Author Topic: G2G @ Rich's October 9  (Read 32674 times)

Offline richidoo

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #30 on: September 16, 2010, 01:15:11 PM »
Wow Rich  this is going to be one hell of a meeting given how long you have spent planning it (since 1974?)  :rofl:

You gotta love computers!  :duh

That's funny, good eye!

When you quote a message, you can change the date stamp on the quote on purpose, or in this probably by accident....

date = seconds elapsed since 8pm 12/31/69

By the way Tom...
 :beer:  Happy New Year!  and don't forget to buy shares of Polaroid

Offline richidoo

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #31 on: September 16, 2010, 01:17:29 PM »
Thanks Scott! Should we setup a HP system in a separate room? Maybe your tube HP amp can come over?
I think I can make that happen. :)

Thanks Scott, that will be cool. We will have some nice DACs here for it, and big green velour lazyboy.  :thumb:

Offline tmazz

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #32 on: September 16, 2010, 01:51:35 PM »
.........and don't forget to buy shares of Polaroid

Bad move. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2008, Polaroid's assets were divided amongst two private equity firms, Hilco Consumer Capital and Gordon Brothers Brands. They paid approximately $90 million in 2009 for Polaroids remaining assets. As a private company there are no publicly traded shares and no ticker symbol exists. So Polaroid stock bought in the 1974 would be completely worthless today.

How 'bout this? Buy stock in 1974 Intel instead. In the early 70s, Intel was a small semi-conductor manufacturer whose main business was supplying RAM chips for use in pocket calculators (remember the Bowmar Brain?)
Remember, it's all about the music........

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manaox2

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #33 on: September 17, 2010, 08:22:50 AM »
Thanks Scott! Should we setup a HP system in a separate room? Maybe your tube HP amp can come over?
I think I can make that happen. :)

Thanks Scott, that will be cool. We will have some nice DACs here for it, and big green velour lazyboy.  :thumb:

Great! I think I may have messed up that time stamp when typing the reply on my phone, oops. Quite funny! Tapatalk might be a good recommendation for the forum, I use it on several other forums on the go. It's handy.

Offline richidoo

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #34 on: September 17, 2010, 09:30:25 AM »
Thanks for the headsup on tapatalk, Scott. That looks cool. We'll check it out.

Offline richidoo

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #35 on: October 07, 2010, 06:52:15 AM »
I hope everyone is ready to jam on Saturday.

1pm until whenever.

Please bring $5 contribution for food, which is Manley burgers and salad. Bring your own booze and sweets and snacks. 

Thanks to hometheaterdoc for volunteering to bring Usher Tiny Dancers. They will allow us to do DAC comparisons. Shane please bring Butler 2250 for the Dancers and maybe the ELips bass. i60 seems to be more than enough. Please bring a PC for the Butler and all the balanced ICs you have.

Thanks to Stereofool for bringing AR Ref3 preamp, PC for it, and some balanced SC3 ICs, and some single ended SC3s too.

Thanks to Rob S. for bringing Equitech 1.5Q and Atma-sphere amps. Also need some single ended SC3s and PCs so we can get to work on the setups before the other wires arrive. Please bring your autoformers if they are easy to extract from your system, for matching tube amps to the little Ushers, if necessary.

Thanks to Black Sand Cable for sending his Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 for us to play with. This unit is for sale with a *very* special price for this meet. Orders accepted at this price for G2G attendees only. It sounds very nice. I'm looking forward to the comparisons.

Haven't heard from Sol, so I assume he is knee deep in solder working on the custom tube amps. Really looking forward to hearing them.

The room dividers will be in place. Hopefully I will get to hang some other panels also.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!
Rich

evan1

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #36 on: October 07, 2010, 01:10:17 PM »
I hope everyone is ready to jam on Saturday.

1pm until whenever.

Please bring $5 contribution for food, which is Manley burgers and salad. Bring your own booze and sweets and snacks. 

Thanks to hometheaterdoc for volunteering to bring Usher Tiny Dancers. They will allow us to do DAC comparisons. Shane please bring Butler 2250 for the Dancers and maybe the ELips bass. i60 seems to be more than enough. Please bring a PC for the Butler and all the balanced ICs you have.

Thanks to Stereofool for bringing AR Ref3 preamp, PC for it, and some balanced SC3 ICs, and some single ended SC3s too.

Thanks to Rob S. for bringing Equitech 1.5Q and Atma-sphere amps. Also need some single ended SC3s and PCs so we can get to work on the setups before the other wires arrive. Please bring your autoformers if they are easy to extract from your system, for matching tube amps to the little Ushers, if necessary.

Thanks to Black Sand Cable for sending his Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 for us to play with. This unit is for sale with a *very* special price for this meet. Orders accepted at this price for G2G attendees only. It sounds very nice. I'm looking forward to the comparisons.

Haven't heard from Sol, so I assume he is knee deep in solder working on the custom tube amps. Really looking forward to hearing them.

The room dividers will be in place. Hopefully I will get to hang some other panels also.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!
Rich

Have fun guys. And don't forget the NY Ravers like lots and lots of pictures

Offline stereofool

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #37 on: October 07, 2010, 02:24:43 PM »
^ I'll remember to take my camera...this time  :).
Steve
Have you ever noticed.... Anyone going slower than you is an idiot...and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

evan1

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #38 on: October 07, 2010, 03:51:25 PM »
^ I'll remember to take my camera...this time  :).


All the time

lonewolfny42

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #39 on: October 08, 2010, 10:30:28 PM »
^ I'll remember to take my camera...this time  :).


All the time

+1 ... We Want Photos !!! :yay2:

Thanks and have fun.... :beer:

Offline Carlman

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #40 on: October 09, 2010, 05:04:21 PM »
I could only stop by for a little while today.. and while music was not yet playing, the mental gears were certainly grinding.. and Rich's really cool looking setup was getting configured with DEQX.  Right as I was leaving I thought I heard the beginning of things coming together.  The 2 seconds I heard sounded nice and I wish I could've stayed.

I saw flash bulbs so no worries on the photos.. there will be some.. Lots of gear there too.. DAC's, headphone, etc.  Good times were a'brewin'.  

It was a great pleasure to see everyone and wanted to say thanks for hosting, Rich.  Looking forward to hearing how it turned out. :)

-C
I really enjoy listening to music.

Offline hometheaterdoc

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #41 on: October 09, 2010, 09:56:41 PM »
all right... I'm officially fried and beyond exhausted.  Way too long a day for me.  I'm glad I got that nap before driving out.

Many thanks to Rich for hosting and putting up with us.  His woodworking skills are very good.  The speaker project looks even more impressive in person.  Can't wait to see the next incarnation :)

The room is coming along.  It sounded the best it has ever sounded now that some of the panels were up.  I know once all the panels are up its going to be a really great sounding room.

We futzed with the new speakers for hours and eventually configured things with DEQX.  It played for a little while before we made the switch.  The rest of the evening was spent in equipment comparison mode and eventually a little relaxation listening.

We listened to and compared 6 different DACs

Tranquility DAC
Antelope Zodiac+ (only has about 20 hours of break-in time as it was just delivered late this week)
Wyred 4 Sound DAC2
PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC
PS Audio Digital Link III
Rich's Buffalo32 series 1 DAC (pretty stock kit)

Speakers were Usher Audio Diamond 718 bookshelf models as they fit in the back seat of my truck.  The tweeters were broken in (I stole them out of my Mini 1s in the theater room), but the rest of them only had about 15 hours of break-in.  They held up surprisingly well.

Amplifier was at first Sol's I-60 (played with Tranquility for a little bit at first) and then we switched to the Moscode 402AU and stuck with that for the rest of the night.  Tubes in it are Mullard 6922s and the stock 6H30s.

At various points throughout the evening, we brought in the Audio Research Ref 3 tube preamp depending on whether the DAC needed a preamp or not.  We listened to the PS Audio PWD and the Antelope Zodiac+ with and without the AR Ref 3.  It was pretty much mandatory to let the Zodiac+ be DAC and preamp by itself.  It sounded awful with the AR after it.  I guess too many volume controls and preamp sections.  Most preferred the sound of the PS Audio PWD with the Ref 3 after it to give it a bit more bloom and love.  I actually liked it without the preamp, but could definitely see the reasons why folks liked it.  On some music, it definitely would be more musical and listenable.  I liked the soundstage presentation running direct into the Moscode.  The AR moved stuff around in a way that I didn't like quite as much.

Cabling was all JPS Labs SuperConductor 3 interconnects and speaker cable.  Power cords were a mixed bag of JPS Labs and Black Sand Audio.

Source devices were Ken's tricked out Mac Mini feeding USB to the Tranquility, the Zodiac+ and both PS Audio DACs.  We also used the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport to feed either I2S, coax SPDIF or AES/EBU to every DAC except the Tranquility, for obvious reasons since it only accepts one USB input.  We ran the Wyred DAC 2 via coax, AES/EBU and I2S but did not setup and try the asynch USB.  It was a dramatic difference in sound between the three inputs we tried.  I2S direct from PWT was far and away the best option.

All music used for listening was 16/44.1 to be fair to all DACs involved since the Tranquility doesn't do high rez...

For me, within the context of this system and given my sound preferences, it wasn't even close as to what I preferred.  One DAC was completely incompatible with this system's sonic characteristics.  One showed its midrange edginess that we've heard in previous comparisons.  One had too squashed a soundstage and dynamics.  One showed potential but I'd need to listen to it some more to figure out exactly what was going on.  One "prettied things up" and made things more musical and exaggerated the soundstage like Maggies do for me.  I can see why some would like it, but it wasn't for me.  One was just right to me. 

It was a fun night.  It was great to see everyone again.  After the last few months, it was such a thrill to hang out with my audio buddies and shoot the breeze for 18 hours while we waited for Rich to get his speakers to work ;) hehehe... Sorry Rich, I couldn't resist... I made it all the way to the end of the post at least :)  hehehe


Shane Sangster
Used to be Night & Day Audio.......

Offline richidoo

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #42 on: October 09, 2010, 10:51:26 PM »
I can't believe that you wrote when  you got home, that's dedication! 

Windows Vista screwed me on the speakers. We couldn't make the audiolense filter work. It was just never right. The Feastrex driver always sounded better playing full range all by itself, than with the audiolense convolver processing. So we tried to ditch that and switch to a plain jane digital crossover with no other processing, the only one I ever got working was in foobar, I think that was the best the speakers ever sounded, although it wasn't perfect. Setting utp foobar again from scratch was not successful.  Windows Vista was the major impediment.  It lost the native ASIO driver, and would not allow ASIO4all to be installed. We couldn't get the output channels to work again. So after a lot of stuggling we gave up on my crossover solutions, and let the DEQX experts take over. It took another solid hour, but then we had a pretty decent configuration, made by Rob and Rick Craig, and Roger. It sounded pretty good, I think it was the best it could be made to sound in that short a time without detailed tweaking. We listened a while and bagged it when every track had a distinct coloration from the Feastrex driver. Not sure yet the cause of that. Obviously the driver had a lot to do with it, and the processing too, does change the natural sound of the driver. Sol worked on a nice parametric equalizer patch that made it sound pretty darn good.

I'll play with it some more, with pllxo, maybe active xo for bass only, stuff like that, and more digital crossover stuff, there are still some other PC based crossover programs I want to try. But the Feastrex may well not be in the final version. It seems best playing by itself in a box designed for it. The Lotus Granada uses a higher version of Feastrex drivers, so maybe that makes it play more linear and handle more power without distortion.

I liked the Tranquility DAC, gentle fat NOS sound, but not edgy or detailed enough for me to own. The Wave was fun at first but the detail became too much for me after a while. The preamp helped dilute it a bit, made the music less hifi and easier to get immersed.

Thanks to everyone who came, especially those who brought gear, and those who brought food. Rob, Shane, Scott, Steve all brought gear to make the G2g a success. Thanks to Rick Craig, Roger, Rob and Sol for working so hard to dial in the Elips. Thanks for the encouragement and compliments about the design and build.

The divider wall made a big difference in cutting down the echo from the kitchen. We did not finish installing all the hardwareto make the folding action work, but eventually all the acoustic treatments will be complete and that will be a big relief.

I had a great time, guys, thanks for making this G2G a big success.
Rich

Bigfish8

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #43 on: October 10, 2010, 06:57:28 AM »
I want to thank Rich and Julie for hosting such a fun and social G2G.  I was able to spend a lot of time in the kitchen yesterday afternoon talking with Shane, Steve, Roger, Scott, Carl, Rob and Rick.  The other guys were in the audio room working on a very fickle computer.

Rich has done an incredible amount of audio related work in the past few weeks.  The new E-Lips Speakers are beautiful.  Unfortunately, the computer issues did not allow us to hear the speakers perform and show their potential.  I look forward to hearing them when Rich is able to complete the system.

As Shane and Rich previously indicated in their posts their was a tremendous amount of gear carried to this G2G.  At or around 6:30PM a decision was made to move the E-Lips Speakers from the room due to the computer issues.  From 6:30 until approximately 11:30 we had a serious evaluation of some popular and highly regarded DACs.  My Mac Mini Tranquility DAC System was very musical and did not embarrass me (trust me when I say if you bring gear to these our G2G's we will be brutally honest with each other about how we feel about performance).  While conducting the DAC Evaluations consideration was given to try and evaluate each units connection options to ensure we gave it the best opportunity to shine.  

Shane has already named each DAC evaluated (quite a bunch of work, actually).  Grading for flexibility the Tranquility would be at the bottom of the list as it is USB only and has no volume control.  Sound-wise it rated it second to the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC.  I thought the Perfect Wave was slightly better regardless of the connection type used.  

I think most of us were exhausted when we left last night.  I was glad I had the opportunity to attend and want to thank Rich and Julie again.

Ken

« Last Edit: October 10, 2010, 08:20:29 AM by Bigfish8 »

Offline stereofool

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Re: G2G @ Rich's October 9
« Reply #44 on: October 10, 2010, 06:58:32 AM »
YAWN!!! After getting home last night...with my eyes barely open...I haven't even unpacked the truck/equipment. So, pics will come later  :duh.

First, a huge thanks to Rich (and family) for allowing us to 'invade' his happy home...AGAIN!

Rich did a masterful job in constructing his eLips speakers, but as he has mentioned Murphy's Law was in full attendance, and I don't think he ever got them configured with satisfactory results. To my ears the Feastrix just didn't cut it, when pushed just a bit they turned rather harsh and strident..the base drivers actually sounded pretty good, so maybe there is something to salvage there.

Most of the rest of night centered around various DACs. Ken's Tranquility/Mac mini was a very winning combination. Perhaps giving up the last bit of detail, but sounding smooth, relaxed and extremely listenable. It was almost like listening to an LP.

The Zodiac sounded very good, but only as a stand alone preamp/dac. The Wyred 4 Sound was surprising to me, in that it immediately sounded pretty harsh, on all inputs...with the I2S sounding the best. The PS Perfectwave was probably the best sounding of the bunch...very listenable & detailed, without any digital harshness. I threw in my PS DLIII, for a quick comparison, but it didn't measure up as well, in that it wasn't as smooth and detailed, but for $700 it wasn't unlistenable...unlike one of its $1500 competitors.

In summary, thanks to this G2G, I may have saved myself a couple of thousand dollars investing in something that I would have regretted immediately. Unfortunately, it also means that I would have to invest at least $2000+ to improve the sound, over my current DAC  :(.

I'll work on pictures after a bit...
Steve
Have you ever noticed.... Anyone going slower than you is an idiot...and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?