Hello,
This is my first post on this forum and I joined specifically to post on this thread of my experiences with Master Set.
First off, I am so sorry to hear about JDandy!!!
I first came to learn about Master Set at RMAF 2007 when I stopped in to Rod Tomsom's exhibit room. I was a long time customer of Soundings in the 90's at the old store on Evans. I had not seen Rod in quite some time so stopped in to just say hello. I saw all these banners saying MASTER SET, and wondered what that was about, as I had no idea.
I took the first seat open, at the end of the row of seats. We nodded hellos to each other and I just listened to the music. It was quite good. I figured that eventually I would be able to get the middle, and best, seat once people cycled out of the room. I fully knew that every room at every RMAF show only sounded good in the one magic seat in the middle. Then I got that seat. I was quite surprised when the sound was the same as in the seat at the end of the row. I began to pay attention to what Rod was talking about.
I'll cut it short and just say that 3 hours later, and a full hour after the show cutoff time of 6pm, I left the room. It all seemed to have to do with how the speakers were placed in the room, and in relation to each other. I had a vague idea of maybe how to do it.
I then spent many years learning how to do it, and trying to do it. There were several visits with Rod at Soundings or at RMAF to garner more information. I moved a lot in those days and I had a lot of opportunity to set speakers in a room. It took me a long time and a lot of trials, and eventually I found the magic spot, and the same exquisite sound I first heard in that RMAF room long before. It was truly a magical moment!
Nonetheless, I still found myself doing small little tweaks, with little 2 millimeter movements on occasion. It was hard to find perfect perfection!
And then a couple years ago I found this thread. I read Jdandy's post thoroughly and understood it well. Everything was in there that I had searched for on my own for so long. So I decided to do another speaker set and follow the steps perfectly. And I did. It came out perfect!! And since that day I have not been ever tempted to tweak the speaker set.
Since then I have started threads on Audiocircle, Audiogon and Diyaudio with reference to this thread and Post #2. The threads don't really garner much interest. Speaker setup just isn't a very attractive topic I guess.
Yet, the speaker/room interface is everything to the sound we all hear. And following the Master Set steps is not all that hard once one knows what to listen for, and to be patient with it.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed here.
Steve
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