[Vapor Audio]

Yep, great party!  What a great dinner - to the two Sarah's and all the other food contributors, that was excellent.  It was a pre-Thanksgiving feast.

I missed the whole swapping session downstairs.  Maybe we can have a redux this week Rick (and I'll bring the Off-Ramp)? 

I think the biggest surprise of the night for me was that Chris is a pool hustler is hiding    Be careful guys if he loses a couple and says, "ok, now let's play for money". 

Every room sounded great.  It's fun hanging around so many guys that really know what they're doing!  There's no shortage of insight and experience to learn from in this group.

Thanks Rick and Sarah for having us!

[sturgus]

My thanks to Rick, and Sara for being such generous host. Also thanks to the other Sara for pretending to understand us  . That was a very fine spread you guys had. I had a truly enjoyable time. All the systems sounded really fine. I was intrigued by the upstairs system. That set up really works well together. Bryan you got some synergy going with that one. The living room system surprised me in that it was very easy to listen to. You know me, tube guy with preconceived notions about digital amps   very impressed. I also want to comment on the P/S that Chris brought for the Squeeze Box. Chris, that thing is (KICK ASS). After my Koetsu re-tip I know what will be next for me. One other thing, Power Cords should not make that much of a difference. I am shocked that a power cord could change the spatial perspective of a system. Until now I only heard small changes in cords and thought that I might be fooling myself into thinking I heard things that were not there. This demo has got me scratching my head because the change was not small. I think it made a bigger difference than changing the tubes in the pre. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. All in all I had a great time. It was good to see that Ken made it to the session. Hope yo see you again. Bob I have got to get over and hear those subs. Waiting for an invite Looking forward to the next one.
Sturgus

[Scott F.]

Hey Rick,

Heres the lick to those Mullard box plates. I'd do the platinum matched pair.

[MerRev]

truly a great party Rick. 
The food was incredibly good and the two Sarah's deserve the compliments. 
I have to admit it's quite fun to system hop when you have three unique set ups that all seemed dialed in.  Ryan & Chris' BPT Cirrus speakers sounded better than ever in the huge open space and I'm still amazed by how detailed the RAAL tweeter can be. (very easy on the eye too)
The Sapphire XL's strutted their stuff in a bedroom system and were a very fun listen (classy little guys) being driven by Bryan's Korato amp and pre.  That was a great combo and many folks were content hanging out there. 

The big Dyn's (woof woof) they pump it out like no tomorrow and I couldn't help but grin with the take the red pill blue pill track.  I'm glad I didn't get a chance to hear Chris' power supply as I'm sure my wallet would be lighter.  Rick- please count me in for part two.   

Btw Rick, I may know someone that likes hi fi and beer so if you need any help reducing the alcohol reserves just let me know.

                                     -Chris

[RSquires]

All,

It was great having everyone over yesterday! I really enjoyed catching up and listening to some great tunes Scott, I will have to get those tubes as the really brought out the best in the candela. I want to play some more with Chris' Squeezebox supply but based on last nights tests that thing rocks! I will get some pics of the various rooms up tomorrow. Ryan, we need to get your shots up as well that you took with the nice camera.

Thanks,

Rick

[BPT]

Mucho thanks to Rick and Sarah for hosting a great music party. All the systems sounded exceptionally good. What fun it is to share a passion with others that feel the same. Credit is due to the high resolution of Rick's system in the basement for so easily showing the sonic differences when swapping power cords, power supplies, tubes, etc. Hey Rick, you need to this one more time before March, cause after that....well you know.
Chris

[Bob in St. Louis]

Rick and Sarah, thank you very much for the VERY warm welcome into your beautiful home I had a wonderful time. That nine hours seemed more like two. Too bad we couldn't have stopped time for a while, I could have stayed longer. Maybe next time we can kick those audio guys out and see what 106" of 1080p looks like. 
{Before March of course}.   

Sturg, You are welcome anytime Sir. If you (or anybody else for that matter) are ever bored on a weekend drop me a line. I'll give you a private one on one "experience". The wife says I can't have a bunch of people over until I finish building the bathroom for the HT room. 

Bob

[gixxerific]

Sorry to bust in on your thread again. I guess I'm jealous at all your gear and missing out on the experience. I just learned of this site last week. I am an audiophile trapped in the body of a guy who owns a bunch of crap when it comes to home audio (working on that). Car audio is a little differnet case.

What I really want to know, if somone wouldn't mind explaining to me, is this whole power cord replacemnt = better audio thing. You all said that you replaced a cord and it livened up the music dramatically. What kind of cord did you have in there and what did you replace it with. What are the differences in cords that would make such a huge difference. I can understand a powersupply making a diff due to more stable power possibly cleaner power and whatnot but how can a cord make that much difference?

Please enlighten me if you will. 

Dono

[Bob in St. Louis]

It's all a bunch of mystical fairy dust garbage.....Until you hear it first hand. 
THEN you believe.

Bob

[Vapor Audio]

It's all a bunch of mystical fairy dust garbage.....Until you hear it first hand. 
THEN you believe.

Bob

What he said ...

It wasn't that long ago that I didn't believe any of the audiophile garbage.  And honestly I still refuse to believe some of it, but then you hear things that are impossible to ignore. 

Sounds like you'll have one of those 'revealing' systems soon, where simple changes produce changes in sound that make you scratch your head and say 'that can't be possible'.

[gixxerific]

I never said I didn't beleive. I just said I didn't understand. I'm always trying to learn. I have ALWAYS been an audiophile at heart maybe not so much in practice, I'm not super rich that is for sure. All the stuff I drool over is way out of my reach. Trust me I know great audio when I hear it problem is that is few and far between.

I write this while listening to my rigged pc system. Which consists of, well I'd rather not say. Kinda makes me sick, really.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I never said I didn't beleive. I just said I didn't understand

Well, that's just it dude....What Ryan and I are trying to explain, is that it takes a first hand experience to understand. You need to see the component you're hearing. Seeing it will better explain WHY there is (or isn't) a difference.

Here's a hint.....
Bringing a cheap crappy power cord ("PC") to the back of your system also brings along a handy electromagnetic field with it.
Now, is some ares these field are desirable, but NOT anywhere near your audio (or video) gear. 
A PC (remember, "PC" in this discussion means power cable), that's made of the worlds finest material and costs thougsands of dollars may sound WORSE than a cheap PC that's constructed in a way that helps prevent electromagetic fields around your gear.

ok...that wasn't really much of a hint, I pretty well laid it out for you.
Now, combine you new found knowledge of PCs with some decent construction methods and some halfway decent components (small strand wire, good terminations etc...) and you'll have yourself a good PC.

But, it sounds like you've got "bigger fish to fry" than what kind of PC you're using.

Hope that helps Gixx. 

Bob

[gixxerific]

Oh, well I knew that.  Thanks Bob.

[KenSeger]

Rick and Sarah,
    Thank you so much for inviting me to your beautiful house and the delicious buffet.  Next time I'll have more than a day's advance notice so I'll bring something home made, rather than store bought.  I haven't had that much fun, literaly in decades, of listening to various equipment, swapping out components, and chatting with fellow audio enthusiasts.  I must admit to feeling a bit prehistoric considering that some of the main components of my audio system date back to the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan adminsistrations.  When I look at the Concert Grands versus those ACI Sapphires it's a bit like comparing a Cray computer to a Blackberry.  The SqueezeBox is amazing technology.  It's nice to see that the cost of all this new stuff is quite reasonable considering its quality.  The laws of physics veto any hope of high frequency dispersion from the Bozak tweeter and I've been thinking of adding a super tweeter for the last octave or two.  Various suggestions on the Bozak board have been made, Vifa is one, but that Scanspeak tweeter was quite impressive and not stratospheric in price.

Sturgus,
I really enjoyed meeting you and the rest of the gang. I would love to host you and everybody over for a session. Particularily if someone could bring a pre-amp or phono section to drag my system into the current century.  However, before that happens, I'll have finish the Concert Grand update, having two 13" diameter holes in an infinate baffle enclosure attenuates the low end just a tad.  The whole party and amicability of GAS has definately inspired me get my system back together again.

Bob,
On the question of stray magnetic 120VAC fields polluting the space near hifi components - has anybody tried this low-budget neanderthal idea.  Get a bunch of Greenfield large enough to slip over existing power cords and grounding the Greenfield to the AC ground.  Going one step further on that thought - everything nowadays is Romex.  The only aduiophiles that doen't have Romex in their walls probably live in houses over 50 years old unless they live in a city or county that has amazing old and strict electrical codes.  There might exist a very good arguement for old fashioned thinwall conduit!  As far as that goes,  it's another agruement for replacing knob and tube if your house is 80+ years old!  This leads to another question.  Since there is no significant electromagnetic field coming from a circuit that has no load flowing through it - if (big if) the only 120VAC wires near your hifi set up are the ones to run the hifi - would this hold any water.  Forego the convience outlets in that room and run a 120VAC feed into the room inside of grounded Greenfield to power all of the components.   This might be milking a mouse, but who knows?  It just occured to me that when I was working for ASD in Omaha our merry band of audiophiles would drag their equipment over to a house that was built in 1912 for listening sessions.  Big old living room, good.  High ceilings, good.  Plaster and lath type walls and ceilings, good. Very sturdy crossbraced oak floors, good.  Knob and tube throughout the house, hmmmm.  When we really wanted to listen intently we would always turn out all the lights........   It always seemed that I could hear better in the dark.  Since I don't smoke and do have ADD, this could be attributed to the reduction of light acting like a stimulus barrier.  However....   Hmmmmmm....... perhaps as in 60 cycle hum?   Strictly speculation at this point but worth considering since my current listening room is an attached sunroom that was added to the house and shares only one wall of the room with the house and has nothing but 8 feet of air below it and nothing but ground below that.     hmmmmmmm

Ken

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ken, if you're referring to the flexible metallic conduit that's usually found in commercial/industrial applications, then YES, I've had the same thoughts and ideas. I'm just not electrically savvy enough to have implemented it properly. I wasn't sure where the ground led should go (breaker box, AC outlet, or earth ground separate from the main house ground etc...)

I like the idea.

Bob

[KenSeger]

Bob,
If, heh heh - IF is a big word, the house is properly wired, the neutral, the ground, and the earth *should* all have the same potential, zero.  At minimum one of those little 4 bulb plug-it-in neon testers should be used to make sure the house IS properly wired.  Grounding rods are cheap and you don't need a heavy conductor, but in what passes for soil in Missouri (rocks, sand, and gravel don't conduct well), particularily in  - for example - subdivisions like Rick's with high dry soil, just using the electrical ground should be adequate.  Putting a grounding rod into the "soil" next to Rick's house might act more an antenna than a ground.     Home Depot or Lowe's won't have what we need, all they have is 3/4" or 1/2" and its aluminum.  Grainger's and other locations have the 1" (which I think should fit over most plugs??) and is steel about $1.50 per foot and we can use that for the AC cords test.  Ridgid conduit is cheaper per foot and can be used for the AC feed into the room test. While one is going to all this bother and fuss I would NOT trust the galvanizing of the junction box or the RMC and couplings to make a good low impedance connection just via the screws.  I'ld grind each piece it and solder a lead to each and run a common ground wire through each lead just to make sure that our variables are variables and not a constant in our A-B test.

Meanwhile, for me, back at rewiring the Bozaks, updating the capacitors, and mounting more drivers.......

Ken

[Bob in St. Louis]

This is good food for thought Ken. I'm liking this idea and would like to explore the options further, although in a different thread and possibly a different day. I've got more projects on my plate right now than I could accomplish in a month of ten hour days. My current wiring for the system (AC voltage coming in, I.C. wires etc...) is pretty basic. This subject is something I will do, but I would file it in the "tweak" category. At this point in time I'm still working on more pressing issues like room acoustics (which reminds me I need to PM Bryan) and overall optimization of my exsisting components.

Let's definitely not forget this Ken, I'd like to come back to the subject.
{But not here, I don't want to highjack Ricks thread too much more} 

Bob

[RSquires]

Hey Guys,

I posted a few pics of the party in my gallery at the link below. Ryan took some pics as well that I will post when I get them. It was great seeing everyone at the party! I wanted to thank all who brought out equipment as well! Chris, I agree that we will have to do this again before March 

Fall Audio Party Link

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=1637

[Joe_K]

Rick, Sarah and Sarah,
Thank You for opening up your house and the warm hospitality for the wonderful event. It was good to finally meet you.The meal was excellent! Good sounds all over your house, fellow music lovers to share the experience with.
WOW! is all I can say about your HT room! Really nice, Dynaudio speakers always sound great!
Thanks Again,
Joe