!! West Country Bake-Off !!

Oh dear! Sorry to hear that felix Cars are a pain aren't they. Mine just cost me the better part of £700

So...who's still coming

 

I could pick you up from Bath if you like, but can't say yet if I will be at the bake off all day, I have a lot to cram in this weekend.Send me a PM if interested.
Chris, what time is kick off?

 

I also need to know if you guys have any particular dietary needs or things you can't stand

And who will be around for lunch and who will be around for tea so I know how much food to prepare.

 

Tenson, if you were 'landing' at bath i could pick you up too.

Chris, will be there for lunch but will be gone by tea time, eat anything, me.Apart from Rhubarb

Chris.

 

Chris that's a very kind offer, you'll have PM shortly.

 

Chris, that is indeed a kind offer. One I would like to take you up on! What sort of time would I need to arrive in Bath?

 

Tenson, you have PM

 

Tony! Your pm storage is overflowing

Something weird happened when I tried to pm you so you might have a rather odd message waiting

Are you and yours still planning to come to this 'ere bake-off?

 

Sorry I am going to have to pull out. I just looked at fares and they are stupid. Cheapest one was over £55 for a return.

 

OK Tenson, no worries. The fare seems about par for the course. I went from Bristol to Manchester and back for £55 last year. By the time I added up petrol and parking charges the car would have cost just as much. Kent is almost as far as Manchester so sounds about right. Transport just is expensive and is going to get dramatically more so very soon now.

So, we still have:

chrisp
Coda II
robert_cyrus
felix

and maybe:

penance + 1
wadia-miester

 

Yep, spoke to Chris earlier - lift arranged, definitely coming along

 

All systems go! :techno:

 

Picking up Chris at 10.30 should be with you before mid day.

 

Well that was fun! Shame you all couldn't stay into the evening. An interesting day with quite a variety of music. As well as the usual suspects (see sig) we had a Naim CDX, a Naim Nait 2, some Indigo standmount speakers and a few cables.

The CDX is a nice CD player. A bit calmer than the Arcam, slightly less mid-forward and a tad smoother - more refined. It should sound better of course at nearly three times the price and it didn't disappoint. I felt it suited some types of music better than others though. It had good separation of instruments and all the separate parts could be easily followed. It didn't always put them together into a convincing hole though. The other thing it didn't do was it didn't create a credible soundstage. It didn't recreate the acoustic of the recording venue so everything sounded a bit as though it had all been recorded in the same room - Stevie Ray Vaughan was playing in my local pub, not a smokey nightclub. It wouldn't be the one I'd choose because I like the soundstage and the believable acoustic that the Arcam produces. I did like the smoothness (or rather lack of harshness) and the intelligibility. It's given me some clues as to what to listen for if I do ever go for a more expensive player.

We tried the solid silver speaker cable to see what effect it had. Chris will tell us who's it was. I could hear no immediate differences (this on piano and cello where I would expect changes to be evident). Maybe on extended listening a difference would be detected when reverting to the Van Damme but it would I think be very subtle.

The little Nait 2 (was that 15 Watts per channel?) did a creditable job of getting some sound out of the Dyns, fed by the CDX. It sounded OK. Nothing too nasty except that from cold it couldn't follow a tune It warmed to the task though and was soon producing some reasonable sounds. No soundstage of course. And a fair bit of detail and definition missing but a good performance for its price.

The Indigo standmounts had a slight disadvantage as one tweeter was found to be dented on arrival (not from the journey). Still they managed to produce a reasonable sound. A little bit thin. They were light in the bass. Quite quick and reasonably open though. Apparently they sold for £400 which sounds a little bit ambitious to me.

As for my system, it didn't like the opera that Robert chose. The voice was too forward and loud in comparison to the orchestra. I assume it doesn't normally sound like that. It wasn't possible to get enough power out of the orchestra without the voice shreaking painfully. Strange as the system was fine with the cellos and piano and it was quite impressive with The Great Gate Of Kiev from Pictures At An Exhibition - wonderful tympanies - like thunder - first time I've played that on the Dyns.

It's very hard to balance a system to suit all kinds of music, especially given the widely varying balance of CDs. I think I have a good compromise for the kinds of music I listen to. The sub does become obtrusive on some modern stuff though where it's obvious that the engineer has added a lot of very low bass boost. On other stuff that's properly recorded/produced, it makes the instruments sound more whole and the acoustic more believable (and as for those timpanies ).

And I have a shopping list for two CDs

And I never got to play any Dire Straits or Led Zep

Must do another one soon

 

Nice write up Chris, it is always pleasing when your own kit sounds best I too find opera a very tricky genre to reproduce with finesse and absolute control, given our amps are both pretty powerful! I agree with subs, even great ones cant make exaggerated bass boost sound good! At the moment i am getting 99% of the bass depth of the strata III thru the 9NTs and it does sound more cohesive too.

What silver cable did you try? Have you heard a difference from speaker cables yet? I didn't until i tried the genesis and some DIY solid core silver stuff a friend bought round when he bought my jm labs. I could hear clear differences in each. I think its when you move to cables with different contruction methods and that you hear more differences.

Cheers
Ultra

 

ChrisP & I arrived about midday to find Rob Cyrus worrying at that Indigo speaker - but some resourceful and persistent blutacking did a remarkable job of undenting the tweeter! It took me a little while to get used to the presentation of monitors+sub (I use horns at home - and almost never sit in the hot seat !) so only a few quick impressions:

*The ATC/Dynaudio/Rel combo is not lacking in muscle..! Clearly balanced for rock music, it's probably more mid-bass heavy than my taste runs to, but it's just that, a matter of taste. Capable of good subtlety, too.

*Silver cables vs. resident, chunky VanDamme pro stuff - interesting. I'm not, by and large, a big believer in cables beyond R-L-C making a difference, so thought this rather too subtle to call on a quick audition. But... certainly worth a try, and maybe one I'll give some more time to.

*Of the CDX instead of TechnoBear's Arcam - quite different presentation, I thought it consistently more evenhanded, but then I'm strange that way.

*Nait 2 vs resident ATC integrated beast; ha, a ringer. If my little recapped and supperegged Nait had got close to the ATC there would have been something wrong. I haven't used the amp for a while, and it did quite obviously warm to the task at hand after a a good caning. Completely different presentation (obviously), much smaller and 'stripped-down' sounding. That said I rather enjoyed the Elgar piece through CDX/Nait/Dynaudios. A bit 'small' but very relaxing and it still got a lot of stuff right for me - the woody tone of a cello, for one.

Beyond that - we played a lot of music and I had a great time. Props to Chris for organising and hosting the gig, and for some damn fine food at half time. Thanks also to the other Chris, for the lift- much appreciated.

Ok, next SW get-together in Bath sometime...?

 

the silver cable was "mithril" from "frontfloater" bob the skydiver (sorry that's the only name i know for him).

blu-tac helped pull out the indigo tweeter a little. they might have been less than £400, i think def > £300; there was a review in hifi+ (no. 5 - February 2000), and i paid £140 if memory serves. had not noticed the tweeter had been poked at some point. actually i could be completely wrong with the original rrp.
found this http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec99/articles/indigo.htm
mine are the model 1's. outclassed by the dyn's, but pretty good in themselves.

anyway ....

a great day, good food, and good tunes (and no tv!). chris's dyn's are some speaker for the size, dishing up orbital, opera, and the tunes i threw in with deftness. there's definitely something in the combination of a big amp (that atc is heavy!) small standmounts and a sub in the corner of the room.

good to meet the guys, and big thanks to chris for the invite.

 

Yes, it was. If only it did a better soundstage, I would be seriously tempted.

You got it!

 

A big thanks to Chris for the excellent hospitality and cuisine, a thoroughly enjoyable day with some great variations in music.
Apologies to Rob for requesting Orbital as he's a big classical fan

Once again I was impressed by Chris' ATC, has the smoothness of valves I like with bags of control (I want one!).The Dynaudios prooved a revelation too TBH I preferred them without the sub (still not convinced I'm afraid but they do kick ass with dance )

Great to meet everyone, shame I had to leave early.

Thanks again ChrisP

 

Monday morning and the head-ache has completely gone!!

- Many thanks to Chris for a good day - and yes I really did enjoy most of what was played.

It's clear that Chris has a lot of fun with his system - it was also clear that if I had the same, 50% of my music would stay on the shelf as un-listenable

The main points have already been covered but the thing I couldn't work out was what was going wrong with big classical stuff:

Verdi Requiem (Dies irae: roughly translated - The day of wrath, that day which will reduce the world to ashes) huge choir, full orchestra, in theory plenty on hand to give a really impressive sound - but no; still it was (as Chris said above) far better than -

Wagner/Tristan & Isolde/Liebestod which was unfaillingly unpleasant (even to those who might like it normally!)

But...Cello & piano (Beethoven sonata) was rather good, more so with sub removed, though at other times the sub was a definate improvement.

Would be interested to know which bit wasn't doing it with classical vocal; although the Arcam plays a part I'd guess it's an amp or speaker thing and, to a degree, the fact that the set up is relatively close.

Anyway, thanks - it was an ear-opener!