The Burning Amp Festival- an Audio Happening

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CharlieLaub

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TerryG said:
Hawthorne Audio; View topic - Douglas Self's Presentation on active xovers.

I posted some slides of Douglas Self's presentation from Burning Amp, on the above location at the Hathorne Audio forum. As several there I know are interested in active crossovers. I waited to long to post them and as a result forgot much of what Douglas said, but the basics are there I believe.
Click to expand...

Mr. Self basically presented the material that is in his latest book on active crossovers. This seems to rehash the material from his book "Small Signal Audio Design" with minor some additional content.

Anyone who was interested in his talk should get the book.

-Charlie
 
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TerryG

Member
Joined 2005
I just wanted to mention that Burning Amp I felt was a huge success and Mark you should be very happy with how it went off. I don't know of a single venue like this where the room acoustics are "good enough". But unless I audition things in my own room it is hard to get a serious idea of how it sounds.

This hands down has to be the best organized events of this sort I have ever attended. The only thing that I felt that could have added to the event was if Mark could have cloned himself so that he could be in more than one place at a time. Everything seemed to go really well in spite of all the things that come up that are unforseen challenges. I don't think Nelson was super worried about the room acoustics I know I wasn't, the volume level of all the participants was more in the way of detecting audio nuance than the acoustics. Some were merely breadboards, and I was just as interested in those.

But some of the conversations I had were worth more to me than anything I heard, as good as some of it was. More than anything the artistic skill of some of the builds was nothing short of incredible.

Terry
 
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Variac

Variac

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No worries Terry. The show is tricky, kinda like designing something. I design stuff in my "real job" and this feels about the same. Especially in that you give it everything that you've got and then "The show must go on!" Previous shows at the Presidio Yacht Club were more sociable, and the setting was unbeatable, The yacht club had two rooms, a large overdamped upper room and a smaller underdamped lower room. great for a party, great to talk and meet people , not good at all for listening. And people want to be able to play their equipment. So it seemed time last year to at least try to get SOME stuff auditioned in a more controlled environment.

The first Burning Amp actually was in Fort Mason, but at the Firehouse which was similar to the Yacht Club: a big room and a smaller room just like the Yacht Club.

The current location has a lot going for it- right in SF with transportation access, parking,elevators, five reasonably sized rooms. a big room, and still on the Bay- that's essential! Unfortunately the rooms are made of concrete! But I paid off the blankets with everyone's contributions, and we have enough to reserve the rooms for next year AND I'll pick up another two or three dozen blankets with the assumption that people will come again. The blankets seem quite effective IF there are enough of them and they are installed correctly- no surprise.

Just want to give a shout out to the volunteers-I really needed help this year and they came through in spades. I was surprised, and will call on more volunteers next year. It isn't a case of micromanaging, I just didn't think many people would want to help. And it wasn't a lot of people but they REALLY wanted to help, and that made it this year!

Zen Mod cooked sausages for two hours! I thought it would just be a photo op, but no, he really got into it. And I was pleased with the food and drink- at least we had some! And the buns were crispy baguettes. I hate gooey bread!

Thanks to everyone who showed up! And thanks to our Presenters: Nelson Pass and Douglas Self. Choices which showed our openmindedness as well as our international reach!

Mark

TerryG said:
I just wanted to mention that Burning Amp I felt was a huge success and Mark you should be very happy with how it went off. ...But some of the conversations I had were worth more to me than anything I heard, as good as some of it was. More than anything the artistic skill of some of the builds was nothing short of incredible.
Terry
Click to expand...
 
Variac

Variac

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Very good and thoughtful observations.. comments in his text..

Zero Cool said:
I think Mark did a great job as well! and with these sorts of things you sort of learn as you go along!

Some suggestions. and these are meant to be POSITIVE helpful things!

1- signage outside the building pointing where to go, floor number, rooms etc.
They have some rules on this, but I'm learning that the rules are only enforced if there is a problem.I thought the big Burning Amp Sign was pretty obvious

2- a small PA system in the great hall for presenters. a pair of speakers on sticks with a wireless mic would be great!
Essential. Again, the "building rules" prohibit this in the big room, but NO ONE is in the adjacent spaces on the weekend , so we'll do it!! Its crazy to have 100 amps and 20 speakers and no PA system! All we need is a mic and mic pre..


3- Scheduled times for featured DIY items. Like N.P's playing of the beast's and Sic amps. maybe later in the day, pic a time so that everyone knows when the amps will be running. or a persons item will be playing etc. maybe have people sign up for 15 minute blocks so everyone knows where to be and when.
We scheduled this but I got tired..

4- Advanced signup and payment (paypal)
Good Idea. The people paying will come, and I won't get an ulcer wondering if people will show up! BUT it has to be automatic. We tried this the first year and it was a lot of work to do manually.Anyone want to help add this to the new website. I already paid too much for it!

5- auction held in advance to win an the opportunity to join Mark, Nelson, Guest speakers (etc.) for dinner the night before BA.
Nelson had 2 guests, and they added a lot. Nice to have a variety of people, and their eyes were pretty wide when they saw who was there!
Click to expand...

Mark
 
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Variac

Variac

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Actually I think they were the only "weird" set. I just grabbed stuff we had around. Send me a PM and we'll work it out. I'm sure I can find a bias board around here somewhere..
MArk


pk design said:
Yesterday, at Burning Amp 2011, I won one of the two BA board sets (complementary output). However, when I got home I realized that I had received one bias board for the single ended outputs and one bias board for the complementary output. As the boards were loose on the table, I am assuming that the winner of the other board set will find that he has the same problem with his set.
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Zen Mod

Zen Mod

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here it is - article from ...... January issue

I hope they doesn't mind sharing that here (disclaimer - typos can be only mine :rofl: ) :

US: SAN FRANCISCO

Jason Victor Serinus

IT'S 11AM ON October 1, and event
organizer Variac's (Mark Cronander)
"Official Welcome" to the fifth annual
Burning Amp Festival for do-it-yourself
audio designers and builders (www.
burningamp.org) is half an hour overdue.
I had already been unofficially welcomed
when I wandered into a large
room, commanded in part by Wood
Artistry's latest execution of Siegfried
Linkwitz's Orion loudspeakers,
Zenwood Audio's far larger and
eye-catching Lowthers, and Auraliti's
PK90 USB file player. As an unforgettable
recording of Viennese waltzes
punctuated by aggressive birdcalls
played far too loudly on the Zenwoods,
and friends old and new chatted at even
higher volume, volunteers lugged roll
after roll of quilted padding into the
room to optimize its acoustics.
For a moment, I wondered if I'd
wandered into a makeshift asylum.
No, this was the country's
premier annual DIY gathering,
where equipment builders let
their imaginations run free and
hope that what they come up
with makes the grade. Even if it
doesn't, the sheer joy of creation
is ample reward.
This year, Burning Amp was
attended by a record-breaking
200 DIYers, most of whom
also participate in the diyAudio.
com forum.They arrived at San
Francisco's Fort Mason Center from
as far away as India, Serbia, the UK-even
Minnesota. ...... Such is the
atmosphere of camaraderie that makes
Burning Amp and the diyAudio.com
forum unique.
Every room on the second floor was
fllled with equipment displays, both
active and silent. Exhibitors rotated
systems, sometimes adding just-arrived
components they'd never heard. Exhibits
were even squeezed into "The Big
Room," where DIY hero and mentor
Nelson Pass, of Pass Labs, addressed
a standing-room-only crowd about his
latest experimental circuits, Douglas
Self spoke about active crossovers, and
a heaven's helping of audio parts was
raffled off. Against one wall, Linear
Systems touted their second-source
replacement parts for highly prized
JFET transistors and other essential
devices no longer produced by their
original manufacturers. Elsewhere,
several DIY magazines were on display,
and refreshments and snacks were
available. Except during the scheduled
talks, schmoozing was ubiquitous.
This year, Nelson Pass, his son Colin,
Pass Labs analog-and-digital designer
Wayne Colburn, and many volunteers
converted one room into the Pass Pub.
Although I saw no liquid refreshment,
its sonic equivalent included Pass's slot-loaded,
open-baffle loudspeakers and
two of his most interesting amplifier
designs. One, dubbed The Beast with a
Thousand JFETs, is a monoblock design
whose 1176 little JFETs are perfectly
positioned on four boards, each of which
contains 14 rows of 21 ranks. Nelson
calls the JFETs "those unobtainable little
Toshiba parts that give bragging rights
to Pass Labs and A yre, etc. They are the
best MC phono input devices, and now
I am using them also as output
transistors. Why? Because I can."
With excellent results, I might
add.
Nelson Pass's other amp, a
Static Induction Transistor (SIT)
design that will soon be the
subject of a white paper, was formally
unveiled at the 2011 Rocky
Mountain Audio Fest, in October:
"In the '70s, SITs were called
VFETs," Pass explained by e-mail.
"Yamaha and Sony made them
for a while. I had some made for
me in silicon carbide (SiC), and
First Watt is in the process of
producing a mono and stereo amp
with them. They are particularly special
in that their curve is like that of a triode,
where other FETs look like pentodes.
The amps feature only the single transistor
as the gain device, operated single-ended
class-A with no output transformer,
no feedback, and no degeneration. It's
about as raw as you can possibly get, and
they sound fantastic."
True to the DIY spirit, even the
Pass Pub included equipment made by
others. When an awed Terry Gesualdo,
of Santa Rosa, arrived with his preamp,
he was shocked when Pass greeted him
with, "We'll squeeze you in." Gesualdo,
who got hooked on DIY at age 18,
when he built 18" subwoofers to augment
his Magnepans, was one of many
still-youthful DIYers at Burning Amp
who began tinkering with components
in their teens, and decades later are still
building and modifying gear.
In another room I encountered Dave
Meyers, of Minnesota. On weekdays,
Meyers works as a QA tech at Audio
Research. His job is to power
up units for the first time, then
burn them in. "We breathe life
into amps," he quipped, before
showing me his USB HDDAC.
"My whole reason for
doing this was to learn about
digital audio and see what
worked."
Some designs worked far less
well than others. As I spoke
with software engineer Ti Kan,
of Sunnyvale, California, whose
AMB Laboratories sells to
DIYers circuit boards, parts, and
headphone amps (in collaboration
with Bryan Levin of Sercona
Audio), an unrelated adjacent
system was playing in the background.
After a while, I was pretty certain that
I was hearing the voice of the young
Joan Baez. But without any top or bottom
to the sound, I couldn't be sure.
Some of the best sounds came from
Don Naples' Linkwitz-designed Wood
Artistry speakers, fed by Auraliti's
entry-level PK90-USB file player with
new optional power supply, a SOtM
USB DAC 200 from Korea, a proto-
type Auraliti line preamp, a six-channel
ATI amplifier, and nondescript cables.
Auraliti's long-awaited, top-of-the-line
L-1000 file player, designed by Demian
Martin and Ray Burnham, will be out
by end of October. Siegfried Linkwitz
told me that he's now using specially
modified SEAS 10" woofers in his
speakers, and that the SEAS drive-units,
modified for dipole application, will
soon be made generally available-yet
another boon for DIY speaker builders.
Ultimately, the Burning Amp Festival
is about being there, in whatever ways
you wish, and showing off equipment
that you've built to your heart's desire.
California residents Glen Egan (Oakley)
and Scott Mallet (Coto de Caza) typified
the spirit of the occasion when they
told me, "We first got together and
connected equipment 50 seconds ago.
Of course, we haven't played it yet. We
hope the smoke stays in." Happily, the
climactic bonfire never happened.
Click to expand...
 
Zen Mod

Zen Mod

Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
zenmod.in.rs/
Paid Member
naah

that means that you didn't smoke enough Drina ......
 

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