ZG goes to chez summit

Lovely to see you all. Enjoyed the company and all that. I promised to post the listening list before I hit the sack, then credit cards can take a hammering.

Thea Gilmore Land of the Free
Blackmores Night Ghost of the Rose
Tori Amos +12
John Martyn Glory Box
Paul Weller YOu do something to me (live and acoustic)
Damien Rice Bloivers Daughter (Not sure I've read the writing quite right there!)
Anjuna Beats Forever
Nitin Sawney Nadia
Alice in Chains Down in a hole
Lydia Mordkovitch Brahms violin sonata in G major 1st movement
Mark Knopfler What is it?
Beethoven Symphony no 5 Karajan (1957? recording)
Maroon 5 She will be loved
Alice in Chains Would? Unplugged

On vinyl

Peter Gabriel The rhythm of the heat
Led Zeppelin IN my time of dying

great night guys. I'm off to bed now!

 

Thanks for your hospitality. A pleasure to meet you all. Good company, good kit, good listening, good night. Will comment further tomorrow.

 

Most likely to be 'The Blower's Daughter'

 

Yep it definitely could be that. Me I'm off to work now, having been woken up by the bombshell that Kevin Keegan had been sacked whilst I was enjoying myself.

 

A very enjoyable, if rather late evening. I feel like a steamroller ran over me, and didn't even take Tony up on his offer of some further listening!

A few kit comparisons were done, which it was interesting to see the results of.

nosDAC vs SuperDAC - for tony and rich it seemed the nos was the clear winner, For me they both had strengths and weaknesses, but for my own system and taste the nosdac would probably be slightly better. Unfortunately the nosdac developed a problem (wouldn't be a bakeoff otherwise!).

Mingda vs Musical Fidelity - Interesting comparison... the MF was smoother, more controlled in the bass and quite separated, but personally I found it less involving than the valve amp.

Rotel RCD-991 vs Marantz CD16 - Of course, transports make no difference

And that was quite enough geekery for the evening. So, some good music enjoyed, good pizza, good company. When I get myself sorted out then I will be hosting one... hope to see you guys there!

 

Sorry I couldnt make it but more pressing matters. Interesting points there, Im glad to see the nosDAC came out well, but believe me, the performance moves up a couple of gears with a decent psu. Im delighted the valve amp help its own, being a devout valver Im glad to read these things. Theres loads you can do to improve their performance. BTW what problem did the dac develop??

 

The nosDAC got some things very right indeed whereas the SuperDAC simply didn't get anything horribly wrong. I'd like to investigate the nosDAC further as it seems very able to get the physical architecture of the music across. Sadly it later developed a fault and started to sound like a bad harmoniser effect that Cher would be proud of.

I'd never had transports dem'd to me before and was quite shocked / disturbed by just how much better the Trichord modded Marantz was. Again a fundamental musical difference rather than just a presentational one.

I very much preferred the Ming-Da (though I am well known for not getting on with the MF way of doing things). The Ming-Da gave the impression of being a hell of a lot of amp for 400 or so quid and sounded surprisingly big, punchy and fun. Goes bloody loud too so would probably drive my less efficient Harbeths rather well!

It was really good to put some faces to names. Many thanks to Richard for the hospitality.

Tony.

 

Hello all!

Rich - many many thanks for the hospitality.
Isaac - many thanks for the lift

twas good to meet you all, good company, good (heavy!!) kit and a varied musical selection!

thanks for putting up with my sub-gcse electronics questions - my head is still spinning, perhaps i should just sit back and enjoy the music instead of wondering how its reproduced

Still half asleep following a great night . (well, until me poor dac took i'll! - though ,as you know i had my concerns before last night - an e-mail has gone to the far east this morning with a request for urgent reply / action!).

Is was interesting to see the NOS compared to the super-dac. in the end i think my ideal would be a combination of the two . felt the super dac had more detail and control though i preferrred what i feel is a more natural presentation style of the NOS....... that said, prior to taking ill, the little nos had onlyhad 10-12 hours action at the most, so still well short of run in and only running on the stock wall wart........
Hopefully i'll get satisfactory answers from Derek and i'll be up and running again before long, quite likely with an upgraded PSU.

Still dont think Tony will be weaned off vinyl though........

T-bone - others may add to this but there was clear distortion at higher frequencies, particulary evident in vocals - i had noticed it before - see my 'broken voices' thread but had ultimately thought the fault lay elsewhere in the system. Last night we tried it with 2 sources and 2 amps and we also tried ensuring the dac was well away from possible interference. Most frustrating, as i say i hope Derek is a good as he seems to come across, as something is clearly not right. Hopefully its a one off - i have not seen any adverse comments anywhere else.......

Biggest thing for me on the night was the transport comparisson - before last night i'd have put my mortgage on their being no differnce in transports 'sound'. the result of the comparisson was trul y an ear opener.....

Now feeling i need a new amp - somebody please stop me making a random bid on a primare a20.mk11

 

Dont buy it, go valve valve VALVE you'll forever thank me. Sorry to hear about your dac, mines great hopefully dirk will sort you out.

You should go and post your findings with transport on the hfc forum, one of the reasons I stopped posting on there is because I was getting fed-up with people telling me my nosDAC was crap and a transport is transport, oh really?

Id host a bash myself but Im in a three quarters renovated terrace so its a squeeze and Ive an arrangement with the neighbours regarding my levels. However, anyone is more than welcome and hopefully I'll have some full-range speakers going.

 

Big thanks to Lordsummit for hosting the Bakeoff and for picking me up and dropping me off from the station. The first thing I noticed at Lordsummit was how good his amp was with vocals and in the midband. The most interesting thing on the evening was super dac - nos dac comparison, I think I was the only one to prefer the super dac, Imo the nos dac was hard and may impress at first but would irritate my ear and I would want to turn it off after a while. Good to meet new faces, Missed the mf amp so can’t comment. Thanks again to Lordsummit.

 

folks - NOS DAC update.

am in communication with Derek .

appears he's more than happy to resolve the issue, whatever the problem turns out to be
initially he's stated that he's sure of the quality of his DAChis / components and their q/a standards.
at this time he's erring towards the wall-wart being the problem, apparently he's used 2 brands, never had any reported issues but has asked me to confirm which one mine was supplied with.

given Dereks thoughts i may just try a wart from a well known source with no quibble returns poilcy!! presume that should be of some sort of quality and may prove things one way or another........i'll keep you posted.

 

Your more than welcome to try your dac with my psu if you want to see if it makes a difference, Ive also still got the original one sent with it if you want that.

 

just out of interest as a superdac owner, was this superdac modded, and to what extent?

 

Yes. Pll mod, new output op amps, all electrolytic caps upgraded, new rectifying diodes, custom toroidal PSU. Not my best modded one (that belongs to Will), but still a good improvement over stock.

 

Been out all day so couldn't comment earlier and on my way out again (i'm tired). Really enjoyed last night, good to meet people, my thanks also to Richard.

I have to agree the transport comparison was an eye opener. The Nos vs super wasn't a fair test so will reserve judgement until next time.

Richards valve amp is fabulous and I would love to hear it in my system if your up for a trip Scholes way soon.

The Tori track is called 'I can't see new york' (didnt have the inlay it was track 12)

3 cd's orderd today!

 

Out of interest rob, which ones?

 

Don't get all random on me..an A20mkII will sh$t on an Audiolab from 2 miles up...an excellent amp [better than the other Primark dross]

 

Thea Gilmore
Blackmoors Night
Maroon 5

 

Nice. I'll probably get that blackmores night one.

I've put some decent phono sockets on the superDAC now... hopefully no more coming loose!

 

What was that album with the asian vocal and BASS?