[mitch stl]

Just wanted to announce my arrival at your group's doorstep. I'm Mitch, live in St. Louis and have been involved with audio for lots of years now. The brief version is that my interest in audio electronics started in high school in the late 1960's. That led to working as a concert sound engineer in college and briefly as a stereo store manager in the mid-1970's after college. (The retail experience pretty well cured me of that career desire.) The level of activity has waxed and waned over the years depending on work and family obligations, but when the kids went off to college I started getting serious about stereo again. That included rebuilding my electronics "bench" with a Tektronix scope, various Heathkit analyzers and other assorted meters and stuff. I've had a lot of fun rebuilding old Dynaco and other tube equipment from scratch.

My current system is basic, but fundamentally sound I believe. A pair of Spendor S5e speakers driven by a Bel Canto S300 amp. The music source is a Linux based PC with 380GB of music ripped in lossless FLAC format. That feeds a Slim Devices Squeezebox 3 that in turn goes into a Lavry DA-10 DAC. That directly feeds the Bel Canto amp through a pair of balanced XLR cables. My tastes in music are quite varied - jazz, pop, classical . About a third of my collection has been transferred from LP using Adobe Audition, so some of the albums aren't even available on CD. I'm currently in the range of about 13,000 tunes with quite a bit of my collection still to add.

Anyway, it was interesting to stumble across your group. Glad to be here.

[steve k]

Welcome aboard, Mitch. Sounds like you'll fit right in with the rest of us. You'll certainly find a tube lover or two among us.  WE should be just about due for another gettogether so stay tuned.
steve k

[bpape]

Hey Mitch - welcome!

Sounds like you'll fit right in.  I'm hoping to have a get-together in a few weeks - stay tuned.

Bryan

[jcrane]

Welcome!
Great bunch of guys around here for sure.

Jamie

[alana106]

Welcome Mitch,

   You stumbled into the right place..   Tubes and Squeezeboxes are almost staple items among this group.  I joined nearly a year ago.   Meeting up with this group of guys was the best thing that I could have done.

Alan

[mitch stl]

Looks like I need to clarify one thing. While I do a lot with tubes (and have used them in my system in the past) my Bel Canto S300 is not a tube amp. It is one of those digital amps. I was really impressed when I heard it. It had the smooth, liquid sound of a good tube amp but also extended highs and more solid bass. The thing that impressed me most however was the resolution during quiet passages and at lower volumes. I'd had a Conrad Johnson MV60 prior to that (the EL34 output version) and it wasn't too hard a decision to sell that.

[electricbear]

Welcome on board. I hope to meet you at our next get together.

[DeadFish]

Glad to see you show up, Mitch!
Sounds like you come from the same cut of cloth as a lot of us here, and I'd be willing to bet you'll have a good time.
Stock SqueezeBox?  If so, we've got a variety of mods for you to hear somewhere along the line.
Digital amp?  I'm curious, I've got a modded-out Teac that trades places periodically with some tube amps. 
Too much is never enough! 
Hope to see you at a major or minor gathering along the way.  Hope you have some fun.
Interested down-the-line to hear how your transference from vinyl has taken place. 
I'm poised to start doing that once I get my HagTech Ripper put together, but not yet.
ANYway, Welcome!

Best Regards,
DeadFish

[sturgus]

Mitch,
Welcome to the group. Glad to see another kindred spirit. I will have to warn you, hanging around with these guys may cause financial hardship. Hope to see you at  the next session.
Sturgus

[Scott F.]

Hiya Mitch, welcome aboard.

Everything these guys said is true and I'll add one other thing.....your wife will learn to hate us for the way we tend to corrupt people. Just ask Alan. In just under a year he's done VTL's, Butlers, a Squeezebox, a Korato pre, acoustic treatments......Alan, what else am I forgetting? 

[bpape]

Let's see, also got a power supply for the SB, Turntable, and the Slee phono stage.  Then there was his first foray into tearing in with the soldering iron and modding the pre.

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Welcome Mitch. Looking forward to meeting you.

Bob

[alana106]

Just ask Alan. In just under a year he's done VTL's, Butlers, a Squeezebox, a Korato pre, acoustic treatments......Alan, what else am I forgetting? 

Let's see, also got a power supply for the SB, Turntable, and the Slee phono stage.  Then there was his first foray into tearing in with the soldering iron and modding the pre.

  Think you guys about covered it.....       Kinda scary when I see it all documented.

  I don't regret a thing.  Being around these guys helps me justify anything I feel like trying.    Probably going to need to put a few things up for sale on Agon soon.  The workshop barely had enough room to sit Bryan's Koroto when we changed the Caps out the other night.

Alan

[Scott F.]

Wait a minute, didn't we forget the Paradisea? 

[bmed]

Welcome Mitch, no tubes in you system right now?......well, that will just have to change, now won't it!
Look forward to meeting you.

Brad

[bpape]

Yup - sure did Scott.

Also didn't mention the variety of new tubes for pre and DAC.  Upcoming changes will include another round of preamp surgery to replace the resistors to the Tantalums.

Bryan

[alana106]

 

Wait a minute, didn't we forget the Paradisea?

  Yeah we did... and a few cables, and other accessories too.  Good thing the BOSS isn't seeing this!

Hey Scott:    How well received were the new "High profile antique nightstands" you brought home.

[Mike D]

Welcome, Mitch!  This is a great group of friends. 

Hopefully we'll all get together sometime soon.  Our gang has grown so much that is is difficult for most of us to house everyone for a hang.  Surely someone will get daring and host another get together soon.

Last Fall we had a golf outing.  Lately I've been considering the idea of a billiards hang at Brendon's Billiards in  O'Fallon.  It is a great chance to goof off, but its a bit difficult to load all of the audio goodies onto the golf carts and pool tables.   

[bpape]

I'm going to try to have something the end of February at my place.  I have Rick Craig's SSR's in for eval and should have my new amps by then - and hopefully the preamp fixed and broken in.  It'll probably be a combination event of listening and messing around.  I have a pool table, dart board, etc.

Bryan