Hi Folks,

I’m that guy from Audio Crafters Guild who Greg could not remember the name of ( ). So let me begin by saying “thank you so much” to Greg for the kind words on the Facet Audio Labs/Audio Crafters Guild room at RMAF 2006. We had a great time demo’ing the system and listening to our visitor’s music during the show, it is rewarding to know notice was taken. Mike Henry & I had a goal of demonstrating a system which provided 95% of the performance of the cost-no-object systems thick on the ground at RMAF for 20% of their cost. Greg’s awarding us a Top Ten among systems he auditioned at RMAF 2006 tends to confirm we succeeded in our goal.

I finally have further details on the Audio Crafters Guild 1000 series amplifier line up at www.audiocraftersguild.com including a PDF format spec sheet. Of course I would have preferred to have this up before introducing the line at the show but the clock and the calendar have no pity so it was not to be. This was my first out of town show and I would say we underestimated the amount of work involved by at least 1/3. As an example of why you might find it more fun to visit an audio show as an attendee rather than an exhibitor after the RMAF ended circa 5PM on Sunday we took a dinner break then packing and loading the cargo van took until 2AM Monday, grabbed 7-8 hours of sleep then a 12 hour drive home. At least Denver to Tulsa does not involve crossing the Rocky Mountains, I heard of some way-too-close calls from West coast exhibitors who were driving cargo trucks over the mountains in the snow. Of course the big guns use freight forwarding services and just fly their people in/out.

The wide speaker setup Greg noted was our solution to the hotel acoustics problem. With a more conventional positioning we had the big booming bass hump plaguing so many rooms. It was rather tense until Mike Henry (designer of the Banshee speakers and president of Facet Audio Labs) suggested we try moving his speakers further apart. That solved the bass issue with the added bonus of a wide cinema scope imaging treat for the listener in the center seat. The acoustic treatment panels Mike designed and built then became icing on the proverbial cake as we fine tuned in the imaging focus. Having now experienced the notorious hotel room acoustic first hand I believe the big issue is the steel and cement hotel construction has much stiffer walls and especially floor and ceiling compared to our typical homes. More energy stays in the room and it’s extra bass city. This characteristic should make for quite the home court advantage for those displaying the ever popular 2-way with 5” mid/woofer, bit of a headache for full range systems. I noticed several exhibitors chose to just live with the booming bass often so they could fit extra seating. It’s interesting to note the variations in the web reports as to if this is mentioned or not. Of course one persons ‘boom’ is another’s ‘impressive bass for the size of the speaker’.

Well, I’ll cut this off lest it becomes some kind of show report. Again thanks to Greg and all the others who stopped by our room at RMAF 2006 to sample our wares.

Happy listening

Norman Tracy