My visit with Sarasota Audiophile Society President, Jeff Cantor

Mike

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Today I had the opportunity to visit with Sarasota Florida Audiophile Society President, Jeff Cantor. Jeff is passionate about music and has a CD collection which would rival many. Jeff is certainly someone who listens to his music through his equipment (rather than his equipment through his music). Jeff loves music and particularly loves live music. After my listening session, it is clear that Jeff has achieved phenomenal sound quality on a modest budget. He is a shrewd buyer, only making upgrades or changes which will add to an already synergistic setup.

Jeff's speakers are Hyperion Sound Design HPS-968's:

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Jeff's amp is VAC PA 100/100 modified to the phi200:

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Jeff's preamp is the VAC Standard (recently upgraded to the LE Edition):

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VAC is local to us here in Sarasota and the Head Tech, Brent Meyer is a member of our club and a good friend of Jeff's....so I would expect nothing but VAC gear in Jeff's house! :) Plus, the amp/preamp sounded excellent.

Jeff uses the Oppo 83SE as his sole source.

Jeff has also spent time treating his room and integrating a home theater setup as well.

All in all, a fun day and one heck of a system.

Mike
 
What a great set up. I bet it sounds wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
 
Looks like a thoughtful setup, well positioned speakers

He will laugh when he reads this. It's the one thing I kept telling him to change was the speaker positioning. I like an 83% ratio and he was at about 47%.
 
Ratio of what to what?

They look well positioned in terms of being pulled away from the rack and screen behind them.
 
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Ratio of what to what?

They look well positioned in terms of being pulled away from the rack and screen behind them.

Measure left tweeter to left ear at sitting position. Measure right tweeter to right ear. Average the two out (they should be ABOUT the same distance). Take the average and multiply by .83. That gives you distance your speakers should be apart (measured tweeter to tweeter). This is by no means an absolute, but its a good starting point. There is a lot more that goes into setting up speakers properly. A lot more. But this is a good starting formula I've found to work well. It rarely ends up being exactly 83% (sometimes 81%, sometimes 84%), but its never been 47%! :)

EXAMPLE: Left tweeter to left ear is 143 inches. Right tweeter to right ear is 144 inches. 143.5 x .83 = 119.105 inches. Move speakers so tweeters are 119 inches from tweeter to tweeter. Again, this does not take into account all the things you must do first (measure the speaker distance from the back wall, side walls, toe in adjustment, rake adjustment, etc., etc.)

After 35 years, I've gotten pretty good at this and I've read and studied way more than any normal person would! :) Proper setup it takes time and it usually takes me 2-3 times from start to finish before I'm 100% satisfied with the result.

There are also often physical limitations (which are also sonic limitations in many cases) in almost every room where I've set up speakers. My family room for example (where I have my Sonus Faber Mementos), has all the recipes for a horrible sounding room, but through a lot of effort and work, I've managed to make the setup pretty damn good.

Jon, I cannot tell you the number of rooms I go into and the speakers are not even close to being set up properly. People have no idea what their speakers can truly sound.

Mike
 
VAC's just looking really good. I bet they sound better than my Mc. Thanks for sharing Mike.

The VAC gear was VERY impressive. Jeff had some other amps there, but I was "wowed" by the VAC amp. Given what he paid for it too - I would think it would be very difficult to beat. It looks gorgeous in person too. Jeff loved to tell me, "yeah, and if anything goes wrong with it, I'm 8 miles from the factory!" Touché'!

Mike
 
Looks like you had some fun... My other question is, no wine was mentioned on this visit! :p
 
The VAC gear was VERY impressive. Jeff had some other amps there, but I was "wowed" by the VAC amp. Given what he paid for it too - I would think it would be very difficult to beat. It looks gorgeous in person too. Jeff loved to tell me, "yeah, and if anything goes wrong with it, I'm 8 miles from the factory!" Touché'!

Mike

Mike... If I ever go on tube gear, VAC would be on my list. Jeff is very helpful in everyway, would love to visit SF and listen to his audio room. Time to plan my short summer vacation up North. Cheers!

Ron
 
Mike... If I ever go on tube gear, VAC would be on my list. Jeff is very helpful in everyway, would love to visit SF and listen to his audio room. Time to plan my short summer vacation up North. Cheers!

Ron

Ron,

I'll join you at Jeff if the trip does happen...:)
 
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