[jimtranr]

"You've finally achieved what you wanted to."

That's my wife's assessment after spending about an hour-and-a-half last evening listening to the bedroom system churn out everything from Bernstein (the Turtle Creek Chorale rendering "Make Our Garden Grow" from "Candide") to Brubeck ("Take Five") to Borodin (the Cleveland Quartet's take on his String Quartet No. 2's second movement ["Baubles, Bangles, and Beads", you know--it sounds much more compelling in its original scherzic incarnation]) to Hugo Friedhofer (the suite of his "The Sun Also Rises" on the Kenneth Wilkinson-engineered "Captain Blood" recording from the excellent 1970's RCA-released film score series conducted by Charles Gerhardt).

She's nailed it, seconding the impression I'd already taken away from the previous evening's audition and yesterday afternoon's follow-up listening session. Oh, she still shakes her head at the room's Stonehengian ambience. But she comprehends and appreciates the "why" of it, so I don't have to move anything so much as an iota. And she betrays no hint of "Do we really have to have those things in here?" So that could-have-been-a-nasty-issue is settled.

Just a couple of follow-up observations:

(1) What I noted earllier about the impact of virtually full room treatment continues to hold true. While recordings intended by the producing-engineering team to portray humongous venue scale do just that with an increased sense of intra-soundstage space as well as broader and deeper boundaries and better-"lit" rear corners, close-miked productions recorded in sardine-can venues remain close-miked productions recorded in sardine-can venues, the only difference being that they exhibit greater and more nuanced instrumental and vocal detail including attack and decay.

(2) Seconds before "The Sun Also Rises" suite ended, I was nearly lifted from my middle-of-the-bed slouch by a momentary very-low-end growl I hadn't heard before I put the "stand-in" 244 in front of the dresser. "What's that?" my wife asked. Maybe a big truck passing by on the street, I ventured (we experience that rumbling sensation here every now and then). So I replayed the last several seconds of the track. Thrice. KA-WHOOM! each time. Yup, it's in the score (and it belongs there, given the nature and flow of the suite's climax). What had been an indistinct, ignorable grunt suddenly had its own well-defined "I'm here!" personality. I didn't know the Studio 20's had it in them. And wouldn't have if I hadn't treated the dresser front.

Needless to say, I'm a more than happy camper.

--Jim