Miscellaneous ramblings about AKFest 2K5

[tentoze]

Friday Night:

My first meeting with early arriving AK’ers- Grumpy, Mr. & Ms.Kam, Reyneman, RetroStereo, Army, Echo, Billfort, and others- gear piled everywhere.

Reyneman commenting to NOSValves after hearing his small set up with his tube monoblocks, Heresy’s and a nice sub- “If you can make Klipsch Heresy’s sound good, you can make anything sound good.” :)

PunkerX playing some tunes through a really BIG vintage Kenwood that I had never seen before.

Saturday:

Whew.

Talking and twanging with Styler in Elusive Disc’s listening room. Little $300 Epos mini-monitors that sounded wonderful. Glad to meet you, Tyler.

A good part of the day in Grumpy/Reyneman’s room listening to Grumpy’s nice Audio Notes driven by an Almarro A318 or NOSValves’ 60 wpc mono-blocks. The SOTA Sapphire sounded really fine, especially when Gilbert’s Blue Circle phono stage was put into the mix. Hope I didn’t get in the way too much, guys.

Wandering around the various music rooms- the Hartsfields were drowning out the entire end of the 12th floor. Andyman’s stacked Advent system sounded very fine, and was a great set-up to show what vintage done right can do.

My first listen to BrianB’s Blue Circle/ Obelisk set-up in the afternoon. WOW!

Reyneman’s “flubby” (coined on the spot- flabby + tubby) JBL’s- thanks for providing so much entertainment for me and Billfort, Ray…………… :D

Saturday Evening:

Dinner with Reyneman, BrianB, and Gilbert Yeung of Blue Circle Audio- as fine a trio of gentlemen as you could ever encounter. Not that I have much experience hanging around with high-end audio designers, but Gilbert is a true individual- honest to a fault, plain-spoken, no BS, a regular guy. And as funny as anyone I’ve run across in years. He and Mary Lou are a breath of fresh air in what can be a pretty stuff-shirted industry.

St. James Infirmary from Louis Armstrong Plays King Oliver- played a minimum of 13 times…Billfort can back me up on this, I swear to God.

An extended listening session in BrianB’s Blue Circle room- my thoughts on this will come elsewhere, but as pleasurable an evening as I have spent in a long time. BrianB is a generous and patient man with his wares. Somewhere around 3:30 AM was as much music and beer as I could handle.

:banana:

Mr. And Mrs. BigMacc are two of the most gracious people you could ever meet. Thanks for the Molson, BigMacc...........

Sunday: I mostly wandered around bleary- eyed, babbling incoherently. Elusive Disc had some great stuff for sale- I picked up a Sundazed vinyl copy of a Spirit album that was never released in its day. Listened to tunes, communed with all the AK’ers who hung in there for Sunday……….

It was no surprise to me- the folks that make up AK in the ether are even finer in person- each and every one. My hats off to the movers and shakers that worked tirelessly to make it happen. :thmbsp:

I wish I could have done more to help.

[styler]

great to meet you Toze! i just got home, what a drive... damn i'm tired.

grumpy's set up sure was sweet, i agree whole heartedly with your thoughts. seriously folks, those Hartsfields were the loudest speaker i've ever heard. too bad they werent in a concert hall. felt sorry for the gentleman with the wonderful Maggies next door to the Hartsfields. really a great, friendly group of folks. kudos to those that made it happen! i dont think a single one of us left without serious sleep deprivation.

i was so tired sunday, i fell asleep while demoing I Robot with Luther! LOL :lmao:

that was the first i had heard the Epos, and damn those little suckers are giant killers! cant be beat for 300 smackers.

Craig, dont forget "smoke and mirrors" do make audio sound better! :lmao:

really good to meet everyone, Eric (i am in search of handsome family tomorrow), Tim, Pete, BrianB, Ernie, Krimney, Retro and wife, Kegger (love that Back in Baroque!), Craig, Mike, Bill, Luther, the Grumpy's (your children were a huge help, they deserve some serious praise! superhelpful and strong!), Jim and Becky, Glenn, Gary, Tubino, Dave (Bot and spouse), and Ray! also all those who my sleep deprived mind cant remember at the moment.

shain, the first thing i did when i got home was set up the marantz as my bedroom system and considering i just drove 1100 miles, that tells you how excited i was!

one of the coolest things was to go from one end of the floor with cutting edge everything, to hearing stacked Advents and JBLs! everything sounded great, though different.

damn fine people and damn good fun. thank you everyone! IT WAS A BLAST :thmbsp:

AK ROCKS!

[Punker X]

Toze, it was a pleasure meeting you. The big Kenwoods were a 700c/m combo.

Got to hear Satchmo down in Grumpy's room through the Blue Circle phono pre and was so impress, I snuck in and grabbed it for while on Sunday morning to try with my Oracle. Very impressive piece.

Thanks to Ray for letting my borrow the black cube for a demo and Dingusboy for trying the bottlehead phono pre.

Shelby1420 dragged his Sansui BA-5000 to the meet and we hooked it to the Ohm I's, pure magic, we sat until 2 am Saturday listening to it. He's now a new owner of a set of I's and I'll be keeping a look out for a Monster myself.

Had a great time and got to listen to a lot of speakers I've been wondering about. JimBecky brought his big Walsh 4's down to my room and we had a direct a/b test between the two speakers. Altec's, Hartsfields, Tannoys, Obelisks, loved them all, and so little room. Especially the Obelisks..

Over all what a great time, wish we didn't have to wait whole year for the next one.

X

[DingusBoy]

My ramblings.

I was struck with how many different ways to "get it right." I didn't get to really listen to all the rooms but most of the rooms I spent time in sounded very fine.

PunkerX had my favorite front end with his Oracle Delphi V and I loved what I heard in his room.

I haven't heard much mention of the SALK room thus far but I got to audition his larger speakers for a few tunes and I was really impressed. We talked for a bit and those speakers are a labor of love with a fantastic end result in looks and sound.

Much has been mentioned about the CAR and the Hartfields and I only wish I had been in there when the SPL was a little less as it was just too overwhelming the times I got down there.

I'd never set up a room like this anywhere before and it was a learning experience. Rule 1: Set-up takes 3 times as long as I think it will. Rule 2: Tear down takes 5 times as long as I think it will as I am sleep deprived by then.

And maybe most important...When Tubino says "Let me put on something a little more mainstream." expect 47 Saxophones and a cello or possibly a Gregorian Chant interpretation of Revolution #9. :lmao:

I loved seeing old friends and meeting new ones. It was great to meet Piece-it-Pete, Styler, BigMacc, and so many others.

And finally, I walked away knowing my system does what it does really good but so does yours. SS, Tubes, digital, analog, multiple drives, horns, etc all can sound good with some love from the person putting it together.

[botrytis]

As was said, There are so many different ways to crack the same nut!!' DingusBoy, now I understand what they mean by the Tannoy sound - it is not so much what they add to the sound, it is what they do not take away!! You have an impressive setup - this was one of my Favs at the fest. :thmbsp: :thmbsp: :thmbsp:

Punker was so polite this year, compared to last your (volume-wise) I was wondering, did someone steal him??? I loved the Kenwoods and the Oracle TT - it was SOOOO COOL. :thmbsp: :thmbsp: :thmbsp:

I have to mention Bigmacc and Mrs. Bigmacc, what a great people!!! These are they type of people that make AK great!! Macc, when I cam down with the cart and you were talking to my wife, Gloria, I knew exactly who you were right away. You are infamous on AK!!! I still want to see how you are going to work out your AK fund-raising idea. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

JimBecky and there Walsh 4's - very nice. I am dying to hear what an HT setup would soundlike with 4 of them!!!

Salk Sounds - they do sound nice and look amazing. BrianB and Gilbert were just Ying and Yang - they had great and unusual stuff to show, as usual.

Grumpy's Audio Notes with the NOS Valve amps were just perfect together.

The little EPOS speakers at Elusive dics showed what a well designed small speaker can do. Although, one complaint - I didn't have enough money to buy many things!!

Reel to reel - I am always amazed by what he can do with MP3's!! Mrs. Reel to reel was great for putting up with US maniacs!!

Anybody that came into my room for a listen - thanks Gents!! I can be a little enthused about what I own, but I think we all do that!!!

The Grumpy clan, Mr and Mrs. Kam , and Ward :thmbsp: :thmbsp: :thmbsp: :thmbsp: :thmbsp:

Everybody that I didn't mention by name, you have not been forgotten.

That is all I have to say for now!!

Dave

[piece-it pete]

Agreed - SO many different ways to get good sound, a system for just about any budget/style/taste, what a learning experience.

Although an actual party room setup might have de-boomed a bit, I really liked the intimate setting of the individual rooms. Sitting around, listening to everyones' version of audio happiness, shooting the breeze, what a blast.

The biggest surprise for me was how easygoing the whole thing was. No tube/ss/cable/vinyl/digital fistfights lol, no audio snobbery that I saw, next year maybe I'll drag my mid-fi system up (sideways?) to MoTown and stay for two nights.

It was great meeting everyone. Although I have a horrible face/name/avatar/screenname memory I can now at least pretend to know who I'm talking to :D .

Can't wait for next year, thanks again to all the volunteers!!

Pete

Pete

[spkrman57]

Pete's system will not be "mid-fi" by next year if I have anything to do with it. And I'm sure I will "butt" in and set him up. Pete, you have gear to pick up from my house, so don't delay.

I had other obligations and could not make it, but I hope next year to rectify(pun intended) that situation.

Sounds like all had a good time.

Ron

[Audio Flynn]

Rambling...

Forgot I put my raffle tickets in my check book until Sunday night; DUH!

THose little Royd speakers are not normal; was there a camoflaged in wall speaker in that room?

Many of the turnatlbes I saw was the first time in person; where art meets audio meets music. Really nice looking.

I saw the biggest tuner ever; one tuning knob for AM and one for FM, too wild.

The Hartsfields could be speakers from a Stephen King book, that eats little kids if they get too close. A very physically involving sound I wished I had more time to listen to.


Spent more money at Elusive Disk than budgeted; easier to avoid buying surfing their website. When I held Traffic "John Barleycorn Must Die" in my hands I just could not put it back in the box.

Cool group, no snobs.

My sons really had a good time.

Rick

[NOSValves]

Craig, dont forget "smoke and mirrors" do make audio sound better! :lmao:


AK ROCKS!


Tyler,

Are you actually suggesting I need to not forget something LOL!! I think you really forgot a pair of somethings? I got done packing these somethings up and went looking for you and was told you were long gone :cry:

[styler]

ah, yes i am the forgetful confused and sleep deprived loser that forgot some truly lovely maple based amps! :sigh:

[aystrick]

Yeah, I just orded Back In Baroque, really cool recording!

[Wardsweb]

Yeah, I just orded Back In Baroque, really cool recording!

So you think the cello player is wearing school boy short pants and a cap? :lmao:

[hpsenicka]

If he's not.. he should be!! :yes:

[reyneman]

Yeah, yeah- I was trying to save a few beers for others, found the only way to keep toze away from them was to repeat the same song over and over and... I won't be able to listen to that track for ayt least another year.

I hope to be able to post some thoughts tonight, great time!

[botrytis]

Yeah, yeah- I was trying to save a few beers for others, found the only way to keep toze away from them was to repeat the same song over and over and... I won't be able to listen to that track for ayt least another year.

I hope to be able to post some thoughts tonight, great time!


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: FUNNY and SAD!!!

Dave

[botrytis]

Rambling...

Forgot I put my raffle tickets in my check book until Sunday night; DUH!

THose little Royd speakers are not normal; was there a camoflaged in wall speaker in that room?

Many of the turnatlbes I saw was the first time in person; where art meets audio meets music. Really nice looking.

I saw the biggest tuner ever; one tuning knob for AM and one for FM, too wild.

The Hartsfields could be speakers from a Stephen King book, that eats little kids if they get too close. A very physically involving sound I wished I had more time to listen to.


Spent more money at Elusive Disk than budgeted; easier to avoid buying surfing their website. When I held Traffic "John Barleycorn Must Die" in my hands I just could not put it back in the box.

Cool group, no snobs.

My sons really had a good time.

Rick

Rick,

If you think the little Royd's have a big voice - you should here their bigger brothers!! That is why I have 2 sets of the bigger speakers - I like them so much!!

I want to say all the members kids were great!! You really people are doing well by them - you should be proud!! Grumpy, Matt is a great kid!!!

Dave

[EchoWars]

If there was an award for the most gear in one room, Tim and I won... :D

The little DoZ Class-A amp acquitted itself nicely. On Tim's speaks (damned if I remember what they are...someone refresh my memory) they had a nice synergy, but we also wired up some Klipsch bookshelf speaks, and the vocals took on a very believable quality. I'm pleased, but I didn't get a chance to try it on dgwojo's Altec's like I wanted. Oh well...

Disappointed about the line voltage issue...with all the gear on the 12th floor running, we barely broke 100V. Shelby1420's BA-5000 instantly became a 200WPC amp instead of 300WPC. :rolleyes: So testing gear for max power was a wasted effort, but all other specs were valid. If we go this route again, I see a variac in my future.

Big difference in the number who said that they were bringing gear in to be tested, and the number that showed up. Yeah, this is me shaming you into tossing a donation to AK anyway. :)

I had fun, but did not have the chance to wander around as much as I would have liked. I expected that.

Grumpy and family should be nominated for sainthood. Wonder what the Vatican's thought's on that might be... :scratch2: :D

One can never have enough friends. Proud to call this gaggle of AK'ers my friends. :)

[Tonedeaf]

I want to say I really enjoyed meeting everyone and listening to everyone's gear. What a great time. My first day I was bit overwhelmed and did not know what I should be doing or asking, but that all changed come Sunday. I now have a wishlist for gear and a shopping list for music Thanks to all who put in the time to audition your gear and I want to thank all who worked so hard to put this event together. :thmbsp:

[Sandy G]

Uhhhh...How didja y'all keep from being unceremoniously asked to leave w/all the "testing" of audio equipment, great 'n' small, going on ?!? -Sandy G.

[cabinover]

Sandy, we were on the 12th floor, all alone. For the most part it was fairly tame. Tell you how quiet it was, most of us were on the 11th floor and slept well, except for the beer and the music that is LOL

[Reel 2 Reel]

AK fest this year was the opitomy(sp) of get-togethers.. and I couldn't ask for better bunch o' guys to be there with...rite from the time we pulled up to the front of the hotel...it was just a fantastic time..everybody with carts full of geer stumbling over each other !!...well I'm exagerating a bit.

Getting set up wasn't too much of a chore.... I did leave the power cord to my computer at home!!....yup...thought I was screwed there ...but... a 'Knight in Shining Armor' came to the rescue!!...Punker had a couple in his 'tub-o-goodies'...so with that I proceded to 'git er done!'....

After a little tweekin of the controls...there were tunes playin....the room acoustic left a lot to be desired...but on short notice what can ya do!...if I wouldave thought about it while I was there I wouldave did what the CAR guys did...pin quilts up on the walls...there were bad reflections in my room even Tim eeeked!...the highs bounced off the back wall...and the bass came in from the sides.... but for the most part it wasnt TOO bad...

Spinning MP3s was the only media I had with so I showed what MP3s can sound like with signal processing...and I think it went over well...I had the facilities to burn discs for anyone who wanted copies of some of tunes that were there ..just needed blank media...even from vinyl to disc....i guess there was sooo much goin' on that it slipped peoples minds...

Making the rounds to the other rooms was one treat after another.....NOSvalves was across the hall...and he started out with Klipsch Herseys with a Klipsch sub...great combo....and went from there ...it was like everytime I went in there was something else playin!...

Andyman brought his Advents...Stacked at that!.......theres just something about stacked speakers that makes the music fuller.....and more robust!....and for that being his Garage system..I can understand why he spends so much time out there!!......

Botrytis showed up saturday morning with his little Royds...and a set of Rogers...I forget the model #s...but like Flynn said

Those little Royd speakers are not normal; was there a camoflaged in wall speaker in that room?

If I was to go out tonite and get me some small speakers....those would be it.....amazing soundstage....and the bottom end was tight.....recomend them to anybody!!....

Although an actual party room setup might have de-boomed a bit, I really liked the intimate setting of the individual rooms. Sitting around, listening to everyones' version of audio happiness.

It was a fluke that we got individual rooms...and was for the better....it would have been a nightmare with 3-4 systems in each conference room.....this way there was no need to 'take turns'....

The Hartsfields could be speakers from a Stephen King book, that eats little kids if they get too close. A very physically involving sound I wished I had more time to listen to.

When the tweeks were worked out on those monsters....I was sitting there listening to Kraftwerk - Tour De France.3..soundtracks.........I closed my eyes and sat there with what was like a pair of headphones on...but without the phones!... and was beginning to dream...but I wasn't sleeping!....I got lost in the 'circumaural experience' for about 20 minuites!...and it was fantastic!!....

like Carson...theres 'More to Come'...... (I just have to remember it!)

[reyneman]

OK- this is long and rambling, but I'm still not quite coherent :sigh:

What a great bunch of guys, and what a great time! My week started on Thursday, driving to Detroit with a truck load of goodies. Thought I had a lot of junk, er, stuff, er gear till I got to Grumpy’s place. Wanted to play around with his system, see how I could get it to sound. Hooked up a Black Cube between his Kuzma TT with a Dyna 20x and my Final Labs Music Three tube amp, using his AN/Js. Frankly I was a bit disappointed, was kinda glad when Kama came by and interrupted the proceedings. Spent the next 20 gazillion hours getting items from storage to the house for delivery to the Fest. Couldn’t have spent the time with better people.

Friday night hooked up some JBLs to the little T-Amp in my room, Billfort gave it the thumbs-up, so I was ready to party. Went up to Kama’s room, he was boring his wife with audio talk, so I slyly stole her away from her hubby! Got her into my room with the lure of Usher and Disco. Man it always works- when are you audio snobs gonna learn that boogie music is more appealing than that Blues stuff? Unfortunately, Army was there so I couldn’t demonstrate my moves (hey, my age and pot belly have nothing to do with it).

Fest time- went out for a nice leisurely breakfast on Saturday morn with tentoze, we had just ordered when the phone rang. “What Grumpy, you mean all those tickets weren’t for me? You have people who want to buy some?" Drats, thought I was in like Flynn.

Got back to the hotel, delivered the tickets to Mrs. Grumpy (really Nancy, you deserve sainthood), kissed Mrs Kama good morning (just kidding Tim) and walked down to my audio room. Saw some guy crawling around on the floor hooking up my equipment and neatly stacking boxes (KEWL), and wondered who the heck he was. Saw a nametag that said ‘Gilbert’, he told me my equipment was almost ready, wondered about my phono pre. Told him that Punker wanted to try it on his table, I’d worry about it later. Next thing I know Gilbert walks into my room carrying a top of the line Blue Circle phono pre- yup, the chief cook and bottle washer of Blue Circle hooked up my gear AND let me borrow his phono pre. What a truly nice gentleman- and a fun guy to be around.

Spent most of Saturday in the room listening to a system provided by Grumpy (speakers, TT, tuner), NOSValves (tubed monoblockes) and Juicy Music (Blueberry pre). Speaking of NOSValves- although Craig had multiple rooms of his own, he went out of his way to help all who asked, and I’d like to thank him for his efforts. Yes, he may be cantankerous and opinionated, but since his opinions basically align with mine I take them as gospel. And yes, his system somehow managed to make Heresies sound pretty good.

Some quick inputs:

Punker’s TT is a thing of beauty

Reel to Reel had a nice neat system that sounded pretty darn good. I can’t believe that his wife (a fine woman by the way) wouldn’t leave him to come listen to my disco music. Well, OK, Gary had disco music and better looks, but I’m more charming! Just sayin…

Don’t let Bot know his Royds sound good (dang, it even hurts to type roids,,,oops)

Went to dinner with tentoze, saw BrianB and Gilbert, we just invited ourselves to sit at their table. Unfortunately they had already ordered so we didn’t get freebies. Me and toze got real food (steaks!) while those wussies ate salad. Yeah Brian, like you need to lose weight.

THE DOWNFALL- OK, I had brought a couple of cases of local brew so others could share in the joy of Pittsburgh’s finest (Ahem). But was that good enough? Oh NNNoooo, my beer was still warm, we needed to get a half rack already chilled to last until the ice worked its magic. To the store, beer and bags of ice, then back to the twelfth floor.

With most of the floor empty, I hooked up a sweet little Almarro amp to Grumpy’s speakers. Using the Kuzma TT, Dynavector 20H cart and the Blue circle phono pre, I spent some quality time just listening. For the first time I liked the sound of the Dyna. That Blue Circle worked like magic! If you’re in the market for a phono pre, I highly recommend that you go to your local dealer and check it out. If you have no local dealer, then give Venus HiFi a call- BrianB is an authorized dealer. Is a bit (!) pricey for a phono stage, but hey… I will try for one. Besides being a great unit, Gilbert is a guy worth supporting.

Between cuts of Satchmo playing the same song over and over, I noticed that rather than getting rid of my beer more and more was appearing in the room! Now I know that Brian, toze and myself were trying to get rid of the stuff (for academic purposes only- does music quality go up as the beer goes down?), but BigMacc et al brought more and more into the room. What was I to do, let it go to waste? Nope, did my best to rid the hotel of the evil brew before it polluted others. Lightweights left by 3 or so, I made it til after 4, but Brian, being the fine gentleman that he is, was still going. Grumpy’s son watched over us the entire night, just to keep us out of trouble.

Crawled into bed at 4:30 or so, had to check out at 11, almost made it. Couldn’t eat breakfast, skipped lunch, had no supper. Oh, what I did for benefit of my fellow Akers.

On Sunday I once again sat around the room (where the heck did all those empties come from?), trying to find a way to make Gilbert forget where his phono section was. Dang, that guy has a good memory. Was finally getting some really good sounds from mine and Grumpy’s system (and NOSValves’ and Juicy Music’s and BrianB’s and… oh, wait, none of this was mine). Quit playing Satchmo, toze still refused to come in the room just in case. He did catch me playing some twangy stuff, but just yelled at me from the door- I had the Satchmo album cover propped up and ready for action!

Enough already!!! Left a bit after 7, got home at 12:30, got to work by 7:30 the next day.

Man, I’m already looking forward to next year!!!

[Dave918]

Quit playing Satchmo, toze still refused to come in the room just in case. He did catch me playing some twangy stuff, but just yelled at me from the door- I had the Satchmo album cover propped up and ready for action!

I can just picture that scene, too funny!! :rofl:

/d

[grumpy]

When I arrived at our room Sunday morn I was in awe of the amount of empties laying around. I thought they had shot Animal House II in there.

I know you boys didn't abuse my speakers now right ? :)

Funny how when ever i get a Satchmo LP anywhere near them they start bouncing down the hall away from me...

[dgwojo]

When I arrived at our room Sunday morn I was in awe of the amount of empties laying around. I thought they had shot Animal House II in there.

I know you boys didn't abuse my speakers now right ? :)

I think I did a wise thing removing my Altec A7's before Saturday night drinking started!! :scratch2:

[tentoze]

When I arrived at our room Sunday morn I was in awe of the amount of empties laying around. I thought they had shot Animal House II in there.

I know you boys didn't abuse my speakers now right ? :)

Funny how when ever i get a Satchmo LP anywhere near them they start bouncing down the hall away from me...

Grump,

As God is my witness, the only reason I went into the Grumpy Room after 8:00 PM was to drop off empties and pick up full ones. :D

Now what Ray and Satchmo were doing, I cannot say........I put in ear-savers each time just in case before entering to grab a refreshment......

:lmao:

[Jim H B]

I was only there on Sunday, but I'll throw in my 2cents. My favorite systems were Punker X and Botrytis, and the Advents. Reel 2 Reel's system wasn't on when I was in the room, so I can't comment.

The vintage stuff hung right in there with the vendor's new systems, I must say.

[grumpy]

I think I did a wise thing removing my Altec A7's before Saturday night drinking started!! :scratch2:


Actually the couple of times i tried to get in there when you were firing up the altecs i was blown outta the room. You definitely took second place to John wolf in the sound levels. Really wanted to hear em but 100 + db non stop was just too much for me.

[dgwojo]

Really wanted to hear em but 100 + db non stop was just too much for me.
That was at 1 watt, sorry, you must be getting old!!! lol!! Just kidding, we did take requests for any available music at any volume you could stand, Craigs tube gear had a quiet side too!! Let's get the ballroom next time so we can really crank them up!! Great Fest, Dave. :yes:

[NOSValves]

That was at 1 watt, sorry, you must be getting old!!! lol!! Just kidding, we did take requests for any available music at any volume you could stand, Craigs tube gear had a quiet side too!! Let's get the ballroom next time so we can really crank them up!! Great Fest, Dave. :yes:


Actually it would of been fun to set them up in the lounge where we had lunch. Grumpy and I had even talked about it previous to the show but it would of been so far off from the action who ever monitored the room may have been awful lonely. I bet those A7's would of really sounded great in that setting at any volume.
Craig

PS Grump is a SPL wimp ;)

[dgwojo]

Actually it would of been fun to set them up in the lounge where we had lunch. Grumpy and I had even talked about it previous to the show but it would of been so far off from the action who ever monitored the room may have been awful lonely. I bet those A7's would of really sounded great in that setting at any volume.
Craig

PS Grump is a SPL wimp ;)
I think the lobby would have SPL wimped out too!! I just sent pics of the A7's to Great Plains Audio, Bill H. and I had a conversation about them last night, what a great person he is!! Dave.

[BrianB]

Hiya, tentoze! First off, I've got to say that one of the highlights of the show for me was finally getting to meet and hang out with you. I had a blast - and it was great to find someone whose musical tastes are so similar to my own (there aren't too many)!

At any rate, here are a few comments on your "ramblings":

A good part of the day in Grumpy/Reyneman’s room listening to Grumpy’s nice Audio Notes driven by an Almarro A318 or NOSValves’ 60 wpc mono-blocks. The SOTA Sapphire sounded really fine, especially when Gilbert’s Blue Circle phono stage was put into the mix. Hope I didn’t get in the way too much, guys.

Man, was it great to be across the hall from Grumpy and Reyneman's room! And this arrangement made it very easy to directly compare two of my alltime favorite speaker lines: Audio Note and Shahinian Acoustics.

My first listen to BrianB’s Blue Circle/ Obelisk set-up in the afternoon. WOW!

Glad to hear that you liked this rig so much! I have a feeling that this may become my personal audio system once we've moved to Michigan...

Dinner with Reyneman, BrianB, and Gilbert Yeung of Blue Circle Audio- as fine a trio of gentlemen as you could ever encounter. Not that I have much experience hanging around with high-end audio designers, but Gilbert is a true individual- honest to a fault, plain-spoken, no BS, a regular guy. And as funny as anyone I’ve run across in years. He and Mary Lou are a breath of fresh air in what can be a pretty stuff-shirted industry.

Reyneman is, of course, a true gentleman, and a genuine asset to AK. It's always great hanging out with Ray! And I am very happy that you got to meet Gilbert. The man is both wickedly talented and wickedly funny, and yet is about as un-self-centered as you can get. Gilbert is truly one of high-end audio's shining stars, and it was great having him at AK-Fest 2005!

An extended listening session in BrianB’s Blue Circle room- my thoughts on this will come elsewhere, but as pleasurable an evening as I have spent in a long time. BrianB is a generous and patient man with his wares. Somewhere around 3:30 AM was as much music and beer as I could handle.

Now THAT was a fun evening! Let's aim for a repeat in 2006...

Cheers,
Brian

[BrianB]

Got to hear Satchmo down in Grumpy's room through the Blue Circle phono pre and was so impressed, I snuck in and grabbed it for while on Sunday morning to try with my Oracle. Very impressive piece.

I've been talking up Blue Circle gear here for the past couple of years, and was glad to finally get the chance to show off some of Gilbert's creations to AKers directly (with Gilbert's help, of course!).

An interesting observation: While Blue Circle is primarily known for their tube preamps and hybrid amps, we only brought some of Blue Circle's solid state gear to the show - and the folks who seemed to appreciate it most were more often than not dedicated tube-o-philes...

Had a great time and got to listen to a lot of speakers I've been wondering about. JimBecky brought his big Walsh 4's down to my room and we had a direct a/b test between the two speakers. Altec's, Hartsfields, Tannoys, Obelisks, loved them all, and so little room. Especially the Obelisks...

:) :) :)

[BrianB]

Went to dinner with tentoze, saw BrianB and Gilbert, we just invited ourselves to sit at their table. Unfortunately they had already ordered so we didn’t get freebies. Me and toze got real food (steaks!) while those wussies ate salad. Yeah Brian, like you need to lose weight.

Well, the only thing worse than a thin wussy is a fat wussy.

I hooked up a sweet little Almarro amp to Grumpy’s speakers. Using the Kuzma TT, Dynavector 20H cart and the Blue circle phono pre, I spent some quality time just listening. For the first time I liked the sound of the Dyna. That Blue Circle worked like magic! If you’re in the market for a phono pre, I highly recommend that you go to your local dealer and check it out. If you have no local dealer, then give Venus HiFi a call- BrianB is an authorized dealer.

Yes, please DO give me a call - whoever you are, I want your money! :D

[Kegger]

Sorry to be so late with my response.

Like many others have said there where so many ways to make a good
system at the fest. I saw a lot I liked and met a lot of cool people.
I have a very bad memory for peoples names and so that is unfortunite
for me as I don't know many of the people I met. Sorry guy's.

(styler) "Kegger (love that Back in Baroque!)"
Glad you and many others liked my ac/dc classical, cool stuff to say the least.

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(echowars) "The little DoZ Class-A amp acquitted itself nicely. On Tim's
speaks (damned if I remember what they are...someone refresh
my memory) they had a nice synergy, but we also wired up some
Klipsch bookshelf speaks, and the vocals took on a very believable
quality. I'm pleased, but I didn't get a chance to try it on dgwojo's
Altec's like I wanted. Oh well..."

Just in case you wanted the model # of those klipsch speakers they were
RB35's and I thought they sounded really good on your amp. Great bass!
Thanks for checkin out the My 300B amp was nice to see how flat it is.

================================================== ========

Picked up the sherwood tube reciever from "I hope I got the name right"
Squidweb? And it"s in really nice shape.
Anyone have a copy of the manual/schematic 8000 MK IV ?

Good time guys, great gear!

Craig thanks for letting me know!

[EchoWars]

Thanks for the post Kegger...could not remember what those Klipsch's were. Sorry we couldn't check your amp more accurately with the line voltage problems and all, but at least we got a good idea of the basics...