[Dave G]

I’d like to ask a favor of those attending the LSAF. I’m interested in getting comparisons of the speakers offered by two of the builders who will be exhibiting, Duke LeJeune (AudioKinesis) and Bob Brines (Brines Acoustics). I’ve happily owned a pair of Brines FT-1600s for about two years, but I’m always interested in finding out about other speakers. I’m particularly interested in how the FT-1600s compare to Bob’s LT-2000s and how the FT-1600s compare to Duke’s Jazz Modules. If anyone at LSAF listens to these speakers and cares to give me some feedback on how they compare, I’d really appreciate it.

My system is in a basement rec room that is about 16 x 28 x 8. I listen to mostly classical (including symphonies and choral works), baroque, traditional country, new grass, folk, and jazz.  I wouldn't mind getting good reproduction of rock and other heavily amplified music, but that's not a priority.

I hope you all have lots of fun at LSAF. 

Thanks for your help. If you’d like to contact me directly, I’m at djgayer AT yahoo DOT com

Dave Gayer

[bear-hifi]

Hello Dave, I will have my own room to run however I will try to make over to those guys and give their speakers a listen for you... I had a pair of the 1600s as well and should be able to compare them to the 1600s for you...

Frank

[Dave G]

Thanks a bunch, Frank! 

Good luck on showing your own stuff.

Dave 

[EDS_]

I’d like to ask a favor of those attending the LSAF. I’m interested in getting comparisons of the speakers offered by two of the builders who will be exhibiting, Duke LeJeune (AudioKinesis) and Bob Brines (Brines Acoustics). I’ve happily owned a pair of Brines FT-1600s for about two years, but I’m always interested in finding out about other speakers. I’m particularly interested in how the FT-1600s compare to Bob’s LT-2000s and how the FT-1600s compare to Duke’s Jazz Modules. If anyone at LSAF listens to these speakers and cares to give me some feedback on how they compare, I’d really appreciate it.

My system is in a basement rec room that is about 16 x 28 x 8. I listen to mostly classical (including symphonies and choral works), baroque, traditional country, new grass, folk, and jazz.  I wouldn't mind getting good reproduction of rock and other heavily amplified music, but that's not a priority.

I hope you all have lots of fun at LSAF. 

Thanks for your help. If you’d like to contact me directly, I’m at djgayer AT yahoo DOT com

Dave Gayer

I just printed your request. I will be happy to post my impressions. I'm very interested in the speakers you mentioned and listen to much of the same music.

[Dave G]

EDS,

That's great.  I look forward to your impressions.  Thanks for your help.

Dave

[arthurs]

I didn't hear the Brines speakers, but Duke's larger speaker was pretty impressive today....they do alot of things very right...and he was a really good guy...best thing i heard today for sure...I'll try and hear Brines tomorrow

[kyyuan]

I didn't hear the Brines speakers, but Duke's larger speaker was pretty impressive today....they do alot of things very right...and he was a really good guy...best thing i heard today for sure...I'll try and hear Brines tomorrow

agreed -- Duke's Jazz Module speakers were very nice, indeed.

[bear-hifi]

[bluemike]

I didn't hear the Brines speakers, but Duke's larger speaker was pretty impressive today....they do alot of things very right...and he was a really good guy...best thing i heard today for sure...I'll try and hear Brines tomorrow

Hi Arthur - I hope you're doing well

Care to expand on what you heard Duke's speaker do well
What size of room were these in

Reply at your own convenience 

[Dave G]

Thanks guys, for taking the time to post your thoughts about these speakers.  Like bluemike, I'd be interested in hearing more about what sorts of music Duke was playing and what you think his speakers did best.  Same thing for Bob Brines' speakers.

Thanks for all your help.

Dave

[Cacophonix]

I went there today and was very disappointed to see very many of the exhibitors had already left ... almost a day early. Apparently the construction noise inside the hotel drove them away. 

I was looking forward to listening to a bunch of speakers and electronics there, but unfortunately that wasn't to be.

[EDS_]

Thanks guys, for taking the time to post your thoughts about these speakers.  Like bluemike, I'd be interested in hearing more about what sorts of music Duke was playing and what you think his speakers did best.  Same thing for Bob Brines' speakers.

Thanks for all your help.

Dave

Sorry this summation will be lame, I am in a huge hurry……..
Mr. Brines was running tunes from a laptop into a Super-T amp with very nice results. His tube amp had blown a fuse, thus it was down. Saturday I was able to listen to the FT-1600 speakers, Sunday to the LT-2000. I like the LT-2000 a bit better. Both are exceptionally fast and coherent, with lots of detail. Mr. Brines’ workmanship is outstanding.

Mr. LeJune’s Jazz Modules are in a different category. This is going to sound like BS, but these are my sincere feelings. Duke ran two different set-ups.

I’m listing the set ups in reverse order relative to time……
1). Stock Oppo 970(?) into a NuForce integrated into Duke’s Jazz Modules. The sound was fast, detailed, and clean. The bass was excellent (tuneful multi-note bass). The sound was a bit on the lean side and maybe a little analytical. It is contextually important to point out that several listeners who did not hear the earlier set up were thrilled with the Oppo-Nuforce-Jazz Modules combo.   

2. Stock Oppo 970(?) into an old Infinity (I’m pretty sure that is correct) preamp into a set of Richard Gray’s 18wpc SET amps (the pre-amp was Richard Gray’s as well more about the amps in a minute). This rig was simply spectacular. So spectacular that I am likely to ask Duke and Richard to have Richard’s woodworker handle all woodworking chores for both and amp set and a speaker set-a perfectly matched set would be great IMO. I’m not the kind of guy who spends what will be about $15K or more for amps and speakers without some hesitation. However, I was blown away. No matter the genre of music, low, mid, or high volume the sound was spectacular. I did not hear the overly impressive but underly (sorry) musical sound that I have come to expect from top end gear. I heard music that sounded great just about everywhere in the room. I heard top end smoothness and rich detail. Beautiful male and female vocals were noted. The bass was essentially perfect-fast, detailed, tuneful, and nuanced.

Notes….
1.   I get the impression that Duke designed these speakers to mate with tubes. He indicates 1 watt @1 meter yields right at 92db. Likely more importantly the impedance curve is tube friendly. Mr. Gray’s 18 SETWPC were more than enough.
2.   Duke’s speakers are very large and heavy-Duke says they weigh about 110lbs. each.
3.   The ports are tunable to better match one’s room
4.   Go to Duke for a good explanation; but he prefers lots of toe-in.
5.   The speaker ports are to the rear.
6.   Richard Gray’s amps use an old SET tube I’ve never heard of before. There is a waiting list….after hearing his amps I can see why. I can’t find anything on Mr. Gray’s webpage about the amps.
7.   Duke and Richard are wonderful people.
8.   Bob is a great guy too.

[Dave G]

EDS_

Thanks for your very, VERY helpful account of your listening experiences. 

Bob's FT-1600s are pretty good, aren't they?  I'm sorry you missed getting to hear them with tubes.  I used my FT-1600s initially with just a modified T amp, and while I liked the sound, I felt it improved when I added a tubed preamp a few months later and then a tubed DAC a few months after that.  They gave the sound more warmth and richness without taking away any of its clarity.  I really like what I have. 

But the Jazz Modules seem like they might just be the ticket if I were to decide to upgrade.  They sound like great speakers.

Thanks again for your detailed and thoughtful comments.  And good luck on your plans for new speakers and amp.  Keep us posted.

Dave

[EDS_]

EDS_

Thanks for your very, VERY helpful account of your listening experiences. 

Bob's FT-1600s are pretty good, aren't they?  I'm sorry you missed getting to hear them with tubes.  I used my FT-1600s initially with just a modified T amp, and while I liked the sound, I felt it improved when I added a tubed preamp a few months later and then a tubed DAC a few months after that.  They gave the sound more warmth and richness without taking away any of its clarity.  I really like what I have. 

But the Jazz Modules seem like they might just be the ticket if I were to decide to upgrade.  They sound like great speakers.

Thanks again for your detailed and thoughtful comments.  And good luck on your plans for new speakers and amp.  Keep us posted.

Dave

Bob has a winner for sure in the 1600s. Their bang to buck ratio is outstanding.

You must find a way to listen to Duke's speakers.....just spectacular.

[Duke]

Thanks for the thumbs-up, EDS.

Note that my speakers are three times the price of Bob's, and that Bob's do pretty much everything you could ask for within their loudness level limitations.  If you don't need 100+ dB, save three grand and go with Bob's.  In addition, his image better and don't have a minimum listening distance below which coherence is lost.  Bob told me a little bit about what he's doing in the LT-2000/DX2, and I can say that he definitely knows his stuff.  I won't divulge but there is an elegant genius to what he's doing that makes me smack my forehead and say, now why didden I think of that??

Duke

[bluemike]

Duke you're a class act

Were lucky to have guys like you in the audio biz  aa

[Russell Dawkins]

Duke you're a class act

Were lucky to have guys like you in the audio biz  aa

I'll second that!

[Bob_Brines]

I am always reluctant to  address my own products on the forums for fear of being accused of commercial impropriety. But now that Duke has weighed in….

I did get a chance to listen to Dukes speaker, and …. I have no idea what it sounds like.  Unfortunately, the small concrete rooms  made setup difficult. The big sounding speakers like Duke's suffered most. The rooms made them all sound warm and fuzzy.  I spend an hour or so with Bob Spence and his Maxxhorns.  Same problem. The Maxxhorns have a huge presence that set off every room mode possible. That  and the reverb in Bob's larger room means …. I have no Idea what the Maxxhorns sound like.
I had better luck with my full-rangers. First, the narrower beam width of the speakers meant less interaction with the room. Second, I eq'd the system to the room!

I just got a laptop computer and decided to use it as my music source. I didn't have any time to play with it so I used Windows Media Player.  I went USB out and used a Sound Blaster as my DAC. Then, audio out to either an Abraxas 6BX7 pp amp or a Super SI T-amp. The DAC is so-so consumer grade, but given the quality of the room, the results were excellent. I will say that using the computer DVD/CD driver as a source was really crappy, but going hard driver to USB was very clean.

Back on track, WMP has an equalizer.  It's only one octave, but it was very effective in quelling some of the worst room artifacts. I put a RS SPL meter at the listening position and ran sign waves centered on the EQ frequencies. The result was that at that specific spot in the room, the sound was pretty good. In the future, I will be using FOOBAR and a real audio DAC. FOOBAR includes a half octave equalizer.

Bob

[jb]

Unfortunately, the small concrete rooms made setup difficult. The big sounding speakers like Duke's suffered most. The rooms made them all sound warm and fuzzy. I had better luck with my full-rangers. First, the narrower beam width of the speakers meant less interaction with the room. Second, I eq'd the system to the room!

Perhaps that’s why I didn’t like anything at LSAF. Although the rooms had very poor acoustics, they were no worse than other audio show and there's no good reason so many different systems should have sounded so bad. The exhibitors seem to treat LSAF as a one day event: arrive and do a hasty setup Friday afternoon, demo Saturday, then pack-up and leave Sunday morning.

I just got a laptop computer and decided to use it as my music source. I didn't have any time to play with it so I used Windows Media Player.  I went USB out and used a Sound Blaster as my DAC.

Bob, you do music lovers a disservice by demonstrating your speakers with a crappy digital front-end. I listened to your speakers on Friday afternoon and immediately noticed they didn’t have the magic I’ve come to expect from single driver speakers. If you recall, I commented on the poor quality of your digital source.

Using an upsampling DAC and/or digital equalization sucks the life out of the music. Digital filters re-compute every sample with a polynomial that gets its terms from the surrounding samples. As a result, the output signal is a rolling, weighted average of the input. According to theory, the more terms in the polynomial the better the filter, but that only applies to steady state signals. Music is anything but steady state and the more terms the worse the transient response. For me, the least digital processing is best.

[Bob_Brines]

Yes, I remember your comments.  I'm sorry that you were so disappointed. The mistake I made was playing your CD directly from the DVD/CD drive of the computer. I should have ripped it to the hard drive. While the DAC in the SoundBlaster is not the world's greatest, it's not all that bad, and a pure digital stream directly to the DAC is acceptable given the venue.

RE: EQ. Had I not EQ'd the room, you would have liked the sound even less. I hear you loud and clear that EQ is inherently bad and should be avoided, and I agree. However, I have never heard a speaker that didn't need some help to produce a balanced output. Multi-way speakers achieve this in the crossover network, single driver speakers do this with a contour filter.  A problem with most single driver speakers is a rising frequency response. This leads to an in-you-face, shouty sound. The lute music you had me play is not particularly susceptible to this, but baroque violin is, and without filtering can be ear-bleedingly bright. I hear all of the time that filtering "takes the life" out of the music, but I can't stand the brightness.

As to eq'ing a room, I contend that the room moods are not on the recording and must be removed. I suppose this can be done passively, but I'm not sure how. DSP makes the job easy. Now whether it is better to accept the room as is without processing or to accept the damage processing creates and hear the music as laid down on the recording is a very personal choice. Here I go for the best balanced sound without room peaks.

Bob