[andyr]

Sorry guys, I meant Tue the 20th!   

Regards,

Andy

[gerado]

I know why some of you still have the fire, you have good systems which are sorted. At least the ones I have heard.
But I have finally cracked it. Had enough and packed it all away. How long for, we will see. Frustration got to me. I possibly polluted my system with too much complexity. After a rest I may get the urge to go back to a simple system, LF, GK and just a 2 way set up (with or without an active cross over).  Or maybe Im just kidding myself and am not an audiophile but that forever tortured species a technophile who can never sit and leave things alone but has the urge to add and change electronics for a little bit more impact and little bit more detail, imaging, and darkness and smoothness, and and ... until the whole thing looses its soul and cant listen to it for very long anymore.
But maybe I just had to learn something, keep things as simple as possible?
No doubt you, all my friends  are going to come to my aid and give me moral resuscitation and support to keep going (well Im hoping )

[andyr]

I know why some of you still have the fire, you have good systems which are sorted. At least the ones I have heard.
But I have finally cracked it. Had enough and packed it all away. How long for, we will see. Frustration got to me. I possibly polluted my system with too much complexity. After a rest I may get the urge to go back to a simple system, LF, GK and just a 2 way set up (with or without an active cross over).  Or maybe Im just kidding myself and am not an audiophile but that forever tortured species a technophile who can never sit and leave things alone but has the urge to add and change electronics for a little bit more impact and little bit more detail, imaging, and darkness and smoothness, and and ... until the whole thing looses its soul and cant listen to it for very long anymore.
But maybe I just had to learn something, keep things as simple as possible?
No doubt you, all my friends  are going to come to my aid and give me moral resuscitation and support to keep going (well Im hoping )

Aah, Theo, my friend ... the Christmas/NY break is where you're supposed to relax and unwind enough so that you get back into the New Year refreshed and ready to continue with your system improvements!     Seems like you haven't done enough relaxing? 

I hope your spirits rise, soon.   

Regards,

Andy

[LM]

Andy,

Thanks very much, count me in for Tue 20th.

Theo,

Don’t give up mate.  The HiFi First Aid, resuscitation and support you request will be supplied.  At least you are taking a break with only the early symptoms and haven’t had need to pad the walls yet.  Although come to think of it, we haven’t looked at room treatments yet have we?….

[gerado]

Seems like the answer to the question where we all go in 2009 is       ANDY'S PLACE

[andyr]

Seems like the answer to the question where we all go in 2009 is       ANDY'S PLACE

Delighted if you can make it on the 20th, Theo!   

BTW, just set in motion the shipping of the Maggie 2.5s from Rome, so "your" ribbons will be here soon! 

Regards,

Andy

[kyrill]

Theo??

You have a wonderful DEQX in the centre of yr audio universe

with the better output caps  1UF high 5 uF mids and 25 uf for low
a Felix in front of the DEQX, a modded SB3 or DUET or a very very good transport
2 good amps for mids and highs ( I would take the GR research servo woofers with their
own amp for lows) and  reasonable good or better speaker WITHOUT Xovers.

How easy can you go?
the real search is in damping, cables, room correction ( before the DEQX takes over) line conditioning
and searching for yr preferred music

[Tliner]

Hi Andy, I'll be at your place on Tuesday the 20th about 8pm. It will be great to put faces to all the names.

Theo,
I recon that you are on the money when you concider taking anti pollution measures with your system. A few years ago I had what I thought was a magic mouse trap, it had everything, all that latest and greatest. But over the years I had lost interest in it. I did not play more that a few tracks at a time, may be every other week. It sounded ok but not inspiring at all. Circumstances so happened that I met Hugh. Now my system is a Sony CDP-70 cd player (1983 vintage) connected directly to a Soraya 11 thence to a pair of passive VSonic sperakers which I have bi-wired improving the sound stage. But the system's sound is far from passive, invigourating in fact. I can, if time permitts listen to a few cd's on end without fatigue. BUT that was all ok 'till I heard Hugh's new pre amp before Christmas. Now that is a must have addition that adds reality to the performence. The pre amp assists the resolution and imaging of instruments along with clearer detail. The KISS principle definitley applies to what we are playing with.

See y'all,

Laurie

[gerado]

Thanks Laurie,

I will try and make it on the 20th. Its always a valuable learning experience in addition to the enjoyment of these meetings. I like listenning to Andys rig, but always learn a fair bit as well from others.

It is amazing how often KISS is true. I get more enjoyment listening for long periods to my celestion SL6s with Hughs amps, or my ESS driver with a full range driver and a 20 year old integrated Luxman amp than my supposedly ultimate system costing nearly half a house.

Hugh and Lynn have gently hinted at me more than once that complexity can get in the way but I dont like to listen to them, because I know they are right.
When is Hugh back? When is the release of GK2? Must roll myself down the hill and check it out.

Damn! "Just when I think I'm out, they drag me back in."  -the Godfather.

[AKSA]

Theo,

I sympathise with your plight, but as Laurie says (hi Laurie!) urge you to think 'first principles'.  I think your system was too complex for a domestic system;  there is no doubt the DEQX system works well in recording studioes and large pro-audio domains where the emphasis is not the same as the home setting.

I'm back on 20th, be very pleased to see you again, play my system.

Cheers,


Hugh

[Johnny]

Happy New Year to all!
I’m a fan of “keep it simple”, and two channels is plenty for me. But, maybe I just don't know what I'm missing 
However, I must admit to visions of Soraya-x and GK-x dancing in my head over the holidays 
That’s not out of bounds is it?
But in 2009? Well maybe if I’ve hitched my wagon to the right star 

I can’t abide the cost and dubious benefits of fancy of interconnects and connectors, so I keep them as short and as few in number as I can, and direct connect when possible- KISS

I’m hoping to get my SBIII up to Kyrill’s “near vinyl” quality this year. So far I’ve only upped the power supply with a big linear unit I dug out of an old hard disk subsystem- it’ll do 8 amps at 5v. Did it the first day and the improvement was very noticeable. Hoping for an Aspen Hologram and to improve the native D/A side, thus eliminating the outboard DAC and x number of cables- 

I’m very content with my thirty yo diy turntable since I upgraded the plinth- two slabs of 25mm mdf, sandwiching a 6mm slab of high density damping material, all internally honeycombed with energy dissipating cells filled with fine sand and poly fiber. She weighs nearly 20 Kg now! The original ac motor has been replaced with an Origin Live DC unit. The arm remains the original SAEC. Cost me $350 back in 1976- 

I have a pair of Vsonics in the works as we speak. Must get them done before Hugh returns! Well sort of- 

And I can’t wait to see Laurrie's new sub- Enervator? Oops, no no no. Elevator? Oh yeah,! LEV-I-ta-tor!
Having had a go at designing and building a TL around a dual vc woofer about 15 years ago, I’m anxious to see it done right! Mine’s just a prototype and pretty rough at that. Serves as a sub for the Jordan 50mm modules on my computer at work.
Cheers!
John

[gerado]

Hi John, and happy new year to you.

By direct connect the interconnects what do you mean, do you direct solder the IC cable to the pre and power amp ?

And not to go off topic too much, what power supply from HD subsystem are you referring?

Hugh, thanks again.
there must be advantages in both approaches once you get them right. There is just so mch more to go wrong in  a multiamp system you probably have to be a very methodical and determined animal to get it right.  Im convinced that component matching goes a long way in making a right (sorted) sounding system. eg the GK and LF together sound so much better than mated with other components. And its not just the electronics , some speakers do match up better with one set up than another.
Are these synergies hit and miss to get right or is there a scientific explanation and can it be measured except by ears, can you look at specs and predict what will go with what?

[LM]

Hi Johnny,

And a happy new year back.  The VSonics and your SB improvements sound like a pretty impressive start to 2009, exactly what I was getting at when starting this thread.

I must admit I agree totally with the KISS principle.  As Theo has already stated, I believe in getting the basic building blocks right and working in harmony.  For me, this has meant separating out my stereo system from my HT, having a good dedicated room set up and fastidiously positioning the speakers etc.  Then one can allow a bit more time to fiddle at the edges with a myriad of possible refinements but that’s just my methodology – others may differ.  I'll keep working on Theo though.

Talking about harmony though, the Soraya2, GK2 (prototype) and VSonics certainly work beautifully together and when Hugh was playing them the other day, I couldn’t help but think his old CD player that he happened to have connected at the time was clearly the weakest link IMHO.

Also, you now have me thinking about my Vinyl side and I’m sure that will be pushed a bit more to the front of my mind after visiting Andy in the near future.  But like you I can’t stop dreaming about GK2s and the latest Soraya.  Can't have it all though.  Oh for a money mine.

[RonR]

A happy new Year to one and all.

My priorities for this year in no particular order:

1. Finish building/testing the GK2 with Hugh
2. Finally build the VSonics that I received over 6 months ago (Shame on me!)
3. Build a dual-width flexy-rack and re-arrange the listening room to suit the VSonics
4. Re-house the LF55s in true monoblock cases to utilise built-in Felixes and make bi-wiring the VSonics easier

One last thing:

5. Fix my CD-PRO2 player (Just detected the smell of hot transformer and it's intermittently unable to read TOC on CDs. Drat!)

Hope all goes well with the get-together.

Cheers,

Ron

[kyrill]

hi Ron

i think you need a (big?) part of 2010 to finish this list

good wishes to you all to
Kyrill

[Johnny]

Hi Theo
Hi Lyn
Thanks for your replies.
Yes, I had interconnect soldered directly to the pesky pins on my A55, connected by a very short run to my passive PS Audio pre with Eichmann Bullet connectors (these seem among the most cost effective RCA's). I kept the same arrangement  when I upgraded to the LF55. If, I mean WHEN I build a GK I will probable make a soldered connection, with just enough cable to set the two boxes side by side and take the covers off if necessary. Similarly, I run my tone arm wire directly by the shortest path to the pcb pads on my phono pre which is small enough to sit under the turntable, then again from output pads to the passive pre with a terminal Bullet plug. I have no idea how effective this is but it appeals to my sense of kiss, and obviously this approach is not for everyone. I'm not a constant tweaker, but rather tend try to enjoy the music, and to take stock of the system every once in a while and possibly make some changes. And, I try to keep the number of black boxes and their obligate cables and connectors to a minimum. A Zen stereo if you will

The power supply is one of those ubiquitous PowerOne units found in computer gear of the 80's. This happens to be a big one. Came out of a Hard Disk subsystem I had set up at the lab, one of two we had, each the size of todays larger PC towers, 10 mb each, yes ten whole megabytes each, or 20 all together! Very cutting edge! They had an interface box that let you network a number of Apple IIe computers together for file sharing over twisted pair telephone wire. Left the IBM PC's in the dust 

Oh dear I'm way OT! Anyway you can find these in surplus outlets for under $5, in fact I picked a couple more up just a few years ago, new in box. I have no idea how they stack up to purpose built audio supplies, I just know it is an easy improvement over the wall warts you get with various bits of audio gear like the SBIII, or my Grado phono pre for that matter. Yes I run that off of one of these PowerOnes too, and my DC turntable motor. The tt is dead quiet and flutter free- what can I say?

Cheers!
John

[Tliner]

Hi Andy,

I have just rediscovred an old vinyl, the last I bought. Don Burrows & Friends. It is fairly clean without too many "vinyl features'. I will bring it over on Tuesday to hear a track or two on a good system if that is ok?. I had to find the leads for the TT to the amp (Luxman 507x) and fire up the old KEF transmissionlines. It all worked first go and sounded reasonable.


See y'all on Tuesday night.

Laurie.

[andyr]

Hi Andy,

I have just rediscovred an old vinyl, the last I bought. Don Burrows & Friends. It is fairly clean without too many "vinyl features'. I will bring it over on Tuesday to hear a track or two on a good system if that is ok?.

See y'all on Tuesday night.

Laurie.

No problem, Laurie.  I have a few luscious heavy-vinyl jazz LPs, if that's the sort of music you like listening to! 

All set Lyn?

And Theo - are you able to make it? 

Regards,

Andy

[AKSA]

It's a great pity I can't be there....  but there is a chance, could I come too, Andy, if I can make it?

Hi Theo,

When you ask questions about how my amps and preamps work together, you go to the nub of the design process.  Frankly, I can't answer you.  But I do know that since I use my amps and speakers during development of my preamps, then you'd expect 'em to go well together since I do a lot of listening tests after I establish the engineering limits of operation of the circuits.

The conflict between the objectivists and the subjectivists (I'm both) is trenchant.  You should be able to define precisely how something will sound from a careful measurement of frequency response, slew rate, total harmonic distortion.  But you can't.  Some of the best sounding amps in the world - single ended tubes - have distortion in the 2-5% range!  Clearly more detail is needed in measurement, and I suspect that a careful breakdown of the distortion artefacts is needed to progress further.  As well, I'm convinced electronic circuits behave differently with many frequencies passing through them than simple test tones, and the theory of memory distortion, proposed by Lavardin, a French amplifier company, supports this.

In the absence of definitive evidence correlating good measurements with good sound, amp design becomes an unholy mixture of art and engineering.  In time, perhaps the next ten years, these issues will be clarified, but until that happens, the guy who develops amps along both lines - objectivist and subjectivist - will likely have an advantage because he will, at least in part, be accounting for many of the subjectivist issues which the audiophile buyer considers almost exclusively.  I'm always struck by the tacit acknowledgment of savvy audiophiles that specs say nothing.  They rely almost exclusively on protracted listening tests.  This to me is right on the money.  That amps are usually developed entirely on objectivist grounds is a statement of the power and influence of the engineering fraternity who develop them;  a resounding vote for their expertise perhaps and a comment on the marketing techniques used to sell them.

I look forward to returning to Oz;  the last 24 hours I've been laid up with a very unpleasant virus which had me bedridden, unable to eat for the duration.  Today we have the long journey via Singapore to Oz, I can at least walk now, but it's been a trial.  If trips to Indonesia are always accompanied by illness, and I've had Bali belly for just over two weeks, I will need to consider carefully....  but as an experience, this has been seminal, one of the true revelations of the Far East, in 25 years the birth of a middle class in Indonesia.

Cheers,

Hugh

[LM]

Hi Andy,

Yes all set.  I may have to come straight from work but if I can look after them OK during the day, I may bring some vinyl as well as a CD track or two.

Hugh, that 'synergy' (or at least 'compatibility') aspect between components I find very real.  I'm just so happy that my speakers and CD player go so well with your kit though at least we knew they (Soraya and GK1) worked well together and nothing was selected without a lot of listening.

Incidentally, every change/improvement I've made over the years has relied on a lot on such patient listening and then they have pretty much been incremental in degree.  I suspect that this may be part of the problem with Theo's DEQX set up.  It is a system capable of implementing complex/compound variations at the press of a button and I find myself rather bewildered and without an adequate aural reference base very quickly after a few rapid changes.  Even for a single change, it often takes me quite a while to come to grips with all aspects of it - hours, days or even longer.  That's why I tend to only change one thing at a time if possible on my system and why I struggle with coming to grips with mass change such as a DEQX can bring.