[sbcgroup1]

I suppose the answer always is....somewhere in between the carriacture and the real presentation. That's magic. That's how you stay home and listen, enjoying the performance at home more than the real thing.

I'll be Yngwie Malmsteen'ing it w/the Czech Orchestra and Al DiMeola'ing it w/Friday Night in San Francisco. Then I'll throw on some Lizst (love piano concertos), and perhaps round out the evening with some of my favorite band of all time...good 'ol Iron Maiden! LOL. Judas Priest, Paul Gilbert, Yes, Rush, hehehe...I'm an 80's kid, what do you expect....

Oh, you know what would probably sound really cool...some "Riders on the Storm." Perfect day out for that in NY. Been raining a lot.

The only thing I'm worried about is that when I throw on these older recordings (Doors, Bob Seger, Yes, Jethro Tull, Heart, etc...) is that they will sound crappy because the VMPS is such a precision speaker.

I know that on a simple cone speaker, the Viennas, which I listened to at a local hi-fi shop, the guy showed off by playing Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine". <or whatever the name is of that song> And I could totally hear the limitations of the recording. The sales person thought it was cool...but he was just a tone deaf loser anyways (high pressure/high price store). He thought that just because something had an extraordinary cost that it was the "best." You know the type. Condescending.

Oh yeah, one more thing...I will be using my DVD Player (a Denon DVD-900) as my CD player as well for now. So I hope that won't kill the system! I really like my old H/K FL8450 CD player's sound better than the Denon's but I don't want to clutter the room with all sorts of extra separates, etc. What do you guys think? Is using my Denon DVD-900 okay? I know it doesn't play SACD or DVD audio, etc. We're doing mostly tv and movies anyways (livingroom).

-Ed

[John Casler]

Oh, you know what would probably sound really cool...some "Riders on the Storm." Perfect day out for that in NY. Been raining a lot.

The only thing I'm worried about is that when I throw on these older recordings (Doors, Bob Seger, Yes, Jethro Tull, Heart, etc...) is that they will sound crappy because the VMPS is such a precision speaker.
...

Well to be sure VMPS is not a "forgiving" speaker.  That is, it won't make a bad recording sound better.  

Bad recording = bad sound

BUT... I have a CD-R of Reference cuts from "Classic Rock" and on that CD are:

King Crimson - I Talk to the Wind
Led Zepplin - Stairway to Heaven
Jimi Hendrix - All Along the WatchTower
Jethro Tull - AquaLung
Heart - Crazy on You
Moody Blues - Knights in White Satin
Emerson Lake and Palmer - LuckyMan

and a few more.

These cuts are "incredible" and sonically a real treat.

In fact, I set up an RM40 system last Sunday and the owners friend came over later and they were listening to the Hendrix cut (WatchTower) and he said it sounded better than the "LIVE" performance he had heard years ago (probably Monterey Pop Festival).  And that was on speakers that only 4 hours old and not fully tweaked out!!

As far as your DVD player, the only way to tell how good it is, is to try it.  The FL-8450 was a "pretty good" player (I had one in my system) and has some rather high quality Burr-Brown chips in it (make sure and try the analog outs if you do use it)

The front end driveline of a system CDP/interconnects/pre-amp can have a substantial effect on the end result.

I'd say plug them both in and see if it is worth "finding" a place for the CDP.

[Redbone]

Well to be sure VMPS is not a "forgiving" speaker.  That is, it won't make a bad recording sound better.  

Bad recording = bad sound

BUT... I have a CD-R of Reference cuts from "Classic Rock" and on that CD are:

King Crimson - I Talk to the Wind
Led Zepplin - Stairway to Heaven
Jimi Hendrix - All Along the WatchTower
Jethro Tull - AquaLung
Heart - Crazy on You
Moody Blues - Knights in White Satin
Emerson Lake and Palmer - LuckyMan

and a few more.

These cuts are "incredible" and sonicall ...

John,  I recently played the entire ELP album with Lucky Man and was astounded by the imaging from the 40s.  The organ solo, I think it is on Lucky Man, really suprised me.  I've always thought that it was a fade out/in between left and right speakers but on the 40s it actually seemed to circle in 3 dimensions, spinning around me in a dizzying spiral of drums and organ.  If nothing else, the 40's image better than any other speaker that I have ever heard !

[DARTH AUDIO]

John,  I recently played the entire ELP album with Lucky Man and was astounded by the imaging from the 40s.  The organ solo, I think it is on Lucky Man, really suprised me.  I've always thought that it was a fade out/in between left and right speakers but on the 40s it actually seemed to circle in 3 dimensions, spinning around me in a dizzying spiral of drums and organ.  If nothing else, the 40's image better than any other speaker that I have ever heard !

That purple pill wasn't Nexium!!!      

[Rob Babcock]

I'll be Yngwie Malmsteen'ing it w/the Czech Orchestra and Al DiMeola'ing it w/Friday Night in San Francisco. Then I'll throw on some Lizst (love piano concertos), and perhaps round out the evening with some of my favorite band of all time...good 'ol Iron Maiden! LOL. Judas Priest, Paul Gilbert, Yes,  ...

Finally!  Another AC'er with good taste in music!     Yes, there are other things to listen to than Diana Krall!  

Hopefully someday I'll be able to hear 'Priest or 'Maiden on some RM/X's!