I wanted to start a new thread on the meet at Arts house here so we could post our thoughts and some good pictures(if you've got em). So here we go;
Ok fellow Texans, ever wonder how a bunch of New Yorkers are kicking some Texans butts with their RAVE parties???
Well it's because they are excited about it and they post their thoughts, they express their excitement/feelings by posting that's how. They post pictures of the gear, the people, hell they even post pictures of the food!! So lets show some Texas pride and step up to the plate and express our gratitude for the people that went well out of their way to make sure we all enjoyed ourselves.
I don't have much of a way with words but I had a damn good time and met some really great people so here are my thoughts;
Wow, what a great audio meet! I wanted to start this off by thanking Art and his
wonderful family for all the great food, hospitality as well as them opening their home up to all of us. I showed up a day early so I could help with setup etc and I watched as his wonderful wife
Kathy worked her butt off until 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning and it was clearly obvious she had been working on it well before I got there Friday afternoon. Art had been busting his butt as well, even his young son had to go pick up a load of food, so thank you to both of you for all your hard work and hospitality!! Art you are truly blessed; you have a wonderful family, beautiful home and a top tier listening room-I'm jealous!! Seriously though, it was great and I enjoyed myself immensely.
Thank you to
Kim from
Cresendo systems for lugging those gigantic electrostats to Arts, very cool speakers. The first words that come to mind are Gentle Giants, I loved hearing the wonderful airy detail these speakers could throw out there. It's a darn shame we didn't get them hooked up correctly and singing until the end of the day but they still did a fine job and I think people really enjoyed them.
Danny Richie showed up with a set of "surprise speakers" and they were a real treat! I believe these are called the "
Venuette or V2". How the hell can Danny make such a small(relatively speaking here) set of speakers sound so big?? Leave it to Danny, he never ceases to amaze with his designs. The custom amp boxes Danny showed up with were of a beautiful design using technology most of us just aren't accustomed too. Finely crafted by hand, they used some type of special corrugated wood type material that is surely to catch on and start a new trend!!(Sorry Danny, had to give you at least some lip on them!!) Danny was also sporting some of those very cool and very effective
Majik and
Ubberbuss power conditioners built by the hands of
Brian at PI Audio. They seem to perform WELL above their price point and I can't wait to get my hands on one of those babies! Great job Brian!
And then there was
Gary Dodd from
Dodd Audio; his new tiny
tube amp/preamp combo running off of a damn
car battery left everyone amazed! Talk about quiet, wow! Once again it appears that Gary has hit a home run with this combo and I'm sure there are going to be some very happy Audiophiles when they get their hands on these babies-talk about little amp-big stick!! The amp/preamp were very well built, surprisingly heavy for their size and solid as a rock, just beautiful little pieces of art. As always, fantastic work by Gary.
Aaron Lindsey from
Appogg Systems showed up early Saturday morning with Art's brand new isolation platforms and man are they beautiful! Aaron quickly popped one under each of the VAC Phi 300.1's and worked away at getting them perfectly lined up and placed correctly. Art fired the system back up and I could hear the improvement right off the bat; blacker background here we come!! Art even mentioned to me later on the next day that they took about 60% of a transformer humm that he's been struggling with away! Aaron, congratulations on making such a fine product and all by hand-your hand, fine work sir!
Then there was
Nhan from
PhenomeNhan Audio sporting his new
Onix gear, what happened here?? Since when did Onix start hanging around with the likes of Linn, MBL, Wadia etc??? I mean the gear was beautiful! The
Onix Reference XCD-50 CDP looked like a million bucks and sounded really nice as well. I also had my eye on the
Onix XIA-160 integrated amp sitting there all by it's lonesome, sure was pretty but we never got a chance to hear her strut her stuff-there just wasn't enough time in the day. Really nice looking gear that would make anyone proud to own and at prices that will make you smile.
Now don't even get me started on Art's gear I mean please;
VAC, Vitus, more VAC, LS-9's it was glorious. We had
Brian Ding's from
Rythmik Audio beautiful looking and sounding
Rythmik subwoofers rocking the house! Lucky for us Brian himself was there with soldering iron in hand! Dude whipped up a quick set of 1st order crossovers for Art like it was nothing!! We would change something in the system and try to re-tune the subs, of course we just screwed it up more, so off we'd go looking for Brian. How in the hell can Brian wonder into the room and tune two subs perfectly in 1 minute or less?? Jeez, it takes me weeks! There was so much talent roaming around Art's house it wasn't even funny, I think I even got a glimpse of Albert Porter but unfortunately I missed the opportunity to meet him....oh well maybe next time.
The party was a blast, I had the opportunity to meet some very fine people, eat some great food and listen to some great gear. If I have forgotten anyone please forgive me, I'm terrible with names and I met so many great people I'm still trying to figure out "who's who"
so forgive me if I failed to mention you or your gear. Kathy and Art, fantastic job on the meet!! My family enjoyed themselves immensely and I can only hope my next meet is a fraction of yours.....
Thank you to everyone there, my wife and I enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone of you!
PS-I have some photos, now lets see if I can figure out how to post the darn things.....
Sincerely,
John
