London Halloween Bake-off Show

<note to self>

Bring ears along to show.

 

Excellent, I'll be very happy to share the amp room with you Rob.

If I can get my recently bought Electro Voice Sentry III's fully working in the next few weeks I was going to bring them down with my Coincident Frankenstein SET's and my Promitheus Reference TVC passive pre.

On paper, the EV Sentrys are more suited to valve than ss amps.

I think it'd be nice to compare this against ss power amplification matched with more ss friendly speakers.

And of course, we're dependent on what other people bring on the day which could include: class AB solid state, valve push pull, class D, class A solid state, active speakers - eg ATC's - etc etc etc.

We could also compare the TVC passive against resistor based passive - eg NVA - and against active pre-amplification, as well as any integrated amps that turn up.


If I have room in the car, or hire a van, I'll be bringing down my EMT record player. The built in phono amplification has a high output for radio broadcast puposes, making it more suitable for passive pre-amps than some phono amps. So an alternative source would be useful for the amp room for comparing pre-amps.

At some point in the day it'd be interesting to move the EMT into the turntable room.

 

Sounds like a great plan Lindsay and I'm looking forward to it.

I might bring along a little 'buffer' that makes SS amps work better (subjectively to some ears) into speakers that traditionally prefer tube amps.

 

There has been a suggestion from Shuggie that we have a mini audio jumble sale as well which can be in the foyer of our hotel wing.

I have been non commital as it is really up to the room bosses / t'committee to decide - any comment?

 

Can't see why not though it will require someone to man the stall if people are going to leave sale kit lying around. I'd say do it so long as someone is willing to take ownership of minding the shop.

 

New website for the show

http://londonbakeoffshow2010.110mb.com/index.php

 

Access to the rooms for the room bosses is 7am Sunday confirmed, with public access from 9am. We can only get confirmed access for Saturday evening by paying for it which obviously I do not want to do. Though they say that if the rooms have no booking for the Saturday then they will give free access on Saturday evening, BUT they will not be able to confirm this until 3 days before the event.

They will not provide tea and coffee facilities unless I guarantee them a minimum number of users and pay for the difference if not used. So all refreshments will be from the main bar which is less than 50ft away so no problem.

We have no chuck out time so can go on to Midnight for break down of rooms, so we can do dems and comps to quite late in the evening if you want.

 

Saturday night set up would be good if possible.
Lets hope we can get access but if not we'll deal with it.

 

We have had a drop out from one of the room bosses for the analogue (tt and phono stages and SUTs etc) room, Gromit can't make it - any volunteers with interesting turntables.

 

Lots of interesting gear promised, lots of people coming, lets make it a biggy annual event for us southerners. 9am start easy acccess (right by J26 M25), nice hotel with BIG bar, even a swimming pool and health spa for wives and kids.

 

Very much looking forward to it.
Seems like a nice mix of vintage and current kit.

Very different to the usual show in that kit can be swapped around at will, both inside and between the different themed rooms. So if you'd like to hear what some vintage AR18s sound like with bang up to date streaming you can. Massive ex cinema horn speakers on the end of tiny domestic amps will be on show, and if you've been wondering what the recent revival in DD turntable is all about there will some to hear at the show.

Attendees are positively encouraged to bring equipment along. This is very different to the usual show and nobody will try to sell you anything!
The idea is to have an enjoyable and fun day.

 

Last call - kick off is tomorrow morning.

Be good to some ZG folk at the event.

 

I'll be there, and bringing my Kensai and a Cyrus 3.

 

Room boss reports and pics!!

 

Richard,

Sorry to read about over on the HF sub forum the sad conclusion to what must have been a fun day! I feel for you as a similar thing happened to me thirty years ago. My wife left my car unlocked after borrowing it for the day and that night during a horrendous thunderstorm, thieves not only stole my active car stereo system but took a crow bar to the rear deck to get the speakers out ruining the interior of the car.

I hope they catch the bastards that did this to you, or better yet, they get blown away by their next victim. I have no use for thieves.

regards,

dave

P.S. Bring on the show pics!

 

How many people showed up?

PS - Sorry to hear about the robbery, Richard.

 

About 50.

 

Very enjoyable event and, personally, far more rewarding than attending a conventional show as a visitor. Met some great people and got to listen to some superb equipment.
What I really enjoyed was the comradery at the event, with room bosses and visitors moving kit between the rooms to try different options, or just to help with problems.

Our room was focused on amplifiers, bit of an odd one for me given my views on the things but it was very useful and I hope those visiting enjoyed the comparisons.

We had the following kit on the day:

- Cyrus 3
- NVA A40 - a one-off converted A40 power amp with passive pot and two inputs.
- Rega Maia power amplifier.
- Quad 34 pre amp
- Simon's diy SKA based nonoblocks
- Quad 306 power amp
- Quad 405/2 power amp
- Alesis RA500 pro power amplifier
- Promitheus TVC passive pre-amp
- Coincident Frankenstein 300b prototypes
- Nick from Audio Talk's home-made pre-power combination featuring a 211 SET power amp and custom Sowter transformers with 2 box 'no expense spared' valve pre amp.
- Jim Kempton's 847 valve power amp built on a Leak chassis
- MiniT Tripath 2020 based amp


Digital source was a Macbook streaming to an Audiosmile modded Behringer DAC.
Analogue came via the EMT 950, the heaviest and most serious looking TT I've ever seen (or lifted).

Speakers were Electro Voice Sentry IIIs - huge things that were went loud cleanly with any of the amps on test.

Comparing the conventional SS linear amplifiers only served to confirm my view that amplifiers performing above a minimum performance bar are very difficult to tell apart. I wont say 'sound identical' because they don't but as near as dammit they do.
Nobody objected to any of the amplifiers and there were no requests to change them due to performance, which is encouraging from my POV, others may differ

The part i found really interesting was hearing the valve amps and think it fair to say we devoted most of the time to these comparisons.
Nick's pre/power is superb and unlike any SET I've heard to date. It had all of the positives from a good amplifier but none of the things I associate with less 'no holds barred' designs. These were taut and in command of the speaker.
The Pre was also superb and we actually left thin in use for many of out power amp sessions until Nick whisked it away.

Jim's little valve amp was also great, softer toned and lighter in balance than Nick's but the history of the beast is interesting.
The amp started life a a Leak, Jim asked a friend to repair the amp and what came back was the Leak chassis with a completely different design on it!
I can't recall the valve compliment but it worked extremely well and looked very 'science lab project'.

Lindsay's 300B amp was probably the one that sounded most as expected for me.
Lush and soft toned compared to the other valve amps which is no bad thing for the speakers in use. Speaker choice would be important to get the most from these IMO.

The T amp was very competent in many ways. Tonal balance was fine and it went loud enough into the Sentry IIIs. Electrically it was quiet.
It just lacked dynamics and sounded sat-on compared to all of the other amps.

Didn't get to spend too much time in the other rooms but the Speaker room stood out for the overall quality of kit on display.
The Avondale Rev1s were impressive. When I entered the room they were perched in front of some Rogers LS5/8s and it took a moment to realise that the Rev was playing rather than the Rogers. They really filled the room (and it was a large room) and it was pleasure to hear them.

Active LS5/8s driven by Quad 405s with the filter cards in place were also sounding good. A little rich but I only heard a couple of tracks.
Source in the Speaker room was Avondale Cd player and a stunning Nagra open reel digital recorder.

TT room had a Pioneer PL71 and Garrard 401 in play, and the EMT 950 mad its way in for comparison later in the day. Good to see Jim using the old faithful A&R A60, and pleased he enjoyed using the Dynaco A25s. Sounded good.
Think about it - PL71, A60 and A25s is what £500?
Decent cartridge on that Pioneer and you have something capable of excellent performance.

Didn't make it into the Computer audio room or Cables room for any listening as of course our own room had to be maned.

Numbers attending was a disappointment, but that's their loss - we all had a great day and as a format I think this makes an excellent compliment to the established shows.
If it happens again - and i hope it does - we'll need to look at promotion and perhaps making these events dual purpose. I'm thinking perhaps half enthusiast based to retain the bake-off element and half audio cottage industry. So you'd have perhaps a dozen very small companies such as NVA, Avondale, Anatek, J7, Timestep etc paying a modest fee of £200=300 with the rest raised by tickets. Important to exclude the big boys and keep it focused on the enthusiasts. Just some thoughts for the future.


Some pics:

 

This sucks. I know it's unlikely but I hope the bastards get caught.

The attendance was disappointing but it was a good show.

 

That's a real shame. It looks like a lot of energy went into the project. I hope the 50 who went enjoyed it!