[zybar]

I too would like to thank Mike Garner for opening up his home to us. I had a good time even with the small problems we had.

Mike summed up the day quite well. The two things that stuck out for me was the Bent/Bolder/Burson control unit and Wayne’s Burson buffer unit which I could see being a good match with a lot of SB owners (me included).  After listening to the little trend amp (10W) I really liked it, I think it would work good in a small space matched with small handheld type speakers.

-Pete

Was there a comparison between the Bent/Bolder/Burson control unit and Wayne’s modified Burson?

Was one clearly better than the other?

George

[PeteG]

Was there a comparison between the Bent/Bolder/Burson control unit and Wayne’s modified Burson?

Was one clearly better than the other?

George

George,

I would have to listen to them in my system to get a good handle on the differences.
But with the Mark & Daniel Monitors and the limited time with the AVA amp they were close, it wasn't night & day.

-Pete

[jrebman]

Sorry I couldn't be there, but maybe next time.  I was recovering from our fantastic wedding and ultra relaxing honeymoon, and we had an appointment to go up and visit Mike and Neli (close friends) to audition some new speakers yesterday afternoon, and as usually happens when I do that, I need to go and hear all the stratospherically priced gear that I know I can never afford. 8D

Sounds like Murphy was with you yesterday, but glad to hear it all worked out.  Sounds like I will definitely have to send one of my SB2s for Statement mods for my now in flux system.

I also hope to be able to host a small gathering here sometime later this year.

-- Jim

[Daygloworange]

We also had a chance to compare a fully modded SB2 with pretty much every tweak available to the new Bolder Statement SB3. Unfortunately right as we were undertaking this Wayne's amp decided to go south and the only other amp on had was the little Trends, which is quite good but had a somewhat tough time with the Mark and Daniel speakers. Still, the Statement SB3 was notably tighter on the bottom and a bit cleaner on the top end. I may have to tweak my SB2 yet again.

Gear always decides to take a turd when you least expect it, doesn't it? 

Wayne sent me his modded Trends amp with a mega PS he built for it a couple of weeks ago so I could compare it to my stock one. While the Trends TA 10.1 is a neat little amp, It doesn't have the resolution of a conventional amp. On dynamic material it just doesn't have the same headroom, and can start to distort on dynamic passages. It's not as full sounding either.

Given that, IMO I wouldn't expect any comparisons between the modded SB's running into the Trends to be real indicative of the true potential of performance of the respective mods.

Cheers

[Wayne1]

Denny,

While I do respect your speakers and building skills, I do have to disagree with you on this point.

I did use the modded Trends and the AVA amp on my speakers during the design process on the SB3 mods. I was easily able to hear very subtle detail changes on the Trends. In fact, I did prefer using the Trends for just this resolution.

On the Mark and Daniels speakers, the Trends was able to resolve quite well. It did not have the ability to play LOUD, but at low levels you could easily hear differences.

Different speakers, different room, different room treatments, different power= different sound 

Hopefully the DAM gang will be able to get together again before RMAF with a few back up amps and hard drives on hand to try to repeat this little comparison. 

[PeteG]

I need to add one more thing that made (to me) a big difference was Mike Garner’s Bybee Golden SE speaker bullets and Wayne’s Bybee speaker bullets, they both sounded very good with the Mark & Daniel Maximus monitors.

-Pete

[sunshinedawg]

Thanks again to Mike Garner for hosting the get together. Thank you for the great food spread as well. For reference, the Muddy Waters track was from "Folksinger" and was "Good Morning Little School Girl." I think the others covered the buffers pretty well. I did like the TBCC statement mod sb3 a bit better than Mike Galusha's modded sb2 (sorry Mike!  ). The guitar on Good Morning... was much sweeter and had more of pleasant sound, for lack of better words. The Mark and Daniel speakers are very nice monitors form low end to top end, but a little hungry.

Sean

[Daygloworange]

Denny,

While I do respect your speakers and building skills, I do have to disagree with you on this point.

I did use the modded Trends and the AVA amp on my speakers during the design process on the SB3 mods. I was easily able to hear very subtle detail changes on the Trends. In fact, I did prefer using the Trends for just this resolution.

On the Mark and Daniels speakers, the Trends was able to resolve quite well. It did not have the ability to play LOUD, but at low levels you could easily hear differences.

Different speakers, different room, different room treatments, different power= different sound 

Wayne,

Oh yeah. Different variables do add up, no question. I've been doing a lot of A/B ing between 2 sets of very similar speakers the last week or so and while I do hear the same differences no matter whether I'm using the Trends, or my ATI, the differences are not exactly equal. You could say we're splitting hairs here, as much as I like the Trends, I just think I would prefer to use my ATI in a comparison between front end sources to make a final decision. 

Looking forward to hearing how the new mods compare, and all your other new stuff at RMAF.

Cheers

[Wayne1]

Denny,


I am sending off the B4, modded Burson Buffer, and Statement SB3 to Zybar later in the week. Hopefully his gear will remain intact long enough for him to compare all this stuff to his modded SB2, which is very similar to mgalusha's, and the stock BB.

Looking forward to meeting you in person at RMAF.

[Jon L]

"Towards the end of the session, Brian and Mike Garner were playing some selections from the soundtrack of American Beauty. There is some VERY low bass on those tracks. The little Trends was able to reproduce it with the M&D speakers, although at rather low volumes."

eek

Not THAT bass track with 6 WPC Trends with 85dB speakers! 

[zybar]

Denny,


I am sending off the B4, modded Burson Buffer, and Statement SB3 to Zybar later in the week. Hopefully his gear will remain intact long enough for him to compare all this stuff to his modded SB2, which is very similar to mgalusha's, and the stock BB.

Looking forward to meeting you in person at RMAF.

I will leave my current system in place in order to do a proper comparison.

George

[Turk]

Another thank you to Mike Garner and his spouse for hosting a bunch of lunatics drooling over nude resistors.  aa The uber expensive resistors did add transparency with the BBB although as Mike Galusha noted, hardwiring and some different passive parts will no doubt close the small gap between the DIY Dutch/Burson and the BBB.  But the BBB controller is going to be a great product in it's final form.  As a turn key controller with at least 6db of gain (maybe more if a viable option from a sonic quality standpoint) it should be an absolute killer for people with multiple sources, particularly vinyl.  It was dead quiet.  And as most people are not DIY types but want a world class component for a real world price, it should be competitively priced and is certainly attractive.

All combos showed great dynamics without an active stage.  Fewer parts + high quality=great sound.

Not everyone has a gifted friend like Mike Galusha who can build great stuff but is not directly in the business.  

George asked earlier about the Boulder Buffer.  If you have a single source I do not feel their was a performance gap, it was too close for me to call.  But if you ever intend to add vinyl, tape or radio I highly recommend you listen to the BBB from what I heard. It will no doubt be reasonably priced for what you get.  Of course, Mike already has new resisters on order so we will see how the next version of the DIY Dutch/Burson Controller sounds in a single case.  It was quite good as it was and with a touch more warmth.  I really enjoyed Wayne's SB3, really an incredible value and convenience unless you like to tinker with CD cases.

Mike Garner had some very nice stuff like his speaker Bybees as did Wayne.  I'll second Mike's version for speakers with a flat or more polite sound than the M&D speakers we heard. On a more lively slightly emphasized sound Wayne's Golden Speaker Bybees would be a great tweek. 

Lot's of nice people and a great time. 

[jrebman]

So, where can one buy some of these "nudies"?  Can't find them anywhere.  If this is a Michael Percy thing I'm SOL as his catalog is totally incomprehensible when rendered for a screen reader.

Thanks,

Jim

[Wayne1]

Jim,

Percy does list the encapsulated S102 resistors for about $12.00 each. I have read somewhere that he actually ships the nude version.

I have also read that the nude Vishays are actually made by Texas Components under license.

I think you might be able to order from them directly.

Here is a link to a pdf file of what they offer

http://www.texascomponents.com/pdf/tx2352.pdf

[jrebman]

Wayne,

Looks like I'll need to call Texas Components -- that PDF has only one short table in it that I can see and no mention of the resistors in question.

I really can't order anything from Percy because the catalog is so confusing that in many cases it is very difficult to correlate part numbers with specs and prices as the text is rendered in a very strange format for the screen reader, and I've heard he doesn't like to talk on the phone or do phone orders, and I can only imagine that being even worse if you really have very little idea of what you need or want to order.  For the most part I find that gathering parts for audio projects is about 20 times more effort than it used to be for other electronics projects.

The pointer to Texas Components should get me going in the right direction though.

Thanks,

Jim

[avahifi]

Hey Wayne, did you ever get that AVA Fet Valve 550EXR amplifier up and running again?

If not, why don't you just send it to us and we will fix it and do a complementary upgrade to an Ultra 550
for you at the same time.

The only downside is that any non-stock supply diodes now installed might have to go unless we know their
current and voltage rating for sure.  We will save anything else non-stock that does not get in the way of the Ultra 550 circuits.

Regards,

Frank Van Alstine

[Wayne1]

Thank you for the offer, Frank.

I received in some different diodes last Friday, just before my trip to Missouri to take my daughter to college.

I will try to make time this week to install them. If they do not do the job, I will be in touch with you about your kind offer.

Wayne