Posted by Wayne Parham [ 66.139.38.58 ] on October 02, 2005 at 21:26:14:

In Reply to: not much talk on shootout. posted by Leland Crooks on October 02, 2005 at 19:19:24:

Most of the talk right now is behind the scenes, getting things ready. David Lee and I have been on the phone a lot, planning things and getting prepared. Beyond that, I think most of the discussions will happen after the test results are in. This year, the Prosound Shootout will be a fact-finding event, and we'll test the systems that are there and post the results. The real benefit of this year's event is that we're testing the systems outdoors, and that we're evaluating them all at the same time and with the same battery of tests.

This is a chance for independent evaluation of bassbins with testing done outdoors. We'll obtain accurate measurements of our systems in a wide open area, without noise restrictions. This is something that DIY builders almost never have a chance to do, so it is good that we can take advantage of this. It also does a sanity check on commercial offerings, to confirm or disprove published performance data. We'll have a chance to see what the equipment really does, when professionally measured with a calibrated measurement system in an anechoic half-space environment. I am very thankful to David Lee of Rhino Acoustics for his participation in this event.

This thing started off as just a place to setup a high-power test, then kind of morphed into a DIY bassbin shootout. We really hadn't intended to focus solely on DIY, and had hoped to allow manufacturers to showcase their new products, but it looks like everyone but Bassmaxx was probably concerned about being outdone by their competition. So we're hoping to remedy that next year.

David and I have discussed some things to make the event more attractive to sound companies with commercial offerings next year. We're talking about doing a workshop, showing how to group the subs in different environments to get the most out of them. That will bring in a whole other crowd. So next year, we'll try to make the event be more of a place to showcase products and to demonstrate how to use them, so we don't scare off all the manufacturers. Once we do that, I think you'll see more discussion from company promoters and others with similarly vested interests.

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