[hometheaterdoc]

Everyone,

It's "Grand Opening" time for my new place.  Saturday, September 12th, 2009.  We'll go from 4PM until whenever everyone leaves.  If folks want to come earlier than that, no problem... but not before noon if at all possible

As of right now, there will be multiple setups on display, but the majority of time will be spent listening in the main 2 channel room unless others object..... 

There are still some goodies that haven't yet arrived that will hopefully be on display for folks to listen to.  But mostly, this will be a meet to show you what's new at my place and hear my new spaces.  I'd like to keep the gear swapping to as much of a minimum as possible.... or rather that we limit the gear swapping to what I have on hand here because I do have a number of potential setups in each room.

Gear will include, but isn't limited to:

Harbeth Loudspeakers' Monitor 40.1, the all new P3ESR in rosewood finish & Compact 7ES-3 speakers

LFD's new MCSE integrated amplifier and its little brother, the LFD Zero MKIII LE

Era Loudspeakers' Design 14 floorstanders, Design 4 & Design 5 bookshelf speakers, as well as their matching center channels and surrounds

Leon Speakers' Horizon Ultima LCR with Ultima Surrounds

Butler Audio amplifiers including Monad monoblocks and TDB-5150

Oracle Audio DAC1000 DAC and preamp combo

David Belles electronics including the new SA-30 pure Class A amplifier

Peachtree Audio Nova integrated amplifier solution including integrated ESS DAC

Running Springs Audio power conditioners including Dmitri, Jaco, and Haley

JPS Labs Cables throughout including Aluminata, SuperConductor 3, SuperConductor Q, and UltraConductor2. 


I haven't decided if it's going to be a BBQ or if I'll just order some pizza.  But plan to bring your own beverages if you don't like my selection of adult beverages and soda.  Anything else you want to bring along is fine by me.  I'll try to have a few munchies for everyone.

Email or PM me for directions.  I'm really easy to find just south of The Streets of Southpoint mall off I-40 in South Durham, NC.  Let me know if you know you will be attending so I can get an idea of a head count.  Looking forward to it!  See you all very soon!

[rahimlee54]

To bad I am going on vacation that day, any plans to have another GTG later this year?

Thanks
Jared

[richidoo]

Thanks for inviting the AC gang!  I'll be there.  I got a sneak peak a few days ago, Shane's new system sounds awesome, as expected.

[hometheaterdoc]

To bad I am going on vacation that day, any plans to have another GTG later this year?

Thanks
Jared

Jared,

Depending on how things go, I'm sure I'll have another get together before the end of the year.  There are a couple pieces that will likely end up on display in my place that aren't going to make it on time for the get together next weekend because of back order status or not enough time to hand manufacture it and get it to me.  The side benefit of working with some smaller companies that take the extra time to hand make things one at a time.

If you want, you're also welcome to make arrangements to come over on another night and just have a listen outside the group setting.

There will be additional goodies available next weekend for folks to see and hear.  I'm still confirming they will arrive on time.  I also did some tweaking on setups last night and got even better sound than before... should be very interesting...

[jakelieb]

Anyone from Charlotte going?  Maybe share a ride?

Jake

[JimJ]

I'll try to make it.

[hometheaterdoc]

All right, everyone!  Tomorrow's the day!

Updates:

An Exemplar Audio DAC is in the house as of about an hour ago thanks to the rep for the company.  This is a demo piece as far as I can tell and doesn't need any break-in.  It's got two inputs, a coaxial and this one is installed with the optional AES/EBU connection.  Three sets of outputs: balanced XLR, an RCA set that are labelled as transister out, and an RCA set that are labeled as tube out.  5 minutes out of the "tube out" RCA set has shown a lot of promise.  Very different than the Oracle....

A Belles VT-01 tube preamp is also unboxed and breaking in as of about an hour ago.  This, unfortunately, is a brand spankin' new unit with no time on it at all.  I'm feeding the Oppo Blu Ray player into it with audio CD on repeat at the moment and will run it non-stop until the meet tomorrow.  It's definitely not going to sound as good as it can... but hopefully folks will get the chance to hear some of its potential.

I know that parts got delayed in shipment.  So I don't have confirmation yet on whether or not a Sol creation will make it to the meet.  He's dramatically altering a Twisted Pear Audio Buffalo32 DAC kit for me to see if we can make it sound in the same league as the Oracle DAC1000.  Stock it wasn't even close.... but you could hear the potential.  No idea if it will make it and if it does, it will not be fully broken in at all....  but may provide some entertainment for those interested.

Acoustics wise, it's really starting to come together... only a couple more panels to put up... but I fixed the stairwell ringing and hallway ringing... so the upstairs room is sounding much better... now lots of cleaning up and a few final component hookups to have everything playing music in time for tomorrow...

I've heard from a few folks privately via email.  But if folks can re-confirm now that the date is upon us if you know for certain you will be attending, I would really appreciate it.  I just want to know so I can make sure I have enough munchies and drinks.  If anyone would like to bring something, you're more than welcome.  I don't do healthy at all... but the better half is pushing me to BBQ some chicken and stuff instead of ordering pizzas... so I guess that sort of counts?  It's as healthy as I'm going to get anyways hehe

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

Shane

[JimJ]

Cool to meet you all today

Shane, the rooms sound great.

[richidoo]

Nice to meet you too Jim. Good to know another single driver afficionado in town.  Hope to see you again soon.

Thanks to Shane for the swell meet. Music sounded great, food and company was great too. Harbeths and LFD is a combination made in heaven.

[hometheaterdoc]

apparently i'm so long winded i exceeded the max post size so breaking this up into multiple posts

First off, thanks to everyone who attended.  It was great to see old friends and meet a few new folks.  I appreciate you all taking the time to stop by and socialize, as well as listen to a little bit of music.

Because there were so many combinations and permutations of gear possible, as is typical with one of our meets, there was no way to get to everything and hear everything, especially in a comparison type situation... After everyone heading out around midnight, Sol stayed behind for what was supposed to be a few minutes... But after listening to his I30 for a few minutes, we swapped in the Butler Monads and honestly, we got far and away the best sound of the night, imo.  Pretty soon it was 1:30AM and someone was not happy with me that I was keeping her up blasting music Smile hehe  I wish we had put the Butlers in the system earlier in the evening for folks to hear.... I need to have another meet very soon Smile  We didn't listen to the Belles stuff at all and initial listening on the Belles preamp was *very* positive even with no time on the unit at all....

I look forward to hearing others thoughts on sound.  Don't hold anything back or be polite.  Since almost all of the listening was done downstairs in the 2 channel room and almost exclusively with the LFD NCSE integrated, I'm sure most opinions will be centered on that.  The Harbeths are a different animal than I've had in my systems before.  We listened at a volume level most of the night that would make the designer shake his head and we listened to a variety of music that I didn't think the Harbeths would excel, but they did all right for the most part.  Curious to hear other's thoughts on the subject....

The evening got underway with Rob S., Bigfish and JimJ arriving relatively close together.  I was still in grilling mode at that time to get food ready.  So other than a few quick passes through the place, it was mostly socializing out by the grill.  Ken brought along his Transporter at my request and we spent a while trying to get that connected.  I futzed with my new wireless router that was acting very differently than my old one and we finally got that up and going... not the last computer setup issue of the evening, unfortunately.

In the main 2 channel room downstairs, initial listening was done with my audio PC feeding AES/EBU into the Exemplar DAC to the LFD NCSE integrated amplifier to the Harbeth Monitor 40.1s.  Cabling was JPS Labs SC3 speaker and digital, with a pair of Aluminata interconnects, a couple Digital AC+ power cords on PC and DAC and a Kaptovator powering the LFD.  The Exemplar DAC was plugged into a Running Springs Audio Dmitri that has a JPS Labs 20A Kaptovator.  All power circuits are dedicated 20A circuits wired with JPS Labs PowerAC inwall romex that's the equivalent of 10 gauge but seems bigger when you're trying to wire it into a receptacle Smile.  This is the setup that I had been listening to since the Exemplar arrived the day before... but given how much I had left to do in the upstairs audio room before folks arrived, I didn't do a ton of listening, just breaks in between tasks.  I like the Exemplar.  It's a touch aggressive for my tastes compared to the Oracle DAC1000, but I'm curious to hear it feeding a preamp into the Butler Monads.  It might balance well.  It does have pretty darn good bass and soundstaging and imaging are very good.     

We introduced Ken's Transporter into the system and it had his Black Sands Silver Ref V power cord on it. It was feeding analog into the LFD via a pair of JPS Labs SC3 interconnects.  Unfortunately, in my haste to get things up and running, I plugged the Transporter directly into the wall instead of matching it up and plugging it into the RSA Dmitri like all the other digital gear.  So comparing back and forth with the Exemplar, each piece had a different sound that I don't know for sure was the component or was the difference in power conditioned versus not power conditioned.

Folks listened to the Transporter equipped setup for a while.  It was too aggressive and a touch shrill for me.  It was a bit more ragged up top than the Exemplar, but had more growl and heft in the bottom end.  I really want to hear the Transporter again in a controlled same environment.  I'd like to compare it powered the same against another DAC or three.

After listening to Ken's Transporter exclusively for a while, we swapped back to the Exemplar DAC and listened again to a lot of the same tracks to compare.  We used one Eric Clapton track playing on both to swap back and forth to hear the differences.  The Exemplar then stayed in the signal path for a while until it was time to do a bit of a DAC off, which took up a large portion of the rest of the evening.

Sol has been doing some surgery on a Twisted Pear Audio Buffalo32 DAC "kit" that I bought in hopes of finding something that could compete with the Oracle Audio DAC1000 for a lot less money.  Rich has a stock kit built that we previously heard at my place a few weeks ago that Sol used as a basis for figuring out what he wanted to do to change it up.  He literally finished soldering the unit together a few minutes before he drove to my place for the get together.  I was curious to hear it though, even with it being straight out of the box as it were with no time on the caps, etc... no time like the present to hear what it could do... so I took over the sweet spot for ~15 minutes to hear the unit.  After getting a feel for it, I invited others in to have a little comparison session.

Eventually we got the wiring figured out and had three DACs connected to the LFD integrated amplifier.  We had to somewhat cheat as it's difficult with only one source with one digital out capability to quickly swap in between things.  This is where the extreme flexibility of the Oracle DAC1000 came in.  It's got multiple digital outs to go along with its slew of analog and digital inputs.  So we went AES/EBU digital in to the Oracle and it served as one of the DACs.  We then used the digital outs of it to feed the two Buffalo32 DAC kits; Rich's stock unit that he has now broken in and the new Sol modified version.  Digital cables were again JPS and the analog outputs of each DAC were identical pairs of SC3 RCA ICs feeding the LFD.  Power was all plugged into the RSA Dmitri.  Power cords were JPS Digital AC+ for the Oracle and Sol modded kit, a captive generic on Rich's unit.

I'll let others comment on the difference between the units.  I'll say that it was closer than it had any right to be given the price differential.  I still prefer the Oracle and could pick it out easily amongst the three units.  But that ESS chip sure is a good chip.  I'm curious to do this again after I get some time on the modded unit and everything has had a chance to break in.  I will say that both Rich's and Sol's modded unit got a lot better after they were plugged in and turned on for a while.  The oracle sounds better when it's left on for a while as well, but it isn't nearly as dramatic a difference as I noted last night with the Twisted Pear units.  I want to give special thanks to Carl who suffered through doing the manual switching and volume adjustment on the LFD so that everyone else could sit back, listen, and compare between the units.  Hopefully he's not too sore from the injuries he sustained from all that twisting

[hometheaterdoc]

A big chunk of folks started filtering out after the DAC comparison.  After a bit more socializing and general listening, those remaining in attendance wanted to listen upstairs to the smaller Harbeth units.  So up we went.  After some computer networking issues where my upgrade of the Audio PC downstairs to Windows 7 put it in another workgroup and my upstairs Vista machine could see but not access the fileshares of music, we actually did a little listening to first the Harbeth Compact 7s.  A/B comparison of the same NY Rave disk on the Oppo digital Blu Ray player with my bone stock audio PC was interesting.  Both were feeding digital audio into the Peachtree Audio Nova all in one unit.  It has an ESS Sabre DAC chip as well in it as well, just a different version than the one in the Twisted Pear DAC "kits".  I used only the DAC in the Peachtree and went fixed output of it via a pair of JPS Labs SC3 RCA interconnects into the LFD Zero LE III integrated amplifier.  This is the baby brother of the NCSE used in the downstairs system. Speaker cabling was JPS Labs SuperConductor Q single wire as it was the only pair of cables I had with spades small enough to fit into the plastic covered binding posts of the LFD unit.  All my other wires use oversize spades as I have a few amps that need that to make life easier... plus the one pair of cables I had with the locking bananas was in use in the system downstairs...

Anyways, we listened to the Harbeth Compact 7ES-3 for a little bit, then swapped and listened to the new P3ESR mini monitors in Rosewood vener.  Some folks really seemed to like these speakers.  I honestly haven't listened to them enough to draw much of an opinion yet other than they seem to be the most cohesive/integrated of all the speakers I have, but definitely need some bottom end help if you want to really rock out with them.  They are a sealed design with a small midwoofer.

After some interesting photo opportunities of folks on the elliptical machine, it was at this point that I launched my evil plan on the unsuspecting remaining attendees.  It was a nefarious plan to unload some of my A/V furniture on them that I had left in the house after the change to Salamander equipment racks that "she who shall be obeyed" ordered to hide the gear and wires.  Fire sale pricing at 75+% off my dealer pricing ensued and I got one taker on the 3" thick solid walnut amp stands.  Ken got a nice price on a Star Sound Technologies Sistrum Platform shelf... but no one took the bigger racks off my hands... Had I been more organized and showed off the units to all the other folks that had been in attendance earlier in the evening, I might have found more takers.... I also had a nest of cables that I needed to get rid of as well... I might have been able to entice some folks to help me clear them out of storage... oh well, audiogon I guess.....

After packing up the amp stands, folks started gathering up their things and heading out.  It was midnight by this point....Carl wandered home and others packed up their vehicles and said their goodbyes.  Sol stuck around and we listened to his I30 for a while.  I started cleaning up a bit in between listens so someone wouldn't have a fit when they got home.  I really like the potential in his I30, but it needs more current to get better control on the bass.  It does fall apart a bit when the volume goes up and the amp runs out of power reserves.  Upping this design to have the same power as the I60 I think will make for a nice unit.  We then swapped in the Butler Monads for a listen and I finally started to relax and just enjoy music.  The Butlers really exacerbate the remaining floor and bass trapping issue I need to take care of in the 2 channel room... but they sound so darn good that it's hard not to listen to them.

Thanks again to everyone who attended.  I had fun and can't wait to do this again.