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mulletboy2
Tuesday 22nd March 2005, 21:08
Hiya guys,

Erm... this might be a long post ...

As I'm now finally recovered from my weekend of activities, I thought I'd share a little account.

A few months ago, I spoke to Scott Buwalda, internationally renowned ICE sound quality competitor/guru, and several time world champion, about bringing his "Sound Quality Summit" over to the UK. The weekend gone is the climax of months worth of planning and preparation.

Scott had previously held one of these summits in Malaysia, with great success, so I thought I'd take the lead and get the ball rolling to get him over here.

There were around 30 people in attendance, plus myself, Scott and his business partner Brett. The event took place at Prestige Audio in Rickmansworth, just off J18 on the north side of the M25 - a superb home and car audio showroom/shop, with some of the most well known ICE and IHE industry bods in the country.

Due to the uncertainty of the level of knowledge of attendees, the format of the seminar was to take us through the basics of how the ear works in the first hour, then on through how a speaker works, how a car environment affects audio (all very relevant stuff if you're to optimise your install), on through to how to use crossovers and equalisers to maximise your listenning enjoyment, and taking us through a couple of sound quality CD's that Scott uses for setting up his own car, including pointers as to what to listen for.

The total duration of the summit was around 9 hours, including a buffet lunch, and a demo on what has to be the most superb home cinema/audio setup I've seen - Prestige and Dynaudio were proudly demonstrating an £90,000 setup, consisting of £51,000 front speakers, £20k's worth of rear speakers, £12,500 centre speaker, £1500 sub and around £8000's worth of Chord amplifiers/source. I nearly wet myself when I saw them :jaw:

We were also all given a couple of free CD's, a tour T-shirt and printouts of the slides he was using, with space to make our own notes.

The tone of the summit was very informal, and we were priveleged to have some of the smartest guys in the industry in attendance, including a number of distributors of ICE/home audio, Dynaudio's own setup guru, Prestige Audio's Bob "Golden Ears" Hobson, and the list could go on for quite a while. We had a number of decent length breaks, for people to get to know eachother, and talk to Scott/Brett/others on a more one-to-one basis - this worked extremely well, and made everyone feel right at home.

Attendees were actively encouraged to pipe up and ask questions as the summit progressed, and this led to some rather colourful and enlightening banter/humour/discussion.

Following the summit, a number of us we went off and enjoyed some food at a local hotel/bar, and carried on the discussions there. Scott, Brett, my mate "Lardy" and myself headed back up to Brum at around 8pm, and got some kip ready for another early start.

On Sunday, Scott, Brett, Lardy, myself and a few other of the summit attendees headed down to the Genesis factory in Southend, where we had an excellent tour of the Genesis facilities, and got an in-depth demonstration of how many aspects of the full profile and series 3 amps are performed, aswell as tooling and discussions on the choice of components for them. It's quite amazing - you'd never think that so much work goes into the choice of each individual screw etc... Gordon was very accomodating, and it was great to meet a guy with such commitment to, and passion for in car entertainment. There are some very funky things on the horizon ;)

After the Genesis tour, we all headed back to Prestige, where a meet had been conducted simultaneously with the Genesis tour. In our absence, Bob Hobson had been demonstrating his own car, which hadn't been properly setup. He let anyone listen to the "before" picture, and then proceeded to run through his tuning process. While this was going on, people were standing around talking about ICE, and demonstrating their cars to eachother.

We arrived back at Prestige some time around here, as Bob was still tuning his car when we got there. Bob finished his tuning, and Chris Knight (manager of the ICE side of Prestige) got on the phone for some very tasty pizzas. After Bob finished off his tuning, another listenning session was done, where everyone was invived to have a listen. I had a listen, and I must say that his car sounds superb. One of the finest I've ever heard.

After completing that, more cars were tested with RTA's, and tuned accordingly by Bob himself. Scott sat in a few guys' cars, and offered some very useful advice to them, aswell as spending a fairly long time making some adjustments to one car in particular. Unfortunately, I didn't get chance to hear this after it was complete.

I also had the privelege of hearing the AVHQ (Prestige Audio's distribution company) demo car, which again, Bob had setup on the day. Again, an absolutely awesome sounding car. If I could have my car sound any way I wanted, this would be it. Andy (owner of the car) is one lucky man.

People had more demos on the Dynaudio home cinema system, and generally stood around talking, measuring, eating, drinking and trying to get as much "secret" information out of the industry bods as humanly possible.

What suprised many, I think, is that neither Prestige, AVHQ, other dealers in attendance, or anyone else tried to abuse the event for a sales campaign. Everyone was there to learn, rather than sell.

Overall, I have to say that this is probably the best weekend I've spent, ever! So much knowledge and talent on hand.

I'd like to thank Scott and Brett for taking the time out of their very hectic schedules, building their new "ultra project car", designing their range of speakers, working full time jobs, and general family stuff, and coming over to the UK to share their enviable knowledge. Also, Prestige can't go without a very heartfealt thanks, for the use of their superb facilities, knowledge and for their hospitality. And lastly, Gordon @ Genesis for showing us around, and sharing his knowledge and thoughts.

At the moment, Scott and Brett are talking with Prestige about the possibility of another SQ Summit later in the year, so I urge any of you who are into car audio, to consider attending the next one.

What a weekend! :D

Justin
Tuesday 22nd March 2005, 21:32
An excellent write up mate, sounds like you had fun ;)

mulletboy2
Tuesday 22nd March 2005, 22:07
Too right mate :D I just realised, I didn't post the pics. Will do so in a bit :)

mulletboy2
Tuesday 22nd March 2005, 23:03
Here we go - the first one is in the summit room at Prestige and the 2nd is Saturday evening, afterwards. Unfortunately I was too busy drooling over the Dynaudio speakers to get a photo, and I forgot my camera on Sunday :(

http://www.devgeek.co.uk/myphotos/ice/sqs/crossovers.jpg

http://www.devgeek.co.uk/myphotos/ice/sqs/outside.jpg

Wobbly Dave
Wednesday 23rd March 2005, 01:30
Ripping yarn. I am looking forward to the results turning up in the 850 now!

mulletboy2
Wednesday 23rd March 2005, 11:52
Dave - Sorry mate, you lost me?

Wobbly Dave
Wednesday 23rd March 2005, 12:34
I thought you were developing a major new ICE install for the new Volvo in your life?

mulletboy2
Wednesday 23rd March 2005, 12:58
Ahh, yes, ofcourse mate. Plans are underway ;)

I've still got another sub and a pair of tweeters to order, oh, and not to mention a "suite" of amps, and potentially a new set of speakers... infact, tbh, I doubt my install will be ready until winter, although I'll probably have one or two intermediary steps .. but when it's finalised, I'm hoping it's going to sound and look the nuts :D

Wobbly Dave
Wednesday 23rd March 2005, 13:00
:smileypul very coolio!