The myth busting day

Things carried on later than most people expected, hence why no posts here yet...

I think a good day was had by all, and plenty of listening and talking and eating went on, as is usual at these things. I had nothing to prove or to have proved to me, so I was more just listening to the bits of kit that people brought and having some interesting conversations.

However, I did participate in a digital cable comparison, and although subtle, I did feel that I could consistently pick up differences.

Some pics will follow from Dean and Tim I'm sure.

Oh yeah, to all those who were there you'll all be glad to know that after some emergency surgery, my superDAC is back to fighting fit. I declare it to be one all tone!

 

Good stuff Isaac, glad the Superdac has made it. Still be ineterested to know what went wrong though.

Yes a good day was had by all I think, I certainly enjoyed it. There were a number of highlights which I'm sure people will cover later. Many thanks to all who attended, never seen so many people at a bakeoff type thing before!!

Thanks for making the trip to (in no particular order and hope I don't leave anyone out):

Julian2002
Isaac Sibson
SCIDB
Sideshowbob
Cookiemonster
Paul Ranson
Sgt Rock
Graham C
Dev
Rory

Of course WM and I, and also Duncan and Adrian from the staff at OT/OA who came in to say hello and who were shocked at the sheer number of people. That's the fullest the offices have ever been by a large margin, but at least there were donuts left over so there was enough of everything!!!

It was very nice to meet GrahamC, Cookiemonster, Paul Ranson & Rory for the first time as well. I'm very glad we managed to avoid the power cut that affected much of the rest of that part of Cheltenham as well. That would have been embarrassing!!!

Cheers

 

just got in and thought i'd post to say thanks to tony and tim for setting it up and to duncan and adrian for putting up with the freakshow.
it was good to see some old faces again and put names to new ones. i didn't participate in the digital cable tests (as i'm not likely to have a dac with my current cd player being a naim) but it was interesting to hear rory's plinius, ssb's sonneteer, pauls esl63's (which i'm looking forward to hearing on my kit next saturday) and the OA test rigs. i've also been privilaged enough to set eyes on timpy's speaker stash (it reminded me of the end of raiders of the lost ark - speaker cabs going on for ever )
bit too tired to post much more after a hair raising drive dodging bits of flying tree and some maniac towing a 4 meter satelite dish down the m1 but i'll add more later.
isaac i'm glad your super dac isn;t kaput.
tony, when you get back in off the ale i thought you might like to know that the cable you lent me is impressing me at present on some nicely chilled stuff - must thrash it's bits off tomorrow.
cheers


julian

 

I'd just like to thank Tim and Tony for their hospitality and say what a pleasure it was to meet you all.

You guys carry on talking about... whatever.

 

thank you all, especially Dev for the very comfortable drive and hospitality and all the Omiga crew for laying on all the refreshments.
nice to meet everyone, and hope to see all of you in the near future

cheers

 

Thanks to Tim and Tony for their hospitality. Good to see some cookies amongst the banquet too.

Just having some barbecue rice crackers for my supper.

Nice to meet some new faces.

cheers chaps for an enjoyable day.

 

Thanks to the two T's for putting up with us, and Dino for transporting me in lashing rain and gale force winds. Nice to meet some forumites I'd never met before. Too knackered to write any sort of report tonight, but an enjoyable day.

-- Ian

 

Glad you saw them, by the time I got to them there were none left

BTW, wasn't it an interesting drive on the way back. I can't remember ever driving in such strong winds before. Rory still managed to doze off.

 

So, what did we learn?

- Ruark Broadswords are bloody awful speakers

- Quad ESL63's even do a good job playing reggae

- My Sonneteer, Issac's M-Audio Superdac, somebody else's Entech, Paul's Linn Karik/Numerik all sounded basically the same even in a sighted comparison, or similar enough that it's very hard to distinguish them. I missed the introduction of Dean's DAC64, but general consensus seemed to be it was readily identifiable, although opinion was divided about whether it was better or simply different

- I couldn't hear any difference between different digital cables, although we didn't spend much time testing them. Tone picked out cables blind a couple of times, but the test was hardly definitive, we need to get him into a lab and experiment on him at length

- Sgt Rock is a very nice man who gives away free records

Total number of myths busted = 0, but it was an entertaining day.

I managed to play a fair bit of music, Spaceheads, Add N to X, The Congos, Lol Coxhill, Cornelius, John Fahey, other stuff I can't remember.

On the way back had a brief visit to Tone's to hear the current incarnation of his setup, now sounding very good, his low end is nicely under control, oo-er missus. Finally, and nobody will believe me but until you've heard it too you don't know, I got to hear cookiemonster's new system: a Sony micro system, with decently powerful digital amp (around 70 watts). Costs around £150 with speakers. Holy crap, this is not lo-fi, but the real thing. I have heard much worse separates systems than this. Looking forward to trying it with some better speakers, and really want to hear what my TT sounds like through the aux input. Pride of ownership = 0, but I'm deeply shocked and impressed, gone are the days where micro system = super-weedy amp with no life and body, tinny treble and boomy bass, and a rough and nasty CD player. This thing is bloody good, and I'm not being sarcastic.

-- Ian

 

An entertaining day that I hope Omiga will repeat.

I'm concerned for the health of Dean's valve power amp, but perhaps it was just clipping? In a brief demo between the DAC64 and the Numerik it seemed to 'clip' less with the latter. Not a very useful comparison.

Thanks to Sgt Rock for the vinyl pick'n'mix.

Paul

 

First I like to say, a big thank you to all the attendee's who braved the whether and came along yesterday, Both Tim & myself appriecated your efforts, did we learn a lot ?, well proberbly not too much, but I feel it was useful and fun, entertaining too.
Good to met Dev, Ror, Graham C for the first time also a big thanks to Paul Ranson for lugging his quads and Linn stuff along, quite a nice sound they made too also to Dean Sicdb who I never seem to have enough time to chat about music too, which is a shame because the man is a font of knowledge on music cheers for masking it a good day. Tone

 

Hi,

First off, I would like to say a big thank you to Big Tone & Timpy for having this event. It was good to see them plus Julian & Ian again.

It was also good to meet Paul Ranson, Graham C, Isaac, Dev, Rory, Dino (Cookiemonster) and the good Sgt Rock for the first time. It was also good to meet some of the bods (Adrian & Duncan) of Omega technology.

I would have to say that the title myth busting day wasn't a apt one. It was more of a social get together. There was nothing much formal about the day. People just did as they pleased.

I bought down with me a number of CDs, some cables, my SJS Arcadia valve pre with an Audio innovations 800 power amp with border patrol power supply. My (in)famous Chord dac64 made the trip as well.

To start off with, there was some cable swopping but it was hard to tell one from the other. Also there was some swopping between Ian's cd player , linn Karik/Numerik, the Superdac & a Entec. The speakers did seem to be a limiting factor. Changing the speaker cable seemed to help.

Things got interesting when the Quad speakers were put in place. This gave the chance for a number of people to have a good listen.

By this time, people were milling around the building, some were chatting in the kitchen or in one of the offices, some were listening to Timpy's office system or listening to a cable test system.

I had chance to play with the Quads, first using Plinius amp then with my Valve combo. The Quads did surprise people. I have heard them many times & can enjoy their strengths.

I did enjoy them when using the Chord Dac64 with the Valve combo. They were producing some good tight sounds. I didn't get the clipping that Paul has mentioned but will check the amp out later on this week.

To be honest, I was just listening to the tunes being played rather than trying to bust any myths.

I did have a sighted listen to some Omega digital cables. I did hear differences between them in the test system. The one that did it for me wasn't the most expensive.

I agree, I didn't get chance to have a good chat with Big tone which was a shame but I did get to chat with everyone else.

I have to give a big thumbs up the the good Sgt Rock. He gave away a load of free vinyl. Well done that man & you can name your drink the next time I see you, I'm buying.


I did get to play these (plus others I can't seem to remember)

Joss Stone - The soul sessions
Lee Dorsey - The definitive collection
Herbie Hancock - Future 2 Future
Tim 'Love' Lee - Confessions of a selector
Skatalites - Ball of Fire

a very good day was had.

SCIDB

 

Yep, a few people came to listen to my system ,
Unfortunately it was a bit "one in one out" because the room is a bit small, but I think it works in there about as well as I can get it. Nothing changed in that system during the day except the music, unusual for a bake-off!!

Cheers

 

Seems like on the other side certain people (no names, no pack drill) are reading far too much into what happened at the weekend

ATAICT It sounded like a nice social event, with a few bits of kit tried out and plenty of listening to music. nothing more, nothing less. I really cannot understand what all the fuss is about.

 

Absolutely correct, almost like you were there .

I have tried to answer the queries raised "on the other side". Hopefully that'll be the end of it. I generally don't like to get into arguments over HiFi myths since it's all subjective.

 

Thanks to all at Omiga for hosting a Trekkies convention. Nice to see Dev and Rory again, and new faces/holograms.
I was impressed with the enthusiasm, and quantity of food,
at Omiga - it looks a cool place to work.

If I understand right, I think they wanted to get a bunch of
know-it-alls together and find out if we agree the same thing
by "jaw dropping", "night and day" etc. and just have fun.
I spent more time talking than listening, but I remember:

Demos. I sort of agree with SideshowBob, most kit is similair swapped about in new acoustics, except the Quads which have an immediate rightness. Apart from being very good, they buzz the room much less because they're dipoles.

Timpy's work system was nicely Irish Coffee - fun and relaxing in a small room. I reckon Tony's work system is a bit dry for me, which I find with JMlabs. Might be what you need tho for hearing fleafarts when researching cables.
Thanx to Tony for finally getting to hear his home system.
I'd say it can "hard punch" bass, ["visceral" gut-churning bass needs a bigger room], detailed open mid, and a clean [not edgy or silky] top. It plays mid 90's dB with no amp strain and little speaker stress, and it keeps it's signature at high dBs.

Tony swapped some analogue cables at home, which made a fair
difference to my ears [about the same as similair quality CD
players ie small - less than changing amps].

I also had a CD greened before I could argue! It hasn't made it worse, and I reckon it is now less forward and edgy, though I'm just as fallible as anyone to these demos.

I was in the tea room when Tony picked out digital cables in a blind test, but if that's the way it happened, then I think it deserves a mention. There aren't many people with a financial risk who would stick their neck out that way. Maybe he's barking mad, or might just be on to something.

I must apologise if you are all sick this week. I thought I was over a cold, but I may have spread it West.
Cheers again all for a fun day. Hope no was blown away.

 

I certainly don't believe there was a 'tea room' as the above poster indicates. Or if there was, then it certainly wasn't serving tea. I suspect everyone was 'high on drugs' or something.

 

yeah man we was whizzin out tits off on hi-c orange and ribena innit. mind you there was a lot of sugary treats around....

i was in the room when tony picked the 2 cables correctly (i believe he said they were both commercially available) and he was out of the room when dev did the swapping. he even let us know what he was looking for (one cable recessed the mids and exaggerated the lows and highs and the other exagerated the mids and toned down the lows and highs). it took a little listening for him to identify the second one but he got both correct and i'm not sure he was familiar with the music being played.

like most who went i lurked in the kitchen and had a good chinwag for a large part of the day. although i did stick my head out the door for some of the a/b comparisons of cd players and had a good listen to the quads, i'm even more looking forward to hearing them on saturday...
cheers


julian

 

Just to clear up any confusion here, the cables concerned were Van Damme's studio digital (non balanced, blue not green) & Summer (high quality German studio stuff) cables equivilent, both had bullets fitted, they both do have a 'signature' of their own, more easily identifable in open and transparent systems, however the difference in that set up was little more than slight (Ruark Broadswords, the infamously grim FFRC, entec dac, sonnerteer Byron & Plinus 100 intergrated, IXOS 'orange' analogue cables)
The day was about the people really, & a good time was had by all, Omiga Audio may well do another one, in the not too distant future. T.

 

Tone,
please check with Micheal Fish befor the next one, dont want it on the worst day of the year again

slightly embarrassed, being probably one of the closest and not making it there