Hi,
Vsac turned out to be an awesome show. I had a great time and met a lot of very nice people. Many thanks to Doc from Bottlehead and Ron Welborne for putting together a great show and in a beautiful area of the country. I wish I had more time to spend in Washington State.
Also, sorry for my lack of posts leading up to the show. Getting ready for it was pretty hectic and also looks like I have to move the shop as the building is going retail.
The show was great, really set up well and easy to find all the rooms. Also the craftsmen rooms were really cool. Lots of great amps and speakers and the attention to detail was excellent. The turn out was great too, many people attended.
The room was good, but a little on the bright side. we managed to get some really good sound. I brought the Super 3, Bipole and Grande 6/8.
Most of the time was switching between the Super 3 and the Bipole. These were really sounding great. Bass was very good and the bipoles had a huge soundstage and imaging was also excellent. The bipoles sounded very dynamic and smooth with great bass. Mostly all the people who heard them couldn't believe the bass output coming from 4.5" drivers. The soundstage on the bipoles was very deep and the sound was not at all forward. Placing them wasn't to hard at all. I had them about 5 feet from the back wall and about 7 feet apart. These speakers do need toe in. During the listening all the instruments were in the right places and not at all blurry. I did have the chance to hear them with the Decware Selects as well. I hooked them up in 4 ohm Bipole and the amps sounded fantastic. They had a beautiful midrange and more than enough power. I was very happy to hear how well they matched.
I also had the chance to hear all the speakers with the Sun Audio amps (2A3 SET and 2A3 PP). they are distributed by Two Bald Guys Audio and Harry and Ken are great. The amps are a great match with the speakers and have a smooth and powerful sound. I couln't believe how loud these 2A3 amps are.
Grande 6s were sounding very good on 20" Skylan stands and about 4 feet away from the rear wall and 7 feet apart. Very dynamic and I did try them with the bybee filters and these do work very well, but not on the Bipoles. They do smooth the upper mids out very well. George and Kara of deHavilland really liked the Grande 6s.
Many thanks to Tom of Hudson Audio, my room partner for bringing the electronics and Hudson cables and Noel from skylan for the Rack and speaker stands.
The system was :
Opera M500 300B monoblocks KR 300B tubes
Opera Ref preamp
Opera Ref CD with 6H30 output tubes
Eurolab Turntable
Morch DP-6 arm
Alaerts cartridge
Phonomax phono pre amp
Many thanks,
Louis