Meet 6/23 at richidoo's

richidoo · « **Reply #20 on:** 22 Jun 2012, 09:34 am »

Quote from: etcarroll on 22 Jun 2012, 02:22 am

My Man-Servant Kato will have to drive like the wind.

In his orange Jag!!

80mph it's 9 hours from Philly, 8 hours from exit 8 on NJ Pike. Closest Hampton Inn is this one:
http://hamptoninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/north-carolina/hampton-inn-raleigh-cary-CRYNCHX/index.html
DoubleTree is also Hilton and is new and simpler directions to my house, but similar distance.
http://www.expedia.com/Raleigh-Hotels-DoubleTree-By-Hilton-Hotel-Raleigh-Cary.h2868726.Hotel-Information

Rick, you are welcome to bring speakers. Is Gamechangers the small curved array? Glad you can make it! I have some stands but they might be too tall for Tempestas?

Those interested in hearing the NCores are in for a treat. They are awesome and not to be missed if you like the sound of strong amplifiers. We will also have DAC Cherry and NAD M2 also, as well as DIY class A 6C33 tube amp, VT100 tube amp and a couple DIY SS linear amps. Something for everyone. With 4 different speakers on hand we should be able to concoct a few nice systems.

Transformer coupled, volume controlled Buffalo DAC with Belleson regulators is the main source, fed by CDP or hard drive via Sonos.

Vinyl is welcome, played on Clearaudio Concept with Maestro Wood cart and Vista preamp. There will be a VPI 16 rcm here. I have plenty of cleaning fluid, but I don't have cleaning brushes.

mjm6, you are welcome to join us. PM sent with address.

$5 donation for the food is appreciated. Park on the street or in the driveway, but please don't park on the grass because there are sprinkler heads near the road.

See you all tomorrow!
Rich

pumpkinman · « **Reply #21 on:** 22 Jun 2012, 11:06 am »

Bill (P-man) and Gene (etcarroll) on the the way to Richidoo's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsIsQbfdnKk&feature=related

Rick Craig · « **Reply #22 on:** 22 Jun 2012, 12:31 pm »

Quote from: richidoo on 22 Jun 2012, 09:34 am

In his orange Jag!!
80mph it's 9 hours from Philly, 8 hours from exit 8 on NJ Pike. Closest Hampton Inn is this one:
http://hamptoninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/north-carolina/hampton-inn-raleigh-cary-CRYNCHX/index.html
DoubleTree is also Hilton and is new and simpler directions to my house, but similar distance.
http://www.expedia.com/Raleigh-Hotels-DoubleTree-By-Hilton-Hotel-Raleigh-Cary.h2868726.Hotel-Information

Rick, you are welcome to bring speakers. Is Gamechangers the small curved array? Glad you can make it! I have some stands but they might be too tall for Tempestas?

Those interested in hearing the NCores are in for a treat. They are awesome and not to be missed if you like the sound of strong amplifiers. We will also have DAC Cherry and NAD M2 also, as well as DIY class A 6C33 tube amp, VT100 tube amp and a couple DIY SS linear amps. Something for everyone. With 4 different speakers on hand we should be able to concoct a few nice systems.

Transformer coupled, volume controlled Buffalo DAC with Belleson regulators is the main source, fed by CDP or hard drive via Sonos.

Vinyl is welcome, played on Clearaudio Concept with Maestro Wood cart and Vista preamp. There will be a VPI 16 rcm here. I have plenty of cleaning fluid, but I don't have cleaning brushes.

mjm6, you are welcome to join us. PM sent with address.

$5 donation for the food is appreciated. Park on the street or in the driveway, but please don't park on the grass because there are sprinkler heads near the road.

See you all tomorrow!
Rich

Yes, the curved array. How tall are your stands?

richidoo · « **Reply #23 on:** 22 Jun 2012, 03:08 pm »

Quote from: Rick Craig on 22 Jun 2012, 12:31 pm

Yes, the curved array. How tall are your stands?

27.5"

Rick Craig · « **Reply #24 on:** 23 Jun 2012, 01:24 am »

Quote from: richidoo on 22 Jun 2012, 03:08 pm

27.5"

It turns out I am short on a few parts for the demo pair of the Tempesta so I'll just bring the GameChangers. See you tomorrow.

etcarroll · « **Reply #25 on:** 23 Jun 2012, 01:38 am »

Bill made the trip from Mt. Pocono in the storm, we're now getting music ready for heading out first thing tomorrow morning.

With Bill here now we should arrive at 1pm.

richidoo · « **Reply #26 on:** 23 Jun 2012, 02:37 am »

richidoo · « **Reply #27 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 02:53 pm »

Thanks to everyone who came and especially to those who brought gear, food and music to share. We had a large crowd and had a lot of fun.

Thanks to everyone who brought equipment and music and food. Thanks to Rick Craig from Selah Audio for bringing his "Gamechanger" curved array speakers. They were the best sound of the night with hometheatercdoc's custom 6C33 amps and launche's Cherry amp on the woofers, and Rick's DEQX active crossover. This is the 3rd different model of the curved array that I have heard and the best sounding so far.

It was nice to see a couple new locals, Michael (and Amy,) and Steven, I hope to see you again at our meets in the future. jtwrace suggested we do them more often and I love that idea.

Sol Samet is a local audio designer who had 5 of his amps on hand, including the 6C33 amps mentioned above, and 4 SS integrated amps. His 30W SS amp sounded best of all on my Troels Gravesen designed DTQWT-12 horn loaded high efficiency speakers. I have used a dozen different amps of all types on it with mixed results and finally tried his i30, bingo! Too bad almost everyone had left by then! Giyan can testify it was a nice sound, especially playing his girl Brandi Carlile!!

Giyan and I talked CNC machining and music and Super-Vs and record cleaning and had a great time. Glad you came back again Giyan, see you next time I hope.

Great to see etcarroll and P-man, who drove down from PA to make it. Wish we had another couple days to hang out together. But I know we'll g2g again sometime.

I'll post some pics later.
Rich

richidoo · « **Reply #28 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 06:10 pm »

Gravensen DTQWT-12, NCores, Clearaudio Concept TT

Speaker warehouse. Selah Gamechangers, Ewaves, Polk LSiM707 under blanket

Ewave hotrods, Buffalo2 DAC, Samet 6C33 tube amps, Selah Gamechangers in background

Samet 6C33 prototypes, beautiful sounding amps! 70W, regulated B+, autobias, Sum-R power toroids, amorphous core lundahl OPTs. Treasure CV181s, Mullard 12au7, Duelund coupling caps. hometheaterdoc's babies!

Elegant plywood base by richidoo...

gprro · « **Reply #29 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 06:41 pm »

Hey Rich!

Thanks again for the party! Good crowd and good time. Lots of toys to play with, I'm sure there will be some discussion...

Yeah seems like it's always late when you find that right combination of Amp/source/speakers. Sol's amps do always sound nice! That 30 watt at the end of the night was making some good sounds with your speakers. Listening to you and him talk circuits and voltages, I think I know how my friends feel when I talk audio and speakers in general

Good to listen too though, and I pick up a little here and there.

We definately ran the full spectrum of sounds, from lean and bright to thick and lush, and dare I say too tubey!? The sound stage was huge and resonant and had good light and all those things I love about tubes though. Ricks speakers were really nice and surprisingly punchy and weighty given the small driver size and being sealed box's. I'd love to hear the big ones under optimum set up and tweaking conditions.

More thoughts I'll have to add later, I'm due at the pool in a little, need to relax from all the excitement

Glad everyone and you liked Brandi also!
Good to see everyone againn(Anand your room looks crazy good!) and meet a few new people!

vanderstephen · « **Reply #30 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 06:50 pm »

Rich,
Thanks for being such a great host!
It was fantastic meeting everyone and hope to be able to attend more of the events in the future.
Best regards,
Stephen

mr_bill · « **Reply #31 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 07:02 pm »

Did you guys listen to the new Polk LSIMs?
They are supposed to be real good according to TONEPUB review.

etcarroll · « **Reply #32 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 09:21 pm »

"Rick's Game changer curved arrays were impressive sounding with the 6C33 tube amps on the tweeters and Cherry on the woofers. That was probably the peak quality sound of the day and stayed on the longest."

Yes, yes, 1000 times YES! That was my favorite sound of the day.

Rich - A true pleasure making your acquaintance, thanks for having Pman and I to your event. Your wife and children were also a delight, I hope we weren't too loud at end of the night. Did you get your son to airport this morning?

The rest of the folks there were a pleasure to meet and speak with, I picked up a few nuggets of useful info. I would have learned more if only could have tracked with what Sol was saying to me, he's a real gem. I want his tubed amps!

Gene

roscoeiii · « **Reply #33 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 10:12 pm »

curious how the ncores paired up with the various speakers present...

etcarroll · « **Reply #34 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 10:38 pm »

Quote from: roscoeiii on 24 Jun 2012, 10:12 pm

curious how the ncores paired up with the various speakers present...

They had to leave early.

mjm6 · « **Reply #35 on:** 24 Jun 2012, 10:41 pm »

Rich,

Thanks for being a great host... Amy and I enjoyed the group and discussions, and the various speakers and amps were great to hear paired up. It's too bad I couldn't stay longer, but I'm sure there will be another event in short order.

I'm looking forward to another at some time in the future.

---Michael

richidoo · « **Reply #36 on:** 25 Jun 2012, 12:08 am »

You guys are so welcome!! Thanks for spending your Saturday with us. I hope you will all come over again.

Mr_bill, thanks for asking about the Polks.
edit: After measuring I can see that there is nothing wrong with them, other than maybe they are too bright for my taste. They measure dead flat all the way to 20kHz. Quite impressive measurement actually, I've never seen so flat FR. Nothing weird in impedance either. I'll try some different wires, etc.
Rich

richidoo · « **Reply #37 on:** 25 Jun 2012, 12:25 am »

Quote from: roscoeiii on 24 Jun 2012, 10:12 pm

curious how the ncores paired up with the various speakers present...

roscoe, I listened to them on all my speakers over my three day "NCore tour stop." Overall they are great amps, I will probably build some for myself because they are especially great with the Polks which appreciate their bass grip and extreme detail top to bottom.

On the Gamechangers they weren't great on the tweeters but I personally think that was due to the preamp/crossover. NCore just laid it bare with no mercy. The tube amps were more forgiving. We also used zip cord on the tweeters instead of ultra revealling JPS Superconductor 3 speaker cables on the tweeters like we did with the NCore Gamechanger setup. On the passive crossover speakers the issue was not there and NCores had smooth but strong treble. Some people especially sensitive to class D treble sounds could hear the class D "thing" but not as bad as some older class Ds. I don't hear that thing and I loved them.

I think NCores sound better than Spectron or ML #53, but they have that super clean super strong personality like those other two.

Gene, let's get your dac fixed

etcarroll · « **Reply #38 on:** 25 Jun 2012, 12:48 am »

Tell me how you want to do it?

Send me a PM, I'm heading out tomorrow afternoon for business, back Wednesday evening.

koyaan · « **Reply #39 on:** 25 Jun 2012, 04:47 pm »

Sorry I missed the event!
How'd it go ?