[PeteG]

I'll be coming down too. Car pooling with Sean if anyone else up north wants in let me know.

[zybar]

Have fun guys and take a few pictures.

George

[mgalusha]

Sounds like we'll have a full house. Too bad it's not going to be very warm today, back porch and beer would have been nice as well.

[mgalusha]

Not sure if I was clear, let's get started about noon. I don't think I was as I've been asked several times. So - NOON - .

My wife is preparing sandwiches, some kind of bruschetta, a rich and I'm sure fattening cake (which will likely be very tasty) and who knows what else. Jerry has offered to bring some beer and we have soft drinks and of course water.

See you all in a while
mike

[richidoo]

Have fun guys!!  Wish I could be there, sounds like a blast!

[TRM]

Have fun guys. I'll make it one of these days, unfortunately this is my busy season so not much free time. I hardly listen to my own rig right now 

[mgalusha]

Well I can say I had fun, sure hope others did as well. Way too much stuff to listen to but I think we actually managed get it all of it hooked up eventually.

Visiting goodies:

Eastern Electric M156 mono amps
Spectron Musician III SE amps, bridged to mono
Modwright LS 9.0 SE (I think) preamp
AudioLogic DAC
Usher BE 718 speakers
VMPS 626R speakers with outboard crossovers
Stereovox speaker cables
Synergystic Research speaker cables
BOLDER modified Duet and power supply. Whoops, I think we never managed to get that in the system.

I'm whooped at the moment but thanks for coming out, I know it's a long drive and most had more than a 50 mile drive each way.

Sean and Brian both took some photos, hopefully they will post them. As usual despite my best intentions my camera didn't even make it to the basement.

mike

[JCarney]

Had a great time Mike. Thanks so much to you and your lovely wife for the great hospitality and food. That cake was fantastic, my middle is a little bigger for the big ole slice I had. I think everything sounded pretty good. The different amps on the the different speakers each had their different presentations, but all sounded good. Nice room you have there. I'm a bit jealous. The BE 718's surprise me every time I hear them. Very good stand mounts, very good. I always think vinyl sounds better, and this afternoon was no different. But the digital sources good as well, I just prefer vinyl.

Again, thanks for opening your home to us, and for turnin on the tv so we could watch the Broncos blow a 14 point lead, and then win it at the end.

JCarney

[PeteG]

I too would like to thank Mike and his wife for sharing their home and the good food. Mike has a killer room most would love to have (me included). The vinyl sounded great as with the rest of the gear. The combo that worked for me was Mike’s vinyl setup with the Spectron III SE amp using Jerry’s Synergistics speaker cables and the Ushers “Tiny Dancer”. I had a very good time just relaxing and listening to good music.
Thanks again Mike 

[Tyson]

Hello again all   For myself the get together was great to catch up with some old friends and meet some new ones.  It's been a looong time that I've been out of the audio game, so seeing everyone was definitely the highlight for me.

As for the sound, Mike's dedicated audio room is VERY nice, I could not see a single thing left to improve, Mike's already got it all handled.  Unfortunately when I got there I thought the amps we were checking out sounded not so great.  I figured it was the speakers (the Ushers), but it persisted even after we switched to speakers that I know I like the sound of (626R's), so I finally figured it was the room, it must have something going on that was making everything sound bright, lacking in detail, and hashey/noisy.  I knew for a fact that the Eastern Electric and the 334 (Levinson update) amps sounded way better in my system than what I was hearing here.  And the Spectron was almost unlistenable. 

Toward the end of the GTG Jerry asked to put in his new Synergistic speaker cables.  WOW. What a difference.  Everything locked into place, noise floor dropped, detail became natural and clear, background became much blacker, and each amp really was able to shine for the first time.  I think this was a result of 2 things - 1, the Synergistics are very good speaker wires.  2, I think the Stereovox cables are pretty poor, as they made everything sound like bad solid state. 

With the Synergistics I was able to hear the real strengths of the Spectron and the 334 (we did not hook up the EE's, ran out of time).  Spectrons were flat out awesome.  Great, great amps.  Detail, air, bass control, tone, pace, they had it all.  Forget "Great Digital Amps", these were great amps, period.

As much as I liked the Spectron's I did prefer the 334's, for one area that I call "listenability".  The spectron's were almost dead neutral, but were very, very slightly edging toward brightness.  Now, this is not the "rip your ears off" brightness that you might be thinking of.  No, this was more of a slight emphasis on cymbals and other high frequency instruments.  Very mild, but I know from past experience that this would limit my ability to listen to music for long periods of time. 

The Easter Electrics - great tube amps, I'm constantly surprised at how linear and almost "Solid State" they sound, but with the strengths of tubes there always.  But the excellence of the amp reinforces to me that I am simply not a tube guy.  I hear the great things that it is doing but there's a lack of macrodynamics, a slight compression to the mids, and a lack in bass control and pace/rhythm that I just can't get past.  The EE is better in these aspects that most tube amps I've heard, but it's still there and I can't un-hear it. 

Hopefully more people will pipe in here with different perspectives, as I'm pretty sure my views are not in the majority   I also wanted to say thanks to Mike for welcoming us into his home and feeding a bunch of ravenous audiophiles.

[brj]

Mike, thanks to you and your wife for the fantastic hosting - it was a fun afternoon in good company!

Unfortunately, despite setting my memory card by the door to the garage so I'd see it as I was leaving for work today, I forgot it.  Consequently, my photos will have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow, but I'll post a few as soon as I can - unless Sean beats me to it!

[Wayne1]

Mike and Mary,

Thanks once again for hosting a great get together.

The different combinations of amps and speakers and speaker cables just once again prove that there will always be some way to cause some good gear to sound bad 

At one point we tried out Brian's Tube Research Labs modded AudioLogic 24 MXL DAC running from Mike's modded SB2 into the Modwright pre-amp. To my ear, there was quite a higher amount of noise from the outboard DAC and it didn't have quite the dynamics as the modded SB2. I would very much like to try to do another comparison of DAC to SB analog output. Perhaps when Brian gets his speakers and maybe even an amp and pre-amp 

I tend to agree with Tyson on preferring the sound of the VMPS and the Levinson clone. I believe Brian mentioned he like the Spectron and Usher. Both systems had a lot going for them. It just comes down to personal taste and the size of one's wallet.

[PeteG]

It just comes down to personal taste and the size of one's wallet.

In the case of the Spectron amps a very thick wallet.

[Tyson]

Haha, no doubt.  When I heard the Spectrons were twice the price of the EE's I almost choked on my coffee!  But they are indeed very, very good amps.  With the right cabling and source, the might well be the last amps you'd ever need to buy.  But my preference is for a warmer, slightly darker sound.  I got home and hooked my stereo up again and just smiled.  It's balanced warmer than anything we heard yesterday (and more resolving, gotta love 4x planar magnetic mids and ribbon tweeters for clarity) and the warm/resolving presentation sounds exactly the way I like.  On the other hand I know several people I trust that would prefer to have (and do have) a different sound.  Different strokes and all that.

I forgot to mention sources - we listened to Mike's Teres turntable mostly and I liked it, but I preferred the sound of his tube-output modded SB2.  Wow was that thing great sounding.  Unfortunately I was taking a break when the AudioLogic was playing so I can't offer any comments there.  But that modded SB2 was something   I guess I'm lucky that way, saves me $$ on tubes and turntables.  But on the other hand, most SS gear and digital gear is pretty poor sounding, and acceptable (let alone good) quality seems to be a fairly expensive proposition in itself. 

Anyway, I had a great time and it was valuable if for no other reason than to see how good some of the digital amps have gotten.

I'd love to have another get together that was a bit more focused, maybe around a few pieces within a single component category (such as several preamps or several amps or several speakers), but doing amps, dac's, vinyl, speakers, and wiring all in the same day is just too much to get in.

[brj]

At one point we tried out Brian's Tube Research Labs modded AudioLogic 24 MXL DAC running from Mike's modded SB2 into the Modwright pre-amp. To my ear, there was quite a higher amount of noise from the outboard DAC and it didn't have quite the dynamics as the modded SB2. I would very much like to try to do another comparison of DAC to SB analog output. Perhaps when Brian gets his speakers and maybe even an amp and pre-amp 

Yeah, yeah!

By the way, Mike, thanks again for measuring the output of the two sources!  For reference:

TRL modded AudioLogic 24 MXL, original tubed output: 1.56V  (0.01V difference between channels)
TRL modded AudioLogic 24 MXL, TRL added direct output: 0.78V
Mike's custom SB3 rebox: 2.68V (I think - I don't remember this one quite as precisely)

If I remember correctly, a "standard" source should output 2.0 or 2.1V, so my tube output was a bit low and Mike's SB3 output was a bit high.  As a result, we had to crank the volume on the Modwright quite a bit when using my DAC vs. Mike's SB3.  The noise floor was correspondingly higher while running my DAC, but we didn't do any swapping to determine the actual source of that noise floor.  For what its worth, I've never been bothered with the noise floor in other systems, but every combination is different.

Mike, I meant to ask... what were you using for a digital cable?

I tend to agree with Tyson on preferring the sound of the VMPS and the Levinson clone. I believe Brian mentioned he like the Spectron and Usher. Both systems had a lot going for them. It just comes down to personal taste and the size of one's wallet.

While I appreciate "warmth" in a system, I've noticed that I don't seem to require as much as others do - provided that the sound is free of grain or stridency.  I definitely lean toward linearity, detail and accuracy, and very much try to avoid bloom and bloat.  I wouldn't call myself a bass nut, but I do find boomy bass more distracting than many other possible audiophile "ills".  Given this catalog of preferences, yes, I liked the Spectron III SE best among the amps present, with the Levinson clone coming in 2nd.  The Spectrons were nice and clean with a great grip on the woofers.  They did get a little hot in the tweeter a couple of times, especially before we swapped speaker cables, but I think this was in the recording.  (I'll tend to alter my recording selection in such a situation, rather than "tune" my system, if possible.)  Then again, the Spectrons were substantially more expensive, so there is definitely a trade-off.

I think both sets of speakers sounded better with Synergistic cables.  I won't speculate on what aspect of cable design was responsible, but I definitely liked them better.

Back to work...

[Wayne1]

When I heard the Spectrons were twice the price of the EE's I almost choked on my coffee!

I am afraid I was wrong in stating the price of the EE's. They retail for $5,000.00 a pair. So the Spectrons are 3X the price of the tube amps. 

[sunshinedawg]

Another Thanks to Mike and Mary, I had a great time. It was great to see everyone again. Here are some pics:





























There are some descriptions on the gallery page. 

Sean

[zybar]

Guys,

Which model were the Synergistic cables?

Thanks,

George

[JCarney]

Guys,

Which model were the Synergistic cables?

Thanks,

George

They were the Signature 10 X2 active sheilding speaker cables.

JCarney

[mgalusha]

Thanks for the pics Sean.



L to R. Pete (peteg), Mike (tweekgeek), me, Jerry (turk), Wayne, Tyson, Brian (brj)



Jerry doing his best Lonewolfe impersonation.