[Jose R.]

Amateur though the TacT (and I) may be, I have found it to be a wonderful tool and a damn good preamp and DAC too. To say that it greatly enhanced my time with the VMPS speakers is an understatement. These products can be an audiophiles best friend and a speaker designer's nightmare at the same time.

I would agree with you regarding the benefit of tools such as Tact RCS - it has certainly improved the sound I get with my RM30C's in my room considerably.
I disagree that it is a speaker designers nightmare - in fact I think it allows the speaker to sound the way the designer means them to sound as one reduces the effect of the room.  Designers best friend?

Regards

Jose

[audiochef]

Hey, Ekovalsky, what happened to "enough banting, time to listen? Obviously not very involving, your system is. Maybe you should go do more measurements, that'll keep you buissy.

You've already revealed yourself to be a real insecure SOB whose only passions are measurements. No one here gives an S what you have to say.

$126.000 . One hundred tweny six thousand dollars !!!  What a huge complement that is to VMPS . Just imagine what Brian could do with 1/3rd of that.


This is not  good stereo debating that you claim your engaged in with Brian. Your the classic snoddy MF that shows how having $$$s can ruin  a person.

So piss off and measure this.

[ekovalsky]

Hey, Ekovalsky, what happened to "enough banting, time to listen? Obviously not very involving, your system is. Maybe you should go do more measurements, that'll keep you buissy.

You've already revealed yourself to be a real insecure SOB whose only passions are measurements. No one here gives an S what you have to say.

$126.000 . One hundred tweny six thousand dollars !!! What a huge complement that is to VMPS . Just imagine what Brian could do with 1/3rd of that.


This is not good stereo debating that you claim your engaged in with Brian. Your the classic snoddy MF that shows how having $$$s can ruin a person.

So piss off and measure this.

Chef,

It is hard to listen to my system when I'm at work in a hospital, in front of a PACS workstation reading CT scans, MRIs, and xrays on sick people.  When I'm not busy reading scans, I surf the net.

$126,000 is a lot of money for a pair of speakers.  I did not pay anywhere near that amount of money.  To be honest, if I had zero $ to spend on speakers I would have made the same decision to sell and purchased something else.

Would you call me a snoddy MF if I spent the same coin on a pair of SuperTower IIIs and and some three RM30s for center and surround ?  Probably not.  

For your enlightnement, I worked my ass off for four years in college, four years in medical school all while accumulating a massive debt.  I then slaved for minimum wage for four years as a resident and another year as a fellow.  Ever work 120 hour weeks with 40 hour shifts while paying dearly to do it, hating every minute of it and having to keep a smile on your face the whole time ?

I didn't start seeing any rewards until I was 30.  Now that I am fortunate to have a good income through an extremely stressful and frequently unpleasant job, who are you to say that I'm a "real insecure SOB" and that "having $$$s can ruin a person" ?  Have you ever met me ?  I am proud to provide very well for my wife and daughter, soon to be two daughters, and I have zero guilt about indulging my hobbies a bit.  If you find something wrong with that, why don't you relocate to a nice communist country like China or North Korea ?  

In the little free time I have after working all day and spending time with my family, I listen.  I've spent maybe six hours moving and doing measurements with my new speakers.  That is a small fraction of the time I did so with the previous sytem.  It is most engaging to me, and that is all that I care about.  

Frankly, I don't "give a S" what you think about me.  I'm actually a pretty decent and normal guy.  Instead of telling you to piss off, I'll offer you an invitation to hear my system if you're ever in the area.  MEASURE THAT.

[warnerwh]

Regarding measurements.  Brian has stated and I've come to realize that he's right:  Measurements can be worse than helpful and that our ears don't hear like a microphone.  After having the Rm 40's for only a few months I've spent considerable time working with the acoustics and speaker/listener positions.  My room is dedicated and well treated and I can do whatever I want in there.  The sound is presently to the point where I don't think there could be much improvement left to be made. I did have to change all of my front end gear save the tuner due to the fact that the speakers are so capable and felt it would be worth it, which it has been(more than I would have guessed).  The quality of sound now can be no less than eerie close to real at times.  A dsp unit may be able to help in subtle ways here and there but I wonder at this point if the music could be made any more enjoyable the sound is so good.  Actually I'm be afraid to do anything at this point.  There's no doubt my ears are the best measurement tool.  And the more I think about it the more I've come to realize Brian had been right all along.  Otherwise we'd all be seeing Tacts in every dealers showroom.  I should add that I do believe dsp can be very useful in the majority of rooms, but I truly wonder if it would be worth the effort in my dedicated room.

[Tweaker]

If I didn't know better, I would think that this was a political foum with the amount of anger being generated. Very classy post, Audiochef. If having money ruins a person, what's your excuse? I have yet to read a post of ekovalskys that would suggest he's any thing but a decent guy with a passion for music and audio gear like the rest of us. I wonder, as a percent of his salary,  if he spends anymore than you or I do on gear. Maybe, maybe not, but it's his business how he wants to spend his money and on what. I own VMPS RM2's and I don't feel insulted that he found something he feels is better.
Ah,well, on to more important stuff.
  I'm amazed at the resistance to dsp/digital eq'ing that I run across at times. It (digital eq) has made a stunning improvement in the sound of my system and I'm only talking a couple db here and a couple db there. Not going for flat, mind you. The goal is to not only even out the peaks and valleys but to set up a target curve. Lots of discussion about that at the AudioAsylum and other forums but the curve I have set up is with a very modest midrange boost, a modest boost to the bass below 125Hz, and a gentle roll off of the high fequencies to keep the treble from being too bright. Thorsten Loesch has a great articl on target curves for the Behringer Ultracurve but of course can be used with any equalizer. Here's a link:
http://www.prijsindex.net/tmp/room%20acoustics%20and%20eq.html

[zybar]

Regarding measurements.  Brian has stated and I've come to realize that he's right:  Measurements can be worse than helpful and that our ears don't hear like a microphone.  After having the Rm 40's for only a few months I've spent considerable time working with the acoustics and speaker/listener positions.  My room is dedicated and well treated and I can do whatever I want in there.  The sound is presently to the point where I don't think there could be much improvement left to be made. I did have to change ...

I have a dedicated room with lots of room treatment and the TacT makes a tremendous impact.  It is anything but subtle.  But you wouldn't know that since you haven't heard the TacT - have you?

Have you heard the TacT properly setup?  If not, how about stop posting about how you can't believe it can't get better.  Why not talk about things you have experienced first hand instead of making uneducated guesses and spouting them like fact!

EVERY person who has come over and taken the time to hear the TacT vs. non-TacT versions of my system (with the VMPS or the Salk Sound speakers in place) has thought the TacT produced a more musical and complete presentation.

I would argue that people like Eric, Jose, and myself have heard more of what the VMPS speakers are really capable of than 95% of the VMPS owners out there BECAUSE of the TacT, not inspite of it.

The TacT isn't in every system for a variety of reasons (such as cost, marketing, ease of use, etc...).  Just because everybody doesn't use it, doesn't mean it is an excellent addition to a system.

George

[CornellAlum]

I have a question...


Does anything exist as far as digital eq like the tact but doesn't cost quite so much?  I would love to try one, but I am not willing to spend that kind of money at the moment.  A couple years down the road, definately, as soon as the car loan is paid off

Just curious...

And Eric, I take back what I said the other day, your post about how you "made it" shows me what kind of person you truly are.  I would say I am in the "sorta paid" stage that you went through at the moment, but with big rewards down the road.  My apologies for being a dick.  


Finally, if you are going to say S, just "drop the bomb" already

[ekovalsky]

warnerwh,

If you happen to have a TacT dealer in your area you should contact them about an in-home demonstration.  It may be eye opening...

In no way am I implying that what you are experiencing now is anything other than superb.  Any loudspeaker in any enclosed space, regardless of size or treatments, will have interactions and some of these will be undesirable.  There is affordable technology that can compensate for this to a significant degree, whether or not any particular audiophile chooses to travel this path is a personal decision of course.  

Some speaker manufacturers, like Newform and NHT, have embraced this technology.  Others are leaving it up to their customers to experiment, with or without any encouragement.  

I know that my TacT will not be leaving my system, regardless of what speakers I happen to have, unless Peter Lyngdorf introduces a worthy successor.  There are quite a few of these units out there, and considering that how few show up on Audiogon (there are usually more wanted than for sale ads) most owners are probably happen with the results.  The initial learning curve is a bit steep, mainly because no adequate manual is provided, and I almost gave up on mine during the few weeks.  Thanks in large part to zybar I stuck it out.

[zybar]

I have a question...


Does anything exist as far as digital eq like the tact but doesn't cost quite so much?  I would love to try one, but I am not willing to spend that kind of money at the moment.  A couple years down the road, definately, as soon as the car loan is paid off

Just curious...

Not that it is the same, but there are products from Behringer that would allow you to get some benefits with your Larger sub.

I have also heard of people trying to duplicate the TacT functionality via software and a pc.

I realize the TacT isn't cheap, but it is a preamp AND dac as well as providing room, phase, and time domain corrections.

George

[Campindog]

So far off topic, ain't even funny. Unsubscribing..

[Tweaker]

The Behringer Ultracurve is what I'm using. Musicians Friend sells it for $299.00 with a  45 day money back no restocking fee policy. Has a decent d/a converter built in as well. Good enough to displace my ART DI\O.  The inputs and outputs are AES/EBU  so you will need to buy adapters or modify your cables which is what I did. You'll  also need to buy the microphone (and cable).  Just don't try to go for a flat response, you won't like the result.
 

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_id/106326

[CornellAlum]

I think I just had a flashback to a couple years ago when I was in college, because I could SWARE I was just reading this, clicked a link, and the thread moved

Me thinks John is at work...

[John Casler]

Yes, I am guilty as charged.

Thought everyone would appreciate threads that have more topical relevancy to their thread titles.

[Tweaker]

Threads/conversations evolve and go off on tangents. A natural thing, can be annoying but no one should get in a huff when it happens. This is a great topic though and I'm glad it has been given its own space. I am a firm beleiver in digital eq'ing and I don't believe that a system can realize its potential without it. Certainly dsp and room treatments is a marraige made in heaven!

[ekovalsky]

I still think a dedicated forum here for room correction, DSP crossovers, etc would be a great idea.  Users of TacT, DEQX, Behringer, and PC-based solutions could share their experiences and correction curves and also help each other work through software and configuration difficulties.  Had Zybar not done that for me after I got the TacT I probably would have sent it back!

It would also be a great resource for audiophiles entertaining the idea of adding such a product to their systems.

There is a lot of good stuff on the Yahoo TacT groups, but they are terribly inefficient to search and difficult to navigate.

[ekovalsky]

I have a question...


Does anything exist as far as digital eq like the tact but doesn't cost quite so much?  I would love to try one, but I am not willing to spend that kind of money at the moment.  A couple years down the road, definately, as soon as the car loan is paid off

Just curious...

And Eric, I take back what I said the other day, your post about how you "made it" shows me what kind of person you truly are.  I would say I am in the "sorta paid" stage that you went through at the m ...

Do you have a home theater PC ?  If so, a computer-based solution will be cheap and very effective, maybe even more so than the TacT.  I'm not particularly knowledgable about this stuff yet, but there is a ton of information here

The Behringer gear is an incredible value.  I'm amazed they can make money on this stuff considering how many features it has and what they are charging for it.  Quality must be pretty good, John Meyer of Newform recommends it highly with his top systems.  Some good info here.

If your budget is a bit more flexible look into used TacT.  You'd probably want a RCS 2.2X to integrate your mains and subs.  If you don't have subs, the RCS 2.0S is a lot cheaper and gives the same processing power on your mains.  The ability to integrate subs with digital crossovers and time/phase alignment is a major benefit though, and I think the extra cost of the RCS 2.2X is justified.  The price of the 2.2X and 2.0S (new and particularly used) will fall later in the year when Peter Lyngdorf introduces his new product line, which will based on a different software platform from Dynaton.  I'm very anxious to see how it performs.  Based on Peter's track record I have very high expectations!

The RDES may be worth a look too, it may have enough power to fix room-related bass problems which is what 95% of room correction does with a good speaker system.  Warnerwh can probably provide you with lots more information about it.  For the first couple weeks I had my new speakers set up without any room correction, just four bands of parametric EQ to fix the measured bass nodes.  Eventually I did switch back to room correction but the parEQ gave me most of what I wanted.

Keep up the hard work, delayed gratification is worth it.  

Eric
Arts & Sciences '91

[warnerwh]

Certainly having experienced the different presentation changing room acoustics can make has made me realize how important the room is.  With my LEDE room I'm sure I could squeeze more accuracy out of my system.  At one point I'll no doubt try the Tact for nothing else but to enjoy and tinker but am very satisfied with the sound and enjoy music immensely with it. The thing I like is not only adding accuracy, (which is?), but trimming the sound more to my liking. And anybody without very good room acoustics should definitely seek out a Tact or something for at least an experiment at minimum if they spend any money over 1500 on a preamp.  My personal opinion is that most people have not experienced the large variation their speakers presentation can be due to the frequency response. I checked into it some time ago and a refurbished Tact 2.0 with A/D and D/A was available from the factory for 1500, which is a pretty fair price.  What bothers me is how come dsp is so uncommon after all these years puzzles me because I know how much the in room frequency reponse is affected. This is especially true anywhere the room is not well treated which is quite uncommon judging by system photos I see.

[Rob Babcock]

I still think a dedicated forum here for room correction, DSP crossovers, etc would be a great idea.  Users of TacT, DEQX, Behringer, and PC-based solutions could share their experiences and correction curves and also help each other work through software and configuration difficulties.  Had Zybar not done that for me after I got the TacT I probably would have sent it back!

Perhaps if enough people were clamoring for a new Circle we'd accomodate it.  But that's exactly the sort of thing the Digital Domain is for.  So many people think "Digital Amps" and "Surround Sound" is all that goes on there- maybe I chose a bad name?

[Jose R.]

The sound is presently to the point where I don't think there could be much improvement left to be made. I did have to change all of my front end gear save the tuner due to the fact that the speakers are so capable and felt it would be worth it, which it has been(more than I would have guessed). The quality of sound now can be no less than eerie close to real at times. A dsp unit may be able to help in subtle ways here and there but I wonder at this point if the music could be made any more enjoyable the sound is so good. Actually I'm be afraid to do anything at this point

I am constantly amazed that the biggest critics of digital room correction are those who have never tried it or used it properly.  Clearly one can get excellent sound without room correction but it does take time and, as mentioned above, often requires major changes to equipment.
I went through the whole gamut of equipment changes, acoustic treatment etc quite a few years ago.  I even landed up building a dedicated music room with the correct ratios, LEDE, acoustic treatment etc.  I forget how often I thought to myself - it cannot get any better than this! ... until it did
I am not claiming that DRC is for everyone - there are perhaps some drawbacks and it does take time to fine tune but once it is properly set up, the benefits can be amazing.  The difference it made to the sound in my room with ALL the speakers I have tried is orders of magnitude greater than any equipment change or acoustic treatment did.
There are free PC based correction systems (which I have not tried) but even the cost of products such as Tact, Behringer, and DEQX are not that high if one compares it to the cost of equipment changes that one goes through.  How many of us have bought cables etc costing a few thousand $'s, trying to get that ultimate extra refinement etc

Regards

Jose

[Florian]

Hey, Ekovalsky, what happened to "enough banting, time to listen? Obviously not very involving, your system is. Maybe you should go do more measurements, that'll keep you buissy.

You've already revealed yourself to be a real insecure SOB whose only passions are measurements. No one here gives an S what you have to say.

$126.000 . One hundred tweny six thousand dollars !!!  What a huge complement that is to VMPS . Just imagine what Brian could do with 1/3rd of that.


This is not  good stereo debat ...

And obviously your sick of enfy !!!