Greater Toronto Area DIY meetup

Hi folks,

I have been lurking at this thread for years now and I have conversed with a few of you in the past. I have not attended before, but maybe this time I'll make it. Scarborough is easy for me. Many are coming further than me, so I have no excuse in that sense. Sounds like an all male audience, techies like the old days :) I have worked with many female EE's, the more the merry I say, I'll ask the wife but she's a non techie, so will prob say na, you guy have fun without me.
Did we decide on the focus yet?
For me as far as new/different, I picked up a Yamaha T-85 tuner about a month or so ago, what a beauty, blows anything else I have out of the water. It is light, done some design detective work on its op, it is a seminar in itself. Needs a good antenna for DX'ing, but impossible to bring the tower setup along with me :)
I have a bench full of test equipment, but much of it is heavy to lug around, so lets see what the focus is on before I figure on what to bring if we need T/E and want to focus on T/E.
I know Chris is very knowledgeable and experienced, so he himself could entertain us all as well.
Lets see what we can come up with.

Cheers
Rick
 
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Wow, the number is growing quickly :p

Just want to point out that if we want to spend some time to do some listening (to experience different gears), then we probably have more than enough gears. Even now, I can imagine piles of boxes sitting on that big 8 x 3 ft bench waiting to take the stage :D:D Don,t get me wrong, if one feels like to show off their creation and solicit some discussion, by all means. Just don't want anyone's feeling get hurt if their gear does not get a chance to demonstrate because of time :D My 2 cents.

This get together is going to be great!

Regards,
 
Hey Jaimo, nice hear that you are interested checking out the T-85 :) I think the stock T-85 is up to a challenge I have a stock KT-8300 as well. I'd still like to see/know what mods were done to your KT-7500. But a tuner shootout with others as well would be fun. . maybe for another time, see what everyone decides on. I can bring a few TT's as well if that is fashionable. I see them selling records at Walmart :)

Back to what I bring depends on the agenda. No sense bringing stuff unless it is looked at &/or evaluated.
 
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The building roof is steel and we are in a bit of a valley where we are located so FM reception isn’t good. We use net radio for the main entertainment source. I have hot rodded Sansui TU 9900 and Pioneer TX 9500 tuners, but not thinking of bringing them this time.

There maybe more than can be covered at one meeting, but at least it will get people introduced and if theres further interest other meetings can happen here or elsewhere.
 
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Hey Rick,

It will be good to do a shootout between my modded Kenwood KT7500, my Sony XDR-F1HD and your Yammie T85.

Let's keep this on the back burner for now. Not sure if there is much interest in Tunas...

Actually I'm interested somewhat in the subject and still have a few interesting tuners (Kenwood 600T, a L-1000T , Akai AT-93 and a Yamaha TX-1000, Pioneer F9) all of them are old from the eighties. Naturally in Toronto not much decent stations to listening.
Miklos
 
Hi Miklos.

I guess it depends on what you like to listen to. I just went through the dial the other day, rotating the antenna and made a list of all that I get. It is a good selection imo. There are a lot of pop stations these days. I find I am lucky in what is available compared to many other locales. Stiil I managed to fill the 20 memories with a decent selection. I am lucky I get CFGI, a non-commercial station with great tunes.
I got the T-85 since the previous owner had no good stations anymore, a trend, esp in the US.
Your tuners are all in the top tier, certainly something to marvel over. I would love to evaluate them all, but
Lets see what these guys decide upon since it is DIY audio. I do have a small tuner/media player, that I designed, so it does qualify as DIY :) I will bring it just to look at it since it has most of what people may want to evaluate. Si4735, PCM2902B, TPA3100, MAX9729, Rohm USB mem stick reader w/DAC.
 
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:devilr:

I already had a GPS timing antenna in the corner of the room. The ST-2 slid into the ABS tube that holds the GPS antenna. :) She hasn't noticed that there are two RG-6 cables running into the tube. When the time comes, I'll mount both outside.

-Chris
 
Hi Miklos.

I guess it depends on what you like to listen to. I just went through the dial the other day, rotating the antenna and made a list of all that I get. It is a good selection imo. There are a lot of pop stations these days. I find I am lucky in what is available compared to many other locales. Stiil I managed to fill the 20 memories with a decent selection. I am lucky I get CFGI, a non-commercial station with great tunes.
I got the T-85 since the previous owner had no good stations anymore, a trend, esp in the US.
Your tuners are all in the top tier, certainly something to marvel over. I would love to evaluate them all, but
Lets see what these guys decide upon since it is DIY audio. I do have a small tuner/media player, that I designed, so it does qualify as DIY :) I will bring it just to look at it since it has most of what people may want to evaluate. Si4735, PCM2902B, TPA3100, MAX9729, Rohm USB mem stick reader w/DAC.
Hi rsavas,
I live in part in Toronto and here I find only the francophone CJBC 90.3 MHz which is not compressed, the rest is. While a decent non compressed station is a pleasure to listen to, the rest here is a pain, and sadly that includes the CBC on 94.1 MHz. This is very upsetting to me. The tuners I have left (numerous ones I have sold) the ones I find being special ,not overly expensive and close to my heart. We can gladly test them when you wish.
Maybe I can bring one to show to the meeting, together one of my choke loaded SE hybrid amps.
Miklos
 
Still interested in tuners, tubes and test equipment here.
 

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