Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Hearing Things A six month long test of an Axiom Tower vs. ???

The simplest answer is this: There is no "perfect" way to conduct a test.

But .. let's compare a test like this to one as done by most magazines or the typical on line reviewer:

They spend three or four days listening, then write up results as if the results were absolute.

In the GTG setting, what one will get is a variety of opinions based on people listening with no agenda involved. There are no advertisers expecting good results for the $$$ paid.

No one gets told not to audition the speakers for him or her self.

What happens is we get an honest test based on the results as posted by 10 to 15 people who had no idea which speakers were playing.

I can tell you, based on my own experiences along with the opinions of others, that our "basement theater" is one of the better "sound rooms" available. It's very quiet, with little colouration added by the room.

Plus - we have a lot of fun, something sorely lacking in all this.

Do you have a decent switching box ? I was trying to find one with remote control and banana plug connections for less than a bazillion dollars with no success, so I was thinking about building one.

Might use a flashlight for remote control -- 3 flashes selects speaker #3 etc, or I guess I could make it the first "thing" (from Internet of Things) to go in the house since the local "essential services" policy prevents me from networking the coffee maker.

I can attest to the factuality of this statement from first hand experience myself. Great listening room.

Dont get me wrong, I'd be clapping like a wind up monkey reading your posts about the event. It sounds like a lot of fun.

Guys - All the questions are good ones. The GTG portion of the plans for 2015 will be open for a lot of suggestions. If, for example, 12 guys "sign up" to attend and they want to have a serious, level matched blind test, we would look into switchers that work at the pre-amp stage rather than a speaker switcher, if at all possible.

So PLEASE ... keep asking questions, and rest assured that none of these questions are in the least bit "bothersome".

I will be opening a thread on Home Theater Shack after the Marantz arrives, featuring the Martin Logan ESL Hybrids. When the M-100's arrive, they will get the next round of listening.

Thanks to Ajax for teaching me copy/paste in 2005, so any of my blatherings on HTS can be reposted here.

This is what we used, a home crafted A/B instantaneous switcher with an electric powered toggle.




With a Parasound Halo amp, we could setup 2 speakers and run the preamp in mono for one on one testing. The Halo unit has independent gain controls on the rear for each channel which makes it very easy in equalizing the SPL to adjust for differences in efficiency.
You can use a covered screen, but since i didn't have something useful, we used blindfolds and sat about 12' away from the speakers which helped to minimize the determination of right vs. left. Farther back virtually eliminates this but can cause other problems as you start to move so far back in the room that the acoustics change dramatically.


Is that some kind of challenge craig?


I actually quite liked the 'results' of the last major GTG you had with all those lads. It ws interesting to see the variation in preferences and how some observations for some speakers recurred, thereby defining a common sound 'type'. That kind of less biased opinion is far more useful to get an idea of a speaker character.
Any reasonable attempt at reducing the bias is useful IMO, but no, it would be impossible to satisfy the naysayers and design a truly perfect blind test.

Suggestion for speakers to add; custom subwoofers using Tannoy drivers.

Yes, these are real, built and owned by a friend of a friend. Both are huge vintage stereophiles and one of them built the switcher.
An electronics guru so i've been told.

Heres my guess...

Its a 4 pole relay with normally open and closed contacts. Low voltage DC coil (probably an ice cube 12v automotive relay) hence the power supply. The relay input side is the from the amps and the output side is jumpered out and going to the speakers. Very cool setup and custom box! We built stuff like that in motor controls/PLC labs. And yes, I'm a dork for knowing that and posting.

You should build a few and sell them.

Apparently this was a prototype unit and there were plans to do a ver2 with improvements.
I don't know if designing some kind of gain control was in those plans, but that would be the biggest upgrade i could foresee.
Otherwise the switcher worked fantastic.
One user could toggle it back and forth quickly when testing say, two different amps, and the listener would never know which amp was playing.
We used this when testing sound differences between a receiver, an old tube amp and a modern Coda amp.

The switcher in action for my second use with it, oh about 10 years ago.