[mresseguie]

Mudslide,

Hop on over here! Are you in the Seattle area today?

[aldcoll]

When I get home and get a real keyboard I will ad some info.  But here is the gang.

Alan


Update with names. From Left to right starting with the back row.

Aldcoll, Mrressguie, Gregfisk (Host). Special Guest of Alexscotty Curt?
Jake J, Rajacat, MCA
Dixi, Alexscotty

[aldcoll]

So here are some pictures of DAC day featuring the NEW Daedalus Apollos we picked up just two hours prior to powering them up.

A shout out goes to Lou of Daedalus Audio who canceled a day on the water of Puget sound to allow Michael to take delivery.

Lou also boxed up some of his DiDs and darn near a loom of Wywires Platnium which are now in my system for a day,, or two.


Power for the day was supplied by Greg's Butler or my Modwright.  Music for the day was via Mac Mini.  We soon discovered that that page in the manual that says if you use a MAC no issue, plug and play.

I am at a loss for the name of Greg"s Pre Amp 

We stated with Greg's GR Super V's and with some dramatic flair we fired up the Apollo's




I'll work on the picture

Jake J and Rajacar both brought The New MP-D2 with different tubes and caps...  Me liked

AlexScotty brought a Pasvane.

And then MCA whipped out the Lampi Atlantic with volume.  We ran it straight to the Modwright and did a few W or w/O DiDs and the difference  was noticeable and it was in all the good ways.

Greg Smoked A Salmon and it was so fresh it pinched me as I walked past

As the crowd thinned Jake J pulled out his all balanced  Audio ??? Pre Amp  ( Okay I am having brain issues)  But I liked it.

Michael had arranged to have a new DENAFRIPS Venus.  We new that it had less the 200 hours on it and maybe some more time would help.



And some one else might ad to what I missed.

P.S Dixi/Flo thanks for the last of the wine.  It helped me fall asleep.

Alan

[mihalis68]

hello, I was Alex's guest, my name is Chris Morgan. I am an audiophile, but my gear is very modest and not really worth mentioning. I also live in NYC, so a bit far most of the time!

I had a great time at the meetup and thanks to all who attended and provided food and drink, I am glad to think I helped a bit with the Mac setup at least.

Chris

[JakeJ]

Just caught this during a slice of downtime at work.

Greg's preamp is a Joule-Electra LA-150 MkII (I think) and mine is an Audio Experience (by YS Audio) A2 with Gold Edition upgrades.

Out of all the DACs I liked mine best but the Metrum Pavane (alexscotti) and the Lampi were very good as well.  The Venus does need more time but the potential is there.

Oh, and in reference to that page in the manual, "Plug-n-Play" is term to be loosely interpreted!

 

[dixi]

What a fun Saturday afternoon,lots of cool gear and nice music,looking forward to another meet
Greg thanks for hosting again,hope I see you soon guys..
PS. Alan your are super welcome ,your beer was delicious 

[mresseguie]

There's so much to say, but I don't have enough time to say it all right now. I'll just have to write it up in bite sized chunks as time allows.

First of all I want to thank Greg for making this G2G possible by offering the use of his man cave. I can only dream of having such a space some day.    I guess I should thank Greg's wife for allowing us to borrow him for the day. 

As Alan mentioned, we left Vancouver, WA at the ungodly early hour of 4 am in order to avoid the nasty traffic along the Tacoma to Marysville stretch of I-5. [My wife and I got stuck in it just 2 weeks ago while returning from Vancouver, BC. ] The combination of its being Saturday morning and our passing through at 6:30 am made for smooth driving. If only it were always so.

We arrived at Lou's speaker workshop in Ferndale after stopping at Denny's for a much needed breakfast and coffee. I think we arrived right about 9:30. We unboxed the Denafrips Venus DAC to give Lou a listen and to compare it to the Modwright modded Oppo Sonica DAC. The Venus had only burned in for 150 hours, but I think it performed very well nonetheless. I couldn't hear enough difference to declare one or the other better, but Lou felt the Venus was just a tad solid state sounding vs the tube sound of the Oppo. I can't help but wonder what the Venus would sound like with 300 hours...

We packed the speakers and the Venus into my Tacoma; got some DiD samples and lovely looking wires/cables to audition; hugged Lou goodbye, and roared off heading south to Bothell. Man, those speaker shipping boxes are big.

One-plus hours later, we arrived at Greg's home.

To be continued...

[gregfisk]

I can't say enough about how great the people are who have come to my place, I couldn't ask for a better group of guys.

Jake, once again you went out of your way to help out with the food and I think we did a good job this time, so Thank you!
Michael and Allen are just plain crazy, and I mean that in the best of ways. What a long day that must have been for you two.
Mike, as usual was very helpful with getting things handled when needed and in fact everyone was super helpful when they had something that they could help with.

Michael's new speakers couldn't be any different in design than mine. But what I realized is when a speaker is true to the music there is less difference that one would think. We didn't play my Super Vs for very long because I really wanted this G2G to be about Michael's speakers which was a load of fun. One thing is for sure, those Apollos can play just as loud as my speakers and my ears were still ringing in the morning. I like loud music for sure but someone was really working them out towards the end of the day.

My take away with the gear is I really liked the Musical Paradise Dacs for their ability to create warmth and detail at the same time. On the other hand the Lampi Atlantic when run without a pre amp was outstanding in the warmth with clarity it delivered, I thought it was the clearest sounding dac I heard. I'm fond of metrum dacs since I own one but the pavane was on a whole other level and sounded very good. The Denifrips was also very good but it didn't have the meat on the bone sound that I prefer. Like others said, it probably just needed a bit more break in time. It certainly had a good sound to it and is no slouch for sure.

Michael, I'm looking forward to your story and continuation of the day.   

[vinyl_lady]

Since Jake has stretched the Puget Sound to the Tri Cities area, I don't think it's not that big of a leap to include Spokane. 

There are 3 or 4 of us that get together from time to time in Spokane. One is an ACer, Folsom, and another is a speaker designer, Luke (Aluminous Aduio).

I have a daughter and son-in-law in Lake Oswego (I recently hooked them on vinyl), so I make it over to the PDX area on a regular basis and also to SEA for a concert from time to time.

Laura

[gregfisk]

Laura,

I have relatives in Spokane and get over there at least once a year. You are more than welcome to come by when you can and even if I'm not having a G2G at the moment you are welcome to stop by. I could probably get a few of the locals together on pretty short notice.

Michael and Allen come from Oregon and Jake comes from Richland. Spokane is definitely not too far to be included.

[vinyl_lady]

Greg,

let me know when you are coming to Spokane. I'm willing to host you and your relatives for an evening of good food, wine and music.

I'll let you know the next time I am in your area with some time to spare.

Thanks

[rajacat]

   I want to thank Greg for hosting this great G2G. He has the perfect setup for hosting such gatherings. The salmon was awesome along with the other goodies. It was fun putting faces on and meeting the other AC members present.
 Greg and his family have a very nice compound which occupies much of an entire cul-de-sac with three houses and a dedicated man cave. Despite control of the street, he still went to extraordinary lengths to attenuate the sound emanating from the man cave with double walls, resilient channel, etc. Of course, this not only controls the sound but adds to the quality.
   This is the first "audiophile" gathering I've attended, so I was very interested to hear how my system would stack up to some others. I must admit that it's very difficult to compare gear and systems in a party like environment but it still was educational. After a meal and a bunch of beer my ability to discern fine differences was somewhat attenuated. Nevertheless I was happy to conclude that my MP-D2 DAC, that I brought, could hang with the others. A lot of this is just a matter taste and synergy. I liked both of the speaker sets that were present although Greg's Super V's were rotated out in favor of Michael's new Daedalus's shortly after I arrived. There was a very impressive array electronic gear in attendance along with high end cables and the new Daedalus footers. Much of this gear I'd love to take home and evaluate in my system and listening space.
   I left the gathering after about 5 hours, I think, with drooping eyelids and burned out ears. Made it to the Edmonds ferry and promptly dozed off in the line. Got back to Port Townsend safely and passed out while listening to my rig and woke up at 3AM.

Thanks again Greg,

Roy

[alexscotti]

Just wanted to thank Greg for being a great host, and say what a great time I had listening to music and playing with gear with a great bunch of guys.  Thanks!

[Sonny]

Hey Guys, sounds like everyone had a great time!  So, what was all the feedback and opinions on all the equipment listened?

Anyways, since we don't have a circle yet for us PNWAS or PNWAG or PNWG2G, I was going to see if anyone is interested in a pair of 10" Dayton Passive Subs I built and have no use for.  I had these old HSU Research HRSW-10 that the driver's foam surrounds deteriorated so I replaced them with the Daytons. 

So, the Drivers were about $125 each back in the day, so, any offers? 

I also have two Adcom Amps, a GFA555 and the GFA535 if anyone is interested as well as other things

If interested, PM me and I can text some pictures.

Thanks 

Located in Gig Harbor.

[mresseguie]

Next installment:

Once we arrived at Greg's man cave, we immediately unpacked the Denafips Venus DAC and connected it to his Mac Mini and his preamp. Well, we suffered a Mac attack because his Mini didn't feel like talking to the Venus. I think it took a good 45 minutes to figure out which setting was appropriate, but we finally did succeed in getting them talking to each other.

We played several songs using Greg's speakers so he could get a clear idea of how good the Venus is. I'd like to point out that the Venus had just 150 hours burn in, and I've read that anywhere from 200 to 300 hours are needed for it to shine. [I'm still burning it in as I write this - at ~180 hours now.] I'll let Greg post his thoughts on this combo. Greg's Butler amp belts out something like 200w/ch and these speakers are 96.5dB/8 ohm. Try to imagine the potential there. 

After Greg was satisfied with his impressions of the Venus/Super V speakers, we disconnected his speakers and their bass amps in order to set up my new Daedalus Audio Apollo speakers. You can see in the picture that Aldcoll posted that these are not especially large speakers. This is good because I don't have a big living room in my Taiwan apartment. They actually looked kind of small in Greg's big man cave. Did anyone take room measurements BTW? Initially, we positioned the Apollos in the same spots as Greg's speakers. That must have placed them 10 feet apart and 5' from the front wall. [Correct me if I'm wrong.] There was just a little toe in, I think. Not much was necessary because the front baffle is already slanted inward. I'm biased here, so take my impressions with a grain of salt. THESE SPEAKERS ROCK!! See? Only a little bias.

Here is the list of DACs that were present for the day's G2G: Metrum Octave, Metrum Pavane, Denafrips Venus, MP-D2 (2 units with different tubes and caps!), Lampizator Atlantic w/preamp function added. I think that's all, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I forgot one. Throughout the day, we switched DACs in and out to compare this one to that one. And, yes, the Mac threw us some nasty curve balls just when we began getting over-confident. There were nine participants, so there was usually lively conversation, bodies moving in and out, and plenty of distractions. Aren't we audiophiles solitary creatures who just listen for hours at a time?

Important announcement: If I say something less than wonderful about your DAC that you don't like, please remember I'm stating my impression. I'm not attacking you personally. I'm not shit talking your favorite DAC. If you get upset, take a walk or drink a brew. Chill the f#*k out, dude. It's no different from my casually saying I prefer dome tweeters over ribbon tweeters. I'm simply offering my preference. Thank you.  End of announcement.

Now where was I? Oh, yeah. I was about to trash talk people's DACs, but ever-so-politely. The Metrum DACs and the Denafrips Venus DAC are R2R DACs. I'm still learning what the means sonically. This was the first time I had ever heard one - let alone three. I can't tell you yet how they sonically differ from 'regular' DACs. I spent more time listening to the Venus, JakeJ's MP-D2, and the Lampi Atlantic than the others. I didn't try to avoid any. It just happened that way. Here is the order in which I like these DACs (least to best):

Metrum Octave
MP-D2 with the oil caps (I think)
Metrum Pavane (didn't listen to it very long)
Venus/JakeJ's MP-D2 (differences, but I wouldn't say one is better than the other)
Lampi Atlantic with preamp upgrade

MCA told me all the upgrades to his Lampi, but I didn't write them down. Perhaps he can remind us here? This DAC stood out from the pack. It is a WOW!! DAC. I get why folks fall in love with this beast of a DAC. It's not cheap though. It's more than double what most of the other DACs cost. Sure, it has an excellent sounding preamp function, which is a big plus if you don't already have a preamp. Mike, do I recall correctly that this DAC costs ~$6500 new?

There was a lovely tube sound coming out of JakeJ's MP-D2 that just made me feel like I'd been sipping a really nice Scotch on a cool winter evening. I'm sure he can fill us in on his tube and caps selections. I can't help but wonder if my adding this to my D Sachs Model 2 tube preamp/D Sachs KT88 Kootenay 120 tube amp combo would create too much tube sound. I probably won't try it, but I might try it with a SS amp someday. Jake, how much would your DAC cost with all the upgrades that you chose? It's worth it in my opinion.

The Venus is a great sounding DAC. It doesn't sound like tubes, but it doesn't sound like solid state to my ears either. I think most of us agreed that it hadn't burned in enough yet, so it hadn't opened up or 'bloomed' yet. Nonetheless, acoustic instruments like guitar, piano, cello, banjo, sax (not my favorite instrument btw), and harp just sound so real to me. I'm not a musician, so I don't describe these sounds like a musician would. The strings vibrate when plucked or struck. There is decay as the sound diminishes. Can I say they're three dimensional sounding? Sure, why not? [I should point out that the Lampi and Jake's MP-D2 impressed me the same way.]

That's about all you'll get from me tonight. Please forgive me if I didn't say wonderful things about your DAC. It's not you, okay?

After days of lots of free time, I find myself short of free time. I will squeeze in more thoughts as I have time. I'm moving on Monday. I fly to Chicago on Aug 6, and to Boston on Aug 18. I'll be in Atlanta, GA by Aug 31.

Peace.....enjoy your music!

Michael

[alvin1118]

Thank you Michael! I'm happy 

Hope you guys enjoy !

[epicaudio]

Don't forget the other side of the state, here at Epic Audio we are the areas largest new und used 2 channel hi fi shop. We have hundreds of pieces of gear, from REL , McIntosh  , Bosendorfer , Vincent etc. We buy, sell & trade gear, do some service and offer speaker restoration.....so how about a Washington group ?

[mresseguie]

Don't forget the other side of the state, here at Epic Audio we are the areas largest new und used 2 channel hi fi shop. We have hundreds of pieces of gear, from REL , McIntosh  , Bosendorfer , Vincent etc. We buy, sell & trade gear, do some service and offer speaker restoration.....so how about a Washington group ?

Your first post and it's written more like an advertisement.

[I toned my retort down, Jake. Thanks for letting us know. - toned down a wee bit more.]

[JakeJ]

Hey all,

I know the owner of Epic Audio and I texted them about their post and pointed them to the rules and regs.  I'll get them straightened out in short order.  Just a very enthusiastic group that can be an asset.

Jake

[aldcoll]

So if they join the group there will be a discount to members