[Bob in St. Louis]

  Oh Jeez Scott.... 
That doesn't sound too pleasant to say the least. Let me know if there's anything I can help you with. You've got my number.
Hope you're feeling better soon my friend.

Ok fellas, Who, when, and where?  aa

Bob

[DeadFish]

Well, I'm a 'for sure', and I'm good for the 22nd, if that works out.
The 'where' is still up for grabs.  I guess it depends on if anyone else is planning on showing up.
Anyone?

DF

[Bob in St. Louis]

Bill, we can do mine or Bryan's house. Bryan's might be better if he's got some new toys he's wanting to play with.
Should we make this a big deal and start a thread in the GAS Circle, or an un-official 'quaint' thing?

Bob

[DeadFish]

Your 'toss', Bob!  I don't mind 'quaint', if it means that we can listen enough to get some general conclusions about what we are doing.  Sometimes, what I do go/come to hear gets lost in the hub-bub, Bub.
I don't know how much room y'all can afford, so I'll let you guys be the 'decider's'. 
(I'm so lame...) You'll  figure it out, I'll show up and we'll all have a nice time...

Bill

Bill, we can do mine or Bryan's house. Bryan's might be better if he's got some new toys he's wanting to play with.
Should we make this a big deal and start a thread in the GAS Circle, or an un-official 'quaint' thing?

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok Bill, "quaint" it is. I'd rather have an "official listening session" as opposed to our usual casual thing.
I'm good for the 22nd. Although, it'll be the day after the Monster TruckJam at the convention center.
Not sure how good my ears will be.   

But anyway, let's do it.
My house or Bryan's??

Bryan, looks like you're the deciding factor.
Is there anybody else in STL that has a modded SB that needs to bring their toys?

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

By the way guys, for added "bait", I've got some Jerry Garcia for Bill, in addition to the Persuasions sing the Grateful Dead.
I also *might* have access to the 20th anniversary edition of the KBCO set.
A little birdy said this might be of interest to you. 

Watcha think?  aa

Bob

[bpape]

I think I have the house to myself this weekend but the basement is kinda torn up system wise.  I can probably get something going by then though.  I'd prefer it to be earlier if possible but will bow to the audio gods if not.

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok good deal Bryan. When you say 'early', what do you have in mind? I'm good all day Sunday.
Or, to put it another way; What time do you start drinkin'? 

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

.......I forgot to mention; Should we have another fellow with a modded box over too?

bob

[DSK]

Gentlemen, this is a "review" thread. Could you take your GTG planning to another thread or PM's please. I keep getting emails that there is an update to this review thread and each time I open it up it is just GTG planning. Many Thanks. 

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok, fine. Pack it up boys, Here we go........

[Bob in St. Louis]

Well Wayne, we had our little 'shoot-out' yesterday. Things when well, overall everything sounded great.
Regarding the difference between my unit and Bills; There IS a difference, that much seems to be agreed upon between all invloved. Exactly what the difference is, seems to be a bit of a head scratcher. The first track we played seemed to sound a little better on mine, but by a very small margin. If memory serves, one comment I heard was "fuller". The second track we played, was..... different. Not better, not worse, just plain "different". The question was raised more than once, "What is the cost difference between having the internal regulators split"? I won't go out on that limb too far, but from the impressions I got are that "YES", there is a difference, "MAYBE" it's better, but not a night and day difference. The strange thing was that the degree of difference seemed to be song dependant. Can't explain that one.
But bottom line is that you'd definitely onto something with splitting the regulator.

By no means am I going to take the liberty of speaking for everyone. Now that the guys have had a day to mull it over, I'm curious to read their impressions.

Bob

[DeadFish]

Thanks for kicking this off, Bob.
Bob is 'bout right, and comparing the Squeezeboxes was like the Miss AMerica contest, where I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed, but there aren't any twins either.
Although we listened to many iterations, the bulk of our listening seemed to be Bob's and my SB3 units powered by Bryan's top-of-the-line Bolder P/S.  Have I got that right, guys?
There might be more differences ferretted out were we to use other power supplies, but given the time constraints of modern life, this is what we got done, trying to determine if there was a clear champ between the two modded SB3 units, all other things being equal.
For me, some songs seemed more 'full', from bass to violin on both units, while some music more or less sucked, regardless of the Squeezebox.  Some were more clear, some had more 'magic' done with the soundstage.(My guess would be poorer transcribed recordings that we all picked up when cd's were young).  There were no clear winners with this type of music, where one unit worked wonders, and the other didn't.
When music sounded good, it tended to on both units, although not necessarilly the same, but at the same time.  Clear as  mud here?
My personal conclusions are that if Bob's and my SB's were put in a bag and I had to chose one blind to keep, that'd be fine with me.  This might say that subconsciously Bob's is better to me, but I've really been enjoying my SB since it's latest fix in October.  I think this says that I appreciate the way that Wayne at Bolder 'voices' his improvments to the units.  This is not to say that the sound is 'colored', but rather that I hear a common, clean sound that is 'musical' to me.  Mark that this is the conclusion of someone with 57 year old ears and I voted for Wayne's upgrades with my wallet more than once.  This was as clear as *I* could hear.  I do get real happy with what I can hear, but I know it isn't as well as others around here or in the group for our listening session.  But then again, I didn't hear anyone complaining..
Bob, thanks for promoting this to happen.  I was glad to come along and get some listening done and some friendships renewed.
Bryan, thanks for the hospitality!  It was nice to get out and hear your room.  Those speakers upstairs are extraordinary, but your theatre/listening room was special.  It was a pleasure!

Best Regards,
DeadFish

[Bob in St. Louis]

"comparing the Squeezeboxes was like the Miss America contest, where I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed, but there aren't any twins either."
  That's perfect!!

Just an FYI: Bryan's room had Dynaudios, Korato tubed pre-amp, and modified Odyessee mono's.
Sorry, I can't recall the models.

Bob

[bpape]

I'd agree there was a difference between the 2.  To my ears, the extra regulator gave a bit more texture and harmonic structure to upper mids and highs - especially piano and cymbals.  There was a slight difference in the bottom end - but as to which was better - well, IMO it was more a matter of preference and system matching.  If I had to quantify it with one overused reviewer term - I'd say it's more refined.

We listened to a variety of things from some more mass produced, slightly compressed recordings, to very open, 'deep', airy recordings, to some of our old crappy sounding stuff where we just like the music - not the recording necessarily.  Neither of the units tended to sugar coat things. 

Bryan

[Bob in St. Louis]

I apologize to those of you that have seen this in MY SPEAKER BUILD THREAD, but I couldn't let this go without showing Wayne where his mods now reside.

Wayne,
This is for you my friend.
Thank you for taking my tunes and "kicking them up a notch". 

[Wayne1]

That looks very nice, Bob.

Are you running the SB output to your digital input on your receiver?

I would be a bit concerned if you were using the analog outputs. The lower voltage and current may not be too happy with a long interconnect run.

If you would like, I could send you the prototype BOLDER Buffer to compare. The output section of the Buffer has no problem driving cable runs.

[Bob in St. Louis]

"That looks very nice, Bob."
Jeez Wayne, that sounds like something my Mother would say. 

I'm using the digital coax output. An optical run this long isn't a possibility, the analog I tried, but mainly as a "proof of concept" scenario. No critical listening done with those, I just happened to have a long enough stereo pair of junk cables to experiment with.

I rigged up a quicky Cat-5e with RCAs for the coax cable (one matching twisted pair per circuit). Not sure how long the total run is, but I can measure it. If I had to make a guess, I'd say it's 22 feet long, give or take a couple feet.

What's the story with the buffer? That's a new one on me Wayne.

Bob