As many of you who follow discussions on here closely will know, Rick came over and visited us here in Thailand.
If the Moderator Dude permits, I will post this thread for some comments, pics and discussion if any are interested.
First, let me say that Rick is a Total Gentleman and was a wonderful guest!!!!
He came bearing gifts, Fritos scoops, Hatch green chilies (things I cannot get over here and seriously miss from America) and other gifts for the family which was totally not expected nor necessary. But so very kind.
Sadly his lovely wife was busy with previous plans and did not feel she could come too, but was surely missed. We did get to face-time some though and feel that we know her a bit as well.
Rick's time here was too short, and cut more short by botched flights on United Airlines fault, which cause him to arrive 1 1/2 days late. We could have used more time for sure.
We did quite a bit of looking around Northern Thailand, some touristy stuff, and first off visited the cave area where the 12 boys and their coach were lost/trapped in the cave for so long, and a wonderful rescue pulled off.
We visited where coffee is grown here in Thailand, Rick got to see it growing on the tree, the washed beans being dried in the sun, we roasted Thai coffee beans together here at my house, freshly ground those beans and drank the coffee. He saw from beginning to end of the process.
And Rick likes his coffee. We drank it most ways, hot and iced, black and lattes, I believe I can say he likes em long, black and often!!!! We shared many a longo and music.
Many things went very well, some, not so much, but all part of the fun and experience. I hope to write more as and when, but I also hope Rick will join in when he gets home, overcomes jet lag and the exhaustion of travel, and hope some of you may want to jump in here.
I (will say we because my wife and daughter enjoyed Rick's visit too) REALLY enjoyed his coming to visit and the times we had.
More soon. And I already made a few comments of the power cords thread.
God Bless,
Wayne

Thanks, Wayne!

Flying over the North Pole with poor wifi connection which ate my longer reply apparently.

Folks, Wayne and Jeen are the best! And Wayne's home theater is amazing. Loved every minute of my visit.

More later.

Rick

Thanks Moderator Dude to let me post forum "family" stuff here, and I will try to include a good bit of GEt info as I go.

Before Rick got here I had an ear plug up, and it gave me fits the whole time Rick was here. Made it tough to do critical listening, but fortunately I had his help. Because he brought a new power cord for me to try in my system.
Gotta say right off, I totally expected Rick to be half asleep and completely off time-wise because of jet lag, but he did super well. Very alert and gets around much better/faster than I do.
So we started our listening sessions off with two channel, then went to 3 channel, then 5 channel surround, then 5.1 with SACDs, then to Blu ray audio. I will let Rick comment on any sound here he wants to, but we enjoyed our listening.
Then we listened to and watched some movies. We were watching Pacific Rim, the first one, Rick was commenting on how good the bass sounded, then the OPPO player hit a snag, or something happened, anyway the player got stuck on one scene, one where there were low bass sounds from the creatures beneath the ocean or ground, something weird, and although the movie got stuck and would not play or advance and we had to reboot the player, the bass just kept playing!!! Repeating. And we could not get it to stop. Around a 5 second loop. Long story short, it was my left surround Triton 2, the sub. We unplugged it and left it for the afternoon, went looking around Thailand, came back, plugged it in and it once again, loudly played that section of soundtrack, bass only, loud and totally playing without the OPPO even being on!!!! Unplugged it and left it overnight. Next morning, plugged it back in and once again, it was playing, would not go away. Unplugged the power once again, the LFE input, it finally stopped and then the whole speaker was dead, no sound even in the upper range. Sad stuff, and so disappointing with my friend here, us listening to music and movies. We carried on, then the next day we decided to change out the T 2 towers in their surround positions, one dead, one working great. Just to troubleshoot. Swapped them out, the left side was still dead, the right (was dead before, we thought, now worked great!!!). So we started troubleshooting at the processor and the amp driving them. Turns out it was the amp. I have a 6 channel Bel Canto eVo6 with the channels bridged into 3 channels, was driving my surrounds with two of those, one set not used. So we swapped the input/outputs for the left to the unused channel and we were back in business!!! Both T 2s working and sounding great again, I just have a weirdly messed up channel or two not being used now.
Strangest thing I ever ran into in audio. By far. Seemed to have a ghost playing in there.
By this time we had the new Audience Forte F3 PowerChord well broken in and playing very well. My home theater has never sounded so great, hitting on all cylinders again, and loving it!!!!
More on that listening later.
Below are a few coffee pics, where we saw locally grown coffee drying and we went to drink some nearby. We also went to a tea plantation, tasted some teas there, roasted coffee in my popcorn popper.
God Bless,
Wayne

I'm going to try a short response and hope it doesn't get eaten by this slow plane wi-fi.

After the little detour finding a workaround to get the surround T2 a signal again, it was time to hear Wayne's system with the Audience OC having had a chance to settle in. We replayed some music Blu-rays we were both familiar with. Goosebumps time!!! It reminded me, again, that the GET'S just love a good, clean signal and when they get one, show off. we were there, at the concerts! I kept mentally comparing what I was hearing to what I was hearing on those same Blu-rays back home.. Different speaker configurations, different gear driving them. But same gorgeous GEt sound. FAR more similarities than differences. Give GEt's good, clean sound signals and they sing. No wonder we have so many forum members recommending and enjoying their favorite and different gear choices. A common denominator we all share is GET speakers that reward good feeds and happily get nudged a little here and there with gear choices that make them sound best to us, our listening preferences without losing that "GEt sound". Loved listening to Wayne's system!!

.Rick

Hey, Wayne

One other observation about the SQ changes after the Audience got a chance to nudge things:

I love the version of Hotel California that we played on the Farewell Tour Blu-ray. The drum kicks can be SO dynamic, just pop, blossom. Clean, perfect. When we replayed that song, there they were, up the notch or more that make that version so wonderful to listen to. Dynamics were "spot on" also!

Rick

Well Guys:
So glad each of you had a Great time. Nothing like good friends, great music, and beautiful scenery.
Glad to hear that Waynes ears have been opened. Remember, every Great Performance needs an Audience.

Rick: I'm dying to know...what about the food there. What did Wayne treat you too?
I'll bet it was spicy.