Nomad Audio at Steve Ks PICS

Scott F. · « **Reply #20 on:** 17 Aug 2006, 01:10 am »

Paul made a post up in Audio Central that stated the correct date of the demo is

September 16th

Be there or be square!

btw, I corrected the AC calendar to reflect the proper date.

steve k · « **Reply #21 on:** 17 Aug 2006, 02:10 am »

Right you are Scott! Let's get together on Saturday, Sept. 16 starting about 6. I'll make some beer brats and kraut and have beer and soda. Feel free to bring anything else you want. Since my space is limited, I'd like to keep it to to 8-10 people max. so let me know who's coming.

Paul Hilgeman has graciously agreed to bring a pair of open baffle Nomad Ronins down for the day and set them up early so we're ready to listen when people start arriving. He will also be bringing his Ayre CX-7e CD player, a Wellborne labs preamp, and a UcD400 amp so we'll be able to try the Ronin with digital or tube amplification.

Paul will give us an introduction to the design philosophy behind these babies and then leave us to our ears for the night once we've properly fed him with brats and beer.

Since Paul is bringing all this gear down from Chi-town, let's give ihim a chance to show the Ronins off as he hears them and not bring anymore gear over for the night to complicate things. Bring your tunes and whatever else you'd like to drink or eat.

If anyone needs directions, PM me and I'll get you a map. Pray for cool weather then.

Seeya then,
steve

steve k · « **Reply #22 on:** 12 Sep 2006, 12:50 am »

Here's the story for Saturday. Paul is coming down between 2 and 3 to setup the Nomads so Willie, if you want to drop by early, anytime after 3 should work for a listen. I'll get started early on the brats so I'll have food ready about 4. Hopefully you can grab one before you leave. We can eat whenever it pleases us. We'll keep the food warm for the folks coming later.

Paul will be going out for an early dinner then he's coming back around 6 or so to meet the group and give us the story behind the Nomads. I'll have brats, kraut, potato salad, beer and soda. If anyone wants to bring anything else they're welcome to.

Anyone needing directions, PM me and I'll get them to you. Should be fun. See you all Saturday night. Now all I need to do is get rid of that cricket in the window behind the system.

steve

Scott F. · « **Reply #23 on:** 12 Sep 2006, 01:13 am »

Steve,

Do we want to meet as a group a little early to cover GAS stuff?

steve k · « **Reply #24 on:** 12 Sep 2006, 01:11 pm »

Sounds good to me, Scott. That's why I moved the schedule up. Anyone else?
steve

electricbear · « **Reply #25 on:** 12 Sep 2006, 01:59 pm »

I'll leave work at 5pm so should hopefully be with you about 5.30- 5.45pm. Looking forward to seeing everyone again and listening to some good tunes. See you then

bpape · « **Reply #26 on:** 12 Sep 2006, 04:15 pm »

Should be there 3-4ish if that's when we're going to do the business thing.

I'm playing with the site right now. Hopefully I'll have the gallery area up soon and we can do some testing on it with any pics taken at your place.

Bryan

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #27 on:** 13 Sep 2006, 12:38 am »

Hi guys

One of these times I'd like to come if your 'short' a person and need another body to 'equilize the room'.
Would love to hear a tube rig, just to see what it's all about.
Pictures and stories make it look very nice!

Will make it someday.

Bob

steve k · « **Reply #28 on:** 13 Sep 2006, 03:26 am »

Welcome Bob,
You're more than welcome to join us Saturday. We'll be giving the Nomads a spin with SS amplification and tubes. Both with a tube preamp. I don't think I'd be going out on a limb to say the GAS group is, um, "tube friendly."

DeadFish · « **Reply #29 on:** 13 Sep 2006, 03:38 am »

I should be along somewhere around 4-ish...

See yas there!

DF

PaulHilgeman · « **Reply #30 on:** 15 Sep 2006, 07:08 pm »

Just got off the phone with Steve.

The final plans will be for me to arrive between 4:00 and 4:30 for set-up etc. I will stick around until about 7:30 or so, when I will take off to spend some time with my wife and friends.

They are all yours, and I will return to pick them up in the morning.

I will be bringing

-Ronins (Obviously)
-Impedance Compensation networks for ruler flat impedance above 200Hz.
-Niagara Amplifier
-Ayre CX-7e CD Player
-Welborne Labs Preamplifier
-Some of the IC cables that I have been using/auditioning
-Transparent Audio Balanced Music Link
-Mood
-DIY Stranded pure silver
-One set of speaker cables, Mood.
-Music

I apologize if this change of plans messes anything up for anyone.

I look forward to seeing you all.

-Paul Hilgeman

steve k · « **Reply #31 on:** 15 Sep 2006, 09:56 pm »

That's cool with me, Paul.

If anyone still wants to come early and talk GAS business, you're more than welcome. You can hear the Mapletree Magic 5B SE in my system before we break the maggies down for the night.

Looking forward to it!

steve

steve k · « **Reply #32 on:** 16 Sep 2006, 12:35 am »

Bump.

bpape · « **Reply #33 on:** 16 Sep 2006, 05:27 pm »

I'll be there around 3'ish if that's OK.

Bryan

drummerwill · « **Reply #34 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 02:10 pm »

  Thanks Steve
   For hosting a great demo. Steve's VTL's and Paul's speakers were an impressive match, a nice big open sound for that amount of floor space. Great time !
   Willie

bpape · « **Reply #35 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 02:58 pm »

Agreed. Thanks to Paul for schlepping all his stuff down from Chicago. The speakers were very nice. Excellent off axis balance and imaging, a very relaxed sound (not FR wise, just a nice effortless quality to them). They seemed equally at home with a wide variety of music and did pretty much whatever was asked of them.

Hooked up to Steve's system, it was a very nice match indeed. They did a lot of things very well and no real glaring deficiencies.

Oh, I guess we should also thank Steve for hosting the event and cooking some excellent Brats! Brats, beer, good equipment, good music, good friends - doesn't get any better than that.

Bryan

steve k · « **Reply #36 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 07:13 pm »

What they said...it was a great time and we had a good turnout. In fact, we had such a good time, we forgot to have our official "meeting'.

I guess that's a tribute to how well Paul's Nomads went over. They're very engaging, balanced, musical and listenable speakers. As Bryan pointed out, their off-axis performance makes for a huge sweet spot in the room.

Thanks again Paul for dragging all your gear down from Chi-town. The Ayre CX-7e was particularly nice too. We wish you the best of luck with the Ronin--you have a real winner there.

Here's a few pics...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=829

steve k.

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #37 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 08:22 pm »

If....you had to compare the Nomad speakers to another....soundwise....what speaker would you say it sounded close to...or similar to ? Thanks....

Looks good !!

Chris

Scott F. · « **Reply #38 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 09:05 pm »

Heres some of the pics of Pauls speakers and the GAS guys....

The Nomads are very nice looking in their Bamboo enclosures. Paul has done a great job of finishing them.

Heres a quick pic of Steves system withthe Nomads. The silver gear on teh floor is what Paul brought. There was the Ayre CD player, a UCD amp (I forget the name) and the Welborne passive pre.

Heres a pic of Paul telling everybody about his design adn philosophy.

and finally a pic of just a few of the guys as we listened intently to the Nomads.

We actually had a really nice turnout of people. We had a few new faces join us for this gathering, most notably Jerrod who works with Tim at the Sound Room and Albert who came with Bryan. At last count I think we had between 13 and 15 people show up. It was a nice crowd giving plenty of time for everybody to try out the sweet spot.

A big thanks to Steve and Barb for letting us invade. And another even bigger thanks to Paul for making the trip down from the Chicagoland area so we could experience his very fine speakers.

Lonewolf,
The Nomads were pretty interesting. Since they were an open baffle on the mid bass driver (200Hz to 1K (Paul correct me if I'm wrong)), they projected a HUGE soundstage. They load the room like Maggies do. The Nomads sound different than the Maggies in a few ways. As you know, Maggies are very transparent sounding (Steves especially since he's rebuilt the crossovers). The Nomads were devoid of the traditional 'monkey coffin' sound but they weren't quite as transparent as the Maggies. That is to be completely expected because of the ribbons vs a cone speaker. As a result of the physical driver differences, the Nomads had a slightly darker and warmer presentation than the Maggies. Now 'dark' does not mean veiled. The sound diffences between the two speakers are due to the differences in the drivers.

That said, I thought the Nomads were very transparent. They dissappeared very well considering we didn't mess with placement very much. If we had gotten anal about them, I'm sure we could have gotten an even bigger and deeper soundstage. The images they projected were fairly nice too. I think I overheard somebody say they thought with the design that the performers would be four feet wide and ten feet tall but they weren't. The Nomads did a fine job keeping the proportions correct.

I think everybody came away thinking pretty much the same thing, we all liked them a lot. The price is well in line considering the sound and build quality. The Nomads were extremely easy to listen to. They just made music. They weren't veiled, they weren't hyper-detailed, they didn't spit, they weren't bloated (well maybe just a bit becasue we might have over done it with tubes but they came back around with a SS CD output), they just sounded really good. I personally liked them a lot.

The Good
- the tone
- off axis response (up, down, left, right) was extremely good even when you were way off axis
- the music
- the comradery
- the food!

The Bad
- we didn't spend enough time positioning them to get the most out of the soundstaging abilities

The Ironic
- you know how tubes are supposed to be unreliable? Guess what blew up? Pauls UCD amp

Again, a big thanks to Paul and Steve

Sarmck · « **Reply #39 on:** 17 Sep 2006, 09:51 pm »

Steve and the Mrs.,

Thanks so much for letting us invade your home for the listening session. The sound field projected from the Ronins was larger than expected, which was good. I was partial to the "tube equipment" through the Ronins as opposed to the SS, but that is just my opinion. (Does that make me an official GAS member now, huh Steve K.?)

Paul,

I too want to say thanks to you for providing us an opportunity to listen to your speakers. As others have already stated, they were impressive.

I also enjoyed meeting some of the other GAS members...great brats.

Ron

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