Hi Geoff
I think it was a big waste of time for May cause like I said on that forum I didn’t know who she, you and Peter were. I got to know you guys through those posts and then the research I did by looking you guys up, and then all the emails I started getting. It was after that folks started telling me that I had listened to your products in their systems. That wasn’t unusual for me, cause I kind of live in my own world and have never really paid attention to who I was going to be working with on any given day. It’s not me being rude just very intense when I’m doing something, and I don’t get outside of that bubble. I probably don’t know 95% of the people I have ever worked with. That’s just how I’m wired. Like now when you and I are talking by PM, that’s how I am. When you give me a task to do I’m all over it. I haven’t even gone to bed for two days cause I’m working on testing things here and making testing templates to do stuff. If I have a question I’m going to ask cause when I’m working on NDM for example, I’m not the boss you are.
There are so many variables in testing something that I’m not down with is the quick change because I have learned that all of us see change and our first reaction is that we focus on an instant glance of the immediate. Something new is sticking out and that’s what we see until the rest starts to fill in the blanks. I work the other way around. I make that stage as big as it can get and then I look into the change within the context of that space. That’s probably where my testing is different from most. Most are doing their testing with built in limitations, like chassis, dampening, shielding and mass. I’m starting with a huge soundstage in an environment that is casting a stage that goes way behind me as well as in front, to the sides and up and down. In fact I don’t do my testing till the stage is equal distance in all directions. It’s super extreme nearfield. I’m almost dead even with the speakers plane. When I then install whatever it is that I am testing I can hear the stage grow or squeeze, get phazy or glow, fill out or collapse in, full range or tonally imbalanced. Basically a bunch of different cues that are similar to headphones only much bigger and with more feeling and more layering or fill. Plus I can hear if the image gets stuck in my head or if I can spin around and get the image from any direction. I can also check Pressure Zone inflation or deflation, all kinds of stuff. So whereas most folks are doing their listening test from their regular listening position, way before I get to that there’s other tests to do first. I should also include that I do settling tests.
I came to Stereophile the same way as I’m coming here with one difference. On Stereophile I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be able to be myself, I was trolled relentlessly. On here I jumped in with a thread that took on the trolling right up front. I also said I was here to talk based on my walk. Something I always do in this industry with the exception of what happened on Stereophile. I should have just backed out and moved on, instead of trying to find common ground with folks who didn’t want it. I think it was JAs fault more than anyone else. But it was my inexperience in a forum style I had never done before and frankly am not equipped to take on. It was like throwing a piece of meat to the wolves. I had no business being a part of it.
"come out of it in one piece"? I certainly came out of it changed, and sadly not for the better. Some of the innocence and respect I had for the hobby was taken from me.
anyway now I’m rambling
mg