Thanks to all of you who attended Chicago Fest 2005, and for visiting the BESL room to audition the digital direct and tri-amplified BESL System 5 monitors and subwoofer.
The shortened hotel schedule made it challenging to get set up, dialed in, and packed up. I appreciate everyone’s patience at the start of the day while I was experiencing some technical difficulties. Once the system was running by almost 1pm, the early audiophiles heard it with the subwoofers down way too low. Only by mid afternoon did we get the chance to actually measure the system, whereupon we discovered the bass needed to be turned up by 10dB! After some listening time, I could tell the room was a little hot in the treble, so many of you experienced a small amount of tonal tilt EQ applied to counteract this effect. As for speaker positioning, I used my usual method of combining the Cardas and Audio Physik techniques for best bass response and imaging. Note that no large objects were placed between or behind the speakers’ positions. The large room window was sufficiently far behind the speakers, and the curtains helped tame the early reflection somewhat. DIY absorber panels were placed at the sidewall first reflection points. The front and center chair did image quite well and show the best tonal balance, in my opinion. I hope enough guests were able to experience this spot. By late afternoon, I was satisfied with the sound.
It was a pleasure to meet so many new audiophiles. It is nice to know that the Chicago Audio Society is alive and well. I would be happy to make another trip up to Chicago for a demo especially for CAS.
Congratulations to Jim Holtz for being the lucky winner of the BESL bi-wire cables.
Thanks again to AV123 for the loaner Emotiva amp, preamp, and CD player.
A special thanks goes out to Jack Giuffre and Joel Wasser for all their help and moral support. After the show, I delivered the System 5 speakers to Jack’s house, and picked up his System 2 in exchange. We spent Sunday afternoon optimizing the layout of his system. Sunday evening we watched the Sox pennant game (on mute) while we dialed in the sound with music. It was really sounding pure and sweet, with great imaging and dynamics in Jack’s media room.
