July 15 GTG at TweekGeek's - TweekGeek & Bolder Cable

cryotweaks · « **on:** 27 Jun 2007, 09:15 pm »

On July 15th I will be hosting a get together in my home. It should be a great time as we have some really good products to audition

Bolder Cable:
- Van Alstine 550 amplifier
- modded Burson Buffer
- Bent/Burson control center (maybe)
- STATEMENT modded SqueezeBox with power supply (maybe)

TweekGeek:
- Mark & Daniel Maximus monitors
- Bybee Golden Goddess speaker bullets
- Nuforce P9 preamp

Please PM me for directions if you are interested in attending.

Cheers!

Mike

mgalusha · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 Jun 2007, 11:18 pm »

I'm there, at least as far as I can predict the future.

Any goodies you want me to bring? I should have the extra modules in Jerry's Twisted Pear amp by then and it should be good for about 300WPC, maybe even enough for your SP Tech's.

I will also have a Burson with a remote control selector and volume control. At present it's a bread board set up but it might live in a box by then. The Burson is lightly modded with some BG caps in the PS and modules.

Mike

BradJudy · « **Reply #2 on:** 28 Jun 2007, 01:00 am »

I might be able to come, I'll know better when the date is closer.

I doubt I have much of interest to bring other than content, but let me know if you need anything.

cryotweaks · « **Reply #3 on:** 28 Jun 2007, 01:22 am »

Mike your amps might be of interest, but that should be enough. No need to bring anything other than yourselves.

PeteG · « **Reply #4 on:** 28 Jun 2007, 06:37 pm »

I should be able to make it too, I'd like to hear the Burson Buffer and control unit.

Pete

smccull · « **Reply #5 on:** 28 Jun 2007, 07:23 pm »

Mike,

I've been intrigued by the Mark & Daniel speakers for some time. I'd like to come. I'll PM you for directions.

Steve

brj · « **Reply #6 on:** 29 Jun 2007, 01:17 am »

Mike, I'd welcome the chance to meet you and hear your gear. As far as I know, I can make that date, although I'll confirm that a bit later. What time of day did you have in mind?

Unfortunately, my audio gear in still inaccessible at the moment, but is there anything else that I might bring?

Thanks!

cryotweaks · « **Reply #7 on:** 29 Jun 2007, 03:36 am »

I plan on getting things going about 11am. No need to bring any more gear, just yourselves.

Cheers!

Mike

mgalusha · « **Reply #8 on:** 29 Jun 2007, 03:05 pm »

What Mike didn't mention is that his wife is a Chef and has provided some scrumptious munchies in the past, not that I'm signing her up for anything.

bpape · « **Reply #9 on:** 29 Jun 2007, 03:13 pm »

Sounds like a ball. Wish I could be out there. There are a few of those pieces I'd love to hear (Statement SB, M&D speakers, modded Burson buffer)

Have a good time!

Bryan

Wayne1 · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 Jul 2007, 08:14 pm »

A quick update on the gear I will be bringing.

The Statement SB3 will be coming. It was just finished late last week and it needs lots of break-in. I will be letting it run all this week, but it will not be completely broken in by Sunday. This should give you a rough idea of what the final sound will be like. If anyone would care to bring another SB2 or 3 to compare it to, that would great.

The Bent/Burson control center just showed up, thanks to USPS. It looks great! It works fantastic!

I think this little item will be just what a lot of people have been waiting for.

The only other thing I would request would be for some music from the attendees. We have been using the same old demo tunes for some time. I will be bringing along some of those, but I am always interested in new tunes. If each person could bring maybe one or two cuts either ripped to flac or on a cd that we could rip for the day, that would be very helpful.

See you all on Sunday.

zybar · « **Reply #11 on:** 11 Jul 2007, 12:13 am »

What tunes have you guys been using?

Here are a few I have been using lately:

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky: Side With Seeds, Hate it Here
Rusted Root - When I Woke: Laugh As the Sun,
Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama - There Will Be A Light: Mother Pray
Tori Amos - Boys For Pele: Way Down
Dave Matthews Band - Crash: #41, Say Goodbye
Aimee Mann - The Forgotten Arm: I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up Before Christmas
Roland Kirk - Domino: Domino, A Stritch in Time
Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing: Romeo and Juliet, Money for Nothing, Brothers in Arms

George

brj · « **Reply #12 on:** 11 Jul 2007, 01:32 am »

Tunes are the one thing I can bring at the moment, and I still think I can make it. Looking forward to it!

mgalusha · « **Reply #13 on:** 11 Jul 2007, 03:11 am »

I'm still planning on being there but I won't be bringing anything I had planned on. I was going to bring the Twisted Pear amp but I'm *still* waiting on the final pieces to show up to allow the installation of the additional power modules. I have most of my Burson/control amp done but it's full of new parts with zero hours on them, so even if I did get it completed by Sunday it won't have any time on it.

However, after speaking with Wayne I will be bringing Jerry's Burson which has had the electrolytics swapped out for Black Gates and has plenty of time on the new caps. It will be a nice benchmark to compare with Wayne's Bent/Burson unit. I'll also drag my SB2 along as it's tweaked to about the same level as the Bolder SB's. It will be a good reference for comparing Wayne's new statement version.

I'll bring along a 300G drive with music. Surely we can find something new and different.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Sunday.

Mike

zybar · « **Reply #14 on:** 15 Jul 2007, 11:49 am »

Have fun today and don't forget to take pictures and let us know how things go.

George

mgalusha · « **Reply #15 on:** 16 Jul 2007, 01:58 am »

Had a good time at Mike's today and want to thank him and his wife for hosting and having a bunch of audiophools invade their home.

The day started off oddly and stayed that way. I pulled up to Mike's and wasn't sure I was in the right place as I saw a couple of guys in NHRA clothes with badges around their necks. Then I realized one of them was Danny Richie. Huh? Surely Danny wouldn't drive 750 miles for a listening session. Nope, turns out they were in town for the NHRA Mopar MileHi Nationals. Drove a hot rod truck 750 miles, raced and were getting ready to drive back home. Quite an adventure in itself.

We started getting things set up and Mike's external disk drive picked today to crash, and since we were planning on using SB's for sources this put a serious wrench in the works. Wayne was ready to make the hour (each way) drive home and get his music server but I was able to catch Jerry before he left home and he brought his server along so we finally had a way to serve up some music.

Once we got past that things improved greatly and we were able to play music through all the various gear assembled. I thought Wayne was moving in considering the number of boxes he brought.

The Bent/Bolder/Burson control box worked very well and we were able to compare it with the Jos Van Eijndhoven attenuator I finished assembling yesterday. They were similar but the BBB version won out with greater detail and a fuller sound. There are several reasons this could be including the fact that I had to run short IC's between them vs having the modules next to the attenuator boards with short hardwires. I believe most of the difference was the use of Vishay S102 nude resistors. Horrifically expensive but it was very nice sounding.

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.

It was a full day and I'm sure others will have more to add. I know Brian snapped quite a few photos, so hopefully he'll post them. We did have a pretty good turn out today and I got to meet some new folks. Very cool and again, a big thanks to Mike and Maya.

Mike

brj · « **Reply #16 on:** 16 Jul 2007, 07:49 am »

Mike, thank you for the invitation and my thanks to you and your wife for the generous hospitality! I enjoyed it, and it was great to attach some more faces and full names to DAM member AC login IDs.

Mike (mgalusha) covered the afternoon's activities and trials quite thoroughly, so I there isn't much for me to add, especially as it was the first time I had heard much of the gear used and was unfamiliar with Mike's rig. Wayne's statement-mod SB3 is something I definitely would appreciate auditioning in my own rig once I have it up and running again, and, if I don't direct connect my source, the BBB pre-amp will be on my in-home audition wish-list as well. John Chapman's engineering efforts always struck me as novel and elegant, and mating that with Wayne's modified Burson buffer seems like a perfect fit for many systems.

The Mark & Daniel Maximus Monitor speakers were interesting as well, with the deepest bass I've ever heard out of a bookshelf, much less one that small. (Published F3 of 36 Hz out of a 14.4” x 8.5” x 11.2” cabinet.) They are also more demanding of amplifiers than any bookshelf of which I'm aware - I was impressed that their 85dB/2.83V/1m efficiency and 2.8 Ohm minimum load (4 Ohm nominal) didn't let the "magic smoke" out of the little 10W Trends amp!

A couple of pics follow for your viewing pleasure. Sorry, these were all quick shots, as there were too many people trying to enjoy the system for me to try and stage the pictures.

Two of the Bent/Bolder/Burson Buffer pre-amp:

And one of the Mark & Daniel Maximus Monitor:

Thanks again, Mike!

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #17 on:** 16 Jul 2007, 09:29 am »

Wow, the trends with that beast of a monitor? How did that fare? Sure, they'd like 500 watts, but is the trends viable at 85db or so?

PeteG · « **Reply #18 on:** 16 Jul 2007, 02:42 pm »

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

Wayne1 · « **Reply #19 on:** 16 Jul 2007, 02:50 pm »

Mike and Brian covered the high points very well.

I would like to add a few things. Please note that I AM a bit biased about some of the items we listened to as I built them.

I would like to thank Jerry (Turk) for service above and beyond the call of duty. When I arrived at Mike Garner's, Mike Galusha had just finished verifying his external hard drive, upon which all his music was stored, was no longer functioning. I did offer to drive home and bring the five hard drives that I use to back up my files. Mike Galusha was able to get in touch with Jerry and he did bring over his whole music server. This saved the whole get together and was really special considering Jerry is still recovering from another in a seeminly endless series of shoulder surgeries.

I did bring quite a few variations of Buffers, power supplies, cables, and a modded SB3 to listen to. When Mike Galusha finally got Jerry's server talking to everything I had the BOLDER/Bent/ Burson Buffer (for ease of typing I will refer to this unit from now on as the B4) feeding TweekGeek's Trends amp. I subbed in an upgraded power supply and heard very little difference. While the Trends WAS able to drive the speakers, it was not happy at all doing so. On some passages of Ray Brown Trio's take on Freddie the Freeloader, the amp would just shut down.

I hooked up my personal AVA Fet-Valve 550EXR to the speakers. We now had some more volume and quite a bit more bass. We used the AVA amp for most of the comparisons.

The first change out of gear was to Mike Galusha's build of the Jos Van Eijndhoven attenuator feeding a slightly modded Burson Buffer. I did feel the 4B sounded cleaner, but I am more than a bit biased about that product. We also changed out the Burson Buffer for a stock unit and then the fully modded prototype I brought. My thoughts were that the Fully modded unit sounded quite a bit better, but again I am not the best person to report on this. Hopefully the others in attendance will post their thoughts. I will say there WAS an audible difference between all of the Burson Buffers and most of the differences were caused by the changing of passive parts.

We were just getting ready to compare Mike Galusha's fully modded out SB2 to the Statement modded SB3 when the amp I brought would not turn back on. I trace the problem to a blown AC fuse. I replaced the fuse and it blew again. I have owned this amp for about a year and a hlf. The ONLY other time this happened was when I lent to to Tyson

In that case, one of the rectifier diodes had shorted. I will get into the amp later today to see if this is what happened again. This is NOT the fault of the design of the amp. I have changed parts inside the amp and any problems the amp experiences is of my own making. This is my personal amp and not something that I will offer for sale at any time. I, personally, have had no problems with the amp in my systems. It is only when it goes visiting that it ever acts up.

Mike Garner's personal NuForce amps are out being upgraded. The same thing is going on with his personal SP Tech speakers. We were left with the Trends and the Mark and Daniels. I hooked up my modded Trends to the big power supply and proceeded to do the SB comparison. We could not obtain room shaking volumes, but on the material used for the comparison, Muddy Waters: Folksinger, it was possible to hear that the Statement SB3 was sounding better than Mike's modded SB2 with the Gold Bybees, Sonicap Platinums and Gen2 with large Sonicaps in the output. I was VERY pleased to hear that. Finally I can say that the SB3 can be made to sound better than the SB2. All it takes is a lot of money

If anyone wishes to discuss more about this mod, please post the questions in the BOLDER Cable circle.

The Mark and Daniels speakers do continue to impress. If anyone is looking for a small studio monitor sized speaker and has a good sized power amp to drive them, I would suggest that they be auditioned. They do have quite an incredible amount and quality of bass for a speaker that size.

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.

Thank you very much to Mike Garner for coping with the stress of having to entertain a group of Audiophools when his wife gets called in to work at the last minute, his hard drive and all his music goes up in smoke and a guest amp gets toasted. You were a far more relaxed man than I would be under those conditions.