chain furniture and home electrical stores. So I'd always assumed they must be a bit dodgy. It's hard to describe to non-ozzies how ozz audiophiles feel about those chain store products; we assume they're rubbish and rarely ever give the benefit of the doubt. For example 25 years ago ...

Personally, I don't get what all the fuss is about with the Gallos. They are reasonably transparent and have decent bottom end considering their footprint but their image height sounds like you are listening to minimonitors playing on the floor. For me, that was fatal. If you buy the Gallo 3s you better get a LOOOW chair or sit on the floor.

Cheers!

nathanm · « **Reply #15 on:** 4 May 2006, 11:55 pm »

That's what they made telephone books and cinder blocks for!

I didn't try jacking up mine when I had them, but indeed - the tweeter is about half a foot lower than the Solos. Easily remedied though I'd imagine. Perhaps I gave up on them too fast.

miklorsmith · « **Reply #16 on:** 5 May 2006, 02:38 pm »

I don't think you gave up on the Gallos too soon, Nate. They have other issues that are much bigger than image height. Their midrange is weak, as are their macrodynamics. My homebuilt Fostexes kicked their asses in these departments and out the door they went.

KKM · « **Reply #17 on:** 5 May 2006, 08:43 pm »

I think the Gallo 3.1's are excellent speaker, I gave up my Magnepan 3.6's for them. I first heard the Gallo's at the HE2003 and thought they were one of the best sounds at the show. The new 3.1's do have an improve midrange driver, and different capacitor in the xover then the original 3.0's. The design philosophy of the Gallo's addresses all the weaknesses of a baffled box speaker. The speakers do need to be elevated from the stock set-up depending on your listening position, that's why I had custom stands made. As long as you can raise or lower a speaker, image height is how you want to make it, as can be said of any speakers. They do require an enormous amount of time to break in, probably about 300 hrs and the associate electronics are critical for best performance.