On Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:25:35 GMT, "Harold & Susan Vordos"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .
snip-

Define "cool, west coast sound" for me, 'Arry.

The likes of Dave Brubeck, for one. He was from California and played all
over the west coast, including many performances in Utah, where I saw him
numerous times.

I fell in love with Take Five way back when, probably my intro to jazz
in my teen years.


By sharp contrast, I could offer you Cannonball Adderly, playing 74 Miles
Away (not a cool west coast sound). I like that, too, but it's not quite
the same for me. Especially as I've grown older.

The only version of 74 I could find to listen to was by the Pierre
Anckaert Trio. Good stuff, also an early influential style for me. I
gave up music with vocals at an early age, _much_ preferring anything
instrumental to some screamer. Although he had vocals, John Mayall's
music caught my ear, especially the "Jazz Blues Fusion" album.


So, what did you do differently in building the
house to enhance the sound?

Not so much to enhance the sound as to accommodate the system. Some of the
walls will be carpeted, which helps with reflected sound, and the stereo
room is almost 32' front to back, which helps cover the listening spectrum
without standing waves. We have a pair of JBL S8R speakers in the C-50
Olympus enclosure, plus a JBL Paragon. They'll be used side by side, so the
room is about 21' wide to accommodate them. The room will have a wet bar
and is lit such that I can enjoy a nightclub type of atmosphere. I like to
sit in semi-darkness when I listen, sipping a scotch and water. I have
emulated, in a small way, the much smaller stereo room I created years ago
when I lived in Utah. This one is about twice it's size, however.

And just a bit less reflective than the castle walls?


When I'm depressed (very seldom nowadays) I crank up some old tunes
and rock out for an hour or two. My Bose 501 woofers went, but some
automobile 6x9s fit the space with a backer board, and they sound fair
to middlin'.

The key to the sound Bose developed depended more on speaker location than
anything. I placed my S8R system facing the wall when we lived in the
castle (to protect the grills. We had very little room where we lived while
working on the building). The sound created was astonishing.

Come to think of it, my buddy in Phoenix got a set of 901s. They're
the reason I jumped at the chance to get the used 501s years later.


If I had endless funds (and a much larger room) and add a set of Bozak
Concert Grands to the mix. I don't like their appearance all that well,
but they use a huge series of paper speakers (JBL uses horns except for the
lows 15" woofers). They produce a bold and gentle sound, much easier on
the ears than are the JBL's. Lots of presence with them, but they handle
power like you can't believe, and stay sharp and crisp.

Nice!


Looking forward to shooting a game of pool and listening. There's a 14' x
25' room that adjoins the stereo room (no wall between them). Three steps
that run the width (25') drop the floor so there's a 10' ceiling where the
pool table will sit. Plenty of room to take shots, and enough head room so
you don't hit the ceiling with the stick. The stairway is covered entirely
in black slate, with a walnut hardwood floor under the pool table. Walls,
like those in some of the stereo room, will be covered with carpet.

Yeah, rooms get too bright too easily, until the sound becomes tinny.
I think that I came to prefer carpeting to hardwood flooring early on
in my audiophile days as much for sound as for comfort. Ditto wall-to-
wall drapes. I hadn't realized how deeply that feeling ran until just
now.


An adult play pen, really. :-)

I won't ask, but I trust that you'll stock it with a first aid kit for
rug burns.

--
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
--Duke Ellington