drmcclainphd

And that is as it should be. It's good to have pieces that test the ranges and dynamics of the parts or system being examined. But more importantly, you should be intimately familiar with them. If you haven't heard them on many different systems they may sound good in a new test, but you might not notice specific drop outs or emphasis. If you know the piece well it doesn't have to be a strenuous test. And no matter the piece, you should be familiar with it at different SPL's, because your ears and brain get more range with higher volume (hence the "loudness" button on many amps). Something else to consider, neither vinyl nor CD have the range and clarity of well recorded DVDs due to higher sampling and such. A well done concert video can be a much better source for testing. One of the best recordings I've used is Yanni Live At The Acropolis. His neo-classical (it's no more "New Age" than Mannheim Steamroller) orchestral + keyboards stuff is not only very well presented, but there's many selections with instrumental breaks from individual players both orchestral and rock that really kick. The several drum solos are exceptional. My favorite of all is Kathy Brigg's ripping violin work, particularly on "Within Attraction". Oddly enough some of the more popular works one might consider using don't have as high a quality as they could. Pink Floyd's PULSE DVD is apparently compressed (and quite likely RIAA EQ'ed) so that the video's sound tracks are more in line with straight audio.

Mannheim Steamroller: Fresh Aire III, Tocatta; Fresh Aire IV, Tocatta in G Joe Satriani: Surfing With The Alien King Crimson: Larks Tongue In Aspic Jean-Michael Jarre: Rendezvous 1 through 4 Cosmos Soundtrack (mostly Vangelis) Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells I, II and III Wheatstone Bridge: First Crossing

I was born in a TV repair shop. Well, not exactly, but I grew up there. I was fixing TVs when my friends were fixing their bicycles. My first job was testing tubes for my dad. I got a dollar a week (up from 25 cents a week allowance). Six years later, at age 14, I got a job on my own at a different TV shop. I started playing guitar at the same time (age 8, 1962), and built my first amp out of a Teac reel to reel and a Karlson speaker with a single 12" full range driver. I used my dad's reel to reel for recording. Having developed the ability to talk to anything that talked with electrons, after a few military enlistments I went back to college to study psychology. Not the talking to walking emotionally wounded or scoring paper questionnaires kind of psychology. I went into neuroscience and studied brain imaging. I developed several EEG and fMRI analyses using non-linear statistics that I picked up at the Santa Fe Institute. Then I graduated and had to go to work. If you've ever seen the movie or even the trailers for "Thank You For Smoking" you might remember the part towards the end where the protagonist is being questioned by some congresscritters. One asks him what kinds of things his research company has discovered about tobacco. He replies "We've found that smoking can offset Parkinson's disease". That was my dissertation. After a stint at National Institutes of Health and another with the department of psychiatry at Yale Medical School, plus a few other professorships, I quit. I "retired" to southwest Virginia to play music on The Crooked Road http://crookedroad.org/ and to build guitars (electric 12 strings) and other equipment, as well as record my music. My speakers are all self-built. I've got towers built from 15" Trace Elliots, 12" Kustoms and Peaveys, a few TA Webers, and a bunch of GRS BOFU clones, but I've also built some detuned port towers using a dozen 5.5" Sony neo/poly drivers and a Sweet 16 array of the same with a couple subs packed inside the corner-sitting cab. For power I got a pair of Crate GLX 1200h's, a pair of Fender Frontman 65R's, a pair of Audiosource AMP100's, a Quatum Q-Tube 70, plus an original Pignose, an AXL Thinamp, and some Dayton class T mini-amps, these for truly remote work, as sometimes happens here in Appalachia (these being battery powered, I can play and record with no outside power). But in building my collection I ran across a bargain at a resale shop. $25, because it had no knobs and so couldn't be very important (an EQ sitting next to it was marked $50 because it had lots of knobs). It was a Carver M 1.5 This became the center piece of my PA. Until one night doing sound for a head banger band, some buy-out 3" drivers fried, which cascaded through a piezo horn and melted it down (the only piezo to do so in my experience and that of many others) and took out the power protection circuit in the Carver. Having paid what I did for it, it was well worth the trip to Roland at Carver Audio Repair for a rebuild and upgrade. As I write this, it's only an hour since he called to say it was done. I could hardly be more pleased. Hardly. Because he told me the M 1.5 wasn't built for PA use, but the PM1200 was. He offered to find one for me, refurbish it, and trade straight across (plus the customary charge for upgrading if I chose -- I did). He's looking as I type for a PM1200. So if you happen to have or know of one, kindly let us know. It's almost outdoor concert season here and I feel the need to make noise.