Bake off in sunny Ilford???

This is my DAC. It even comes with a free amp

 

was going to ask if i could attend,the realised sootys coming to vist for the day

 

I'd love to poke my nose in and bring along a couple of toys, but it's my birthday on the 9th so I'll have to pass. Sorry. Coulda brought along my Krell KAV-400xi for a laugh!!!

 

Les - Just be careful where you stick that hand.

 

just to say that my a/s dax decade will be doing a gig on the same day but in Edinburgh, with the a/s modded transport putting out Ncode. Plan is to team it up with Dunkboy's active ATC 20s. I'll see whether there will be a dac 64 on the same bill.

 

Bring him along as well

 

Hi guys (Ian, John, Julian and Lee), I've just sent you a PM with my address, telephone and directions.

If anyone else wants to join us please let me know and I'll forward the directions.

 

Are we expected to post a report on the bake-off? or would it suffice to say, we had a good day and must do it again sometime?

Thanks to everyone who took partcipated.

 

Dev, stop being so long-winded.

Thanks for the hospitality, good to see you again.

I thought Dev's Tannoys were excellent, that all the DACs and CD players sounded pretty similar, power cables made no significant difference, my Leak Stereo 20 drove the Tannoys beautifully, and that of the IC tests, the only cable that sounded very noticeably different was the Nordost Valhalla, which was worse at reproducing solo piano than all the much cheaper cables in an unsighted test. The other cables, DIY and commercial, ranging from freebie red 'n whites to Acoustic Zen, sounded so similar I'd have problems telling them apart, although I thought there were some very subtle differences (so subtle that they don't matter).

Nice to meet up, and no hi-fi wars to report.

Can't remember what I got to play, but there was a fair amount, from Zorn to Silver Jews to American Analogue Set via Lee Hazelwood, Coltrane, and Lee Perry.

-- Ian

 

and Ian, you were nearly right, she bought 2 pairs of boots .

 

a big thanks to dev and his family, the food was amazing i just wish my diet allowed me to try some of the other stuff which looked fantastic.
the tanoys really surprised me, i was expecting a super polite system (especially with mf amps) but it could stick it's thumbs in it's trousers and get down when it needed to.
the 'bakeoffy' stuff we did, comparing the chord with my dax2 and the cable tests we did although not conclusive showed that although there are differences between kit it really is down to personal preference (even though the chord cobra vs nordost valhalla was a unanimous verdict in favour of the chord!).
still like most times this wasn't about the kit it was about the people and the music. i've got a few new bits of music to look for now and had a good day out.
only problems were being detoured across half of bedfordshire and hertfordshire as part of my route was closed and then finding the m11 from ilford via stratford on the way back - london gotta love the place. still even that couldn't spoil the day.
hopefully i'll be arranging something once my speakers are done.
cheers


julian

 

Right Julian, how hard is "first right and carry on going for 1.5-2 miles when you hit A12, then turn left. The A12 crosses the M11 (at Redbridge roundabound)"?
Seriuosly what went wrong? did you miss the A12/M11 intersection?

 

Really fun day out. Great food and company, oh and a couple of tunes were played as well.

Worst sound of the day was with the Nordost Valhalla. Very puzzled by this. Apart from that the rest of the day the sound was great. Think it caused some suprise by how well the Leak ST20 (12 watts of push pull EL84) worked in to the Tannoys.

Nice to meet Clive (Zaphod IIRC on HFC) and his DIY stuff.

Kit List
Arcam 9/MF X-A2 Pre/MF X-A200 Power/Tannoy D700 (Dev)
Densen CD400 XS/loads of cables and tweaks (Clive)
Audio Synthesis DAC/Chord Cobra (Julian)
Chord DAC 64/Leak ST20/cheap cables (Ian)
Various cables (Me)

Best music of the day
Crystal Method (Julian)
Some German/US/UK band playing Stairway to Heaven (Dev) well I liked it

 

i'm sure he won't mind me correcting his hfc alias as 'zarquon'

nice to hear the Valhallas made another appearance. Wish i could have been there. Next time eh

 

dev,
i'm used to driving round country lanes, the bright lights / big city threw me plus the huge amounts of people on the road, seemingly with their brains in the glove box screaming 'ramming speeeeed' in a brian blessed styleee
i tried to retrace my steps but got seduced by some signposts saying 'm11' which suddenly went away. got to the big bus depot in stratford before being able to turn round - saw a sign for walthamstow (which i knew was near the m11) and headed for there - eventually got onto a road with lots of tunnels - i thought i was in paris and then hit the m11. took about an hour never mind though.
cheers


julian

 

Hi Lee,

The band was The Far Corporation.

Edit : Lee, I completely agree with you about Ian's 12WPC Leak valve amp and your "baked beans tin" pre-amp combination with the Tannoys. I was genuinely surprised by how well (and loud!) they sounded.

Hi Rory,

Yes, hopefully you can make it the next time. We (well I!) did conclude that cables do not make significant difference in my system, and we tried quite a selection from DIY freebies to £2k I/Cs. We also tried a selection of mains cables, again no significant (if any) difference. The only exception was the speaker cables. The Isolda speaker cable did sound better to me and others. Which is good news because I don't have to spend any money on them now .

BTW, Clive's ID here in ZG is CYAD.

 

Well I knew it was one of the characters from Hitchhikers

 

Many thanks from me also to Dev and his family for their excellent hospitality. Good to meet Dev again, and Lee, Ian and Julian for the first time. I was exposed to loads of new music, some of which I would like to hear again. I too was impressed by the overall sound quality of Dev's system - good scale and a natural, non-fatiguing sound.

It was interesting to see Lee's Gainclone, even though we couldn't listen to it because someone forgot the mains cable with the special plug

Ian's Leak valve amp drove the big Tannoys surprisingly well. I was also impressed by the Leak driving Lee's LS3/5As - a reminder in some respects of how little things have moved on in ~30 years.

A good day out with good company. And I didn't get lost on the way back to the A12.

Clive