Do you have the dimensions and a general description of materials and objects in the room? Maybe I can sim it 4U lot in Ease 4 or CARA when I set em up again.
It has been a great experience for me to meet a lot of you in real life.
The friendly, harmonious atmosphere and passion for the hobby was the real highlight for me.
I bow for the many, many hours of dedication each one must have put in his project(s).
A big thanks to all who made this happen, and the minor imperfections such as room acoustics were no big deal compared to the joy the event brought me.
With only one hour of delay on the M25 Jan and I made it to Belgium where Fabine surprised us with a delicious homemade spaghetti and by the time I write this, Jan will hopefully be home as well. Stay tuned for more (Jan's) pictures without ‘grim’ faces. 😉
/Hugo
The friendly, harmonious atmosphere and passion for the hobby was the real highlight for me.
I bow for the many, many hours of dedication each one must have put in his project(s).
A big thanks to all who made this happen, and the minor imperfections such as room acoustics were no big deal compared to the joy the event brought me.
With only one hour of delay on the M25 Jan and I made it to Belgium where Fabine surprised us with a delicious homemade spaghetti and by the time I write this, Jan will hopefully be home as well. Stay tuned for more (Jan's) pictures without ‘grim’ faces. 😉
/Hugo
SimontY said:
That looks like a smart move. All that MDF strapped to a wall might need planning permission at some point.
Nice work BTW.
Here's a couple of my fav acoustic treatment links covering all aspects with much DIY-able:
http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
http://home.comcast.net/~thomasw-2/SubwooferSetupandEQpage9.html
http://www.auralex.com/literature/acoustics101v3_0.pdf
http://www.mhsoft.nl/DiffusorCalculator.html
Vik - great photos... apart from the only one that has me in it looks like I was asleep 😉 In my defence, I had driven 200 miles!
As various people have pointed out - Chris' Jordan speakers were very impressive. Not a huge fan of full range drivers myself, but those certainly gave me food for thought.
Shame I couldn't make Sunday, there looked to be lots more kit turning up.
That's because they don't excite the room as much, due to their figure of eight pattern. Or to quote the master, Linkwitz:
"By far the most uniform response in the range below 200 Hz is obtained with an open-baffle, dipole or figure-of-eight radiating source. Because of its directionality, the dipole excites far fewer room resonances than an omni-directional source. The difference in bass reproduction is startling at first, because we are so used to hearing the irregular and booming bass of the typical box speaker in acoustically small rooms. Quickly one learns to recognize the distortion of this combination and it becomes intolerable."
Yup!
Measurements here: http://spikyfish.com/acoustics/
"How to" here: http://spikyfish.com/acoustics/panels.html
No magic beans or green marker pen around the outside of CDs, just measurement based science!
Gordon.
As various people have pointed out - Chris' Jordan speakers were very impressive. Not a huge fan of full range drivers myself, but those certainly gave me food for thought.
Shame I couldn't make Sunday, there looked to be lots more kit turning up.
ivorcally said:
That's because they don't excite the room as much, due to their figure of eight pattern. Or to quote the master, Linkwitz:
"By far the most uniform response in the range below 200 Hz is obtained with an open-baffle, dipole or figure-of-eight radiating source. Because of its directionality, the dipole excites far fewer room resonances than an omni-directional source. The difference in bass reproduction is startling at first, because we are so used to hearing the irregular and booming bass of the typical box speaker in acoustically small rooms. Quickly one learns to recognize the distortion of this combination and it becomes intolerable."
AdamThorne said:
Yup!
Measurements here: http://spikyfish.com/acoustics/
"How to" here: http://spikyfish.com/acoustics/panels.html
No magic beans or green marker pen around the outside of CDs, just measurement based science!
Gordon.
Sounds like you all had a great time. We sure did at Dave's place with that version of the same event. Mind you, I see some real speakers in your pics...
salas said:
Thanks for the offer mate, but I think we'll be moving a little further down towards the south of England. The journey up to the venue was a killer, and so I might pull organisers privilege and move it a little closer to me next year. 😉
Hugo, glad you enjoyed yourself, and I hope Jan did too. I'll sort out that CD sampler tomorrow. Feeling tired?
Thanks for those links Ant. They look pretty useful.
...I think it's only fair that the event moves around a bit, so it's easy for those that it was tough for this time and vice versa. I'll be there wherever it is 😀
And this time with CD63 (now with two more low-noise regs lol).
...I think it's only fair that the event moves around a bit, so it's easy for those that it was tough for this time and vice versa. I'll be there wherever it is 😀
And this time with CD63 (now with two more low-noise regs lol).
I would like to get a copy of that piano track for my own references. What is it called and where can I get it?
pinkmouse said:
Ha! I was probably off chain smoking or something at the time but gutted I missed that. 😀
richie00boy said:
It's from a compilation of the composer Erik Satie's solo piano works called Gymnopedies, we listened to Gnossiennes No.1, performed by Roland Pontinen. Gymnopedies itself you will know, as it has been used for many ads and TV programmes as background music. I'm sure you will find many versions of it in any good record shop, and to be honest, if anyone knows of a better recording I would be interested, I notice the faults in that one too much.
richie00boy said:
If your looking for even more piano based music then checkout Craig Armstrong and specifically his album 'Piano Works', its pretty good and has an unusual and unique slant. Another good album from the same fella would be 'The Space Between Us' which mixes his piano playing talents with the electronic genre.
Where did the time go on Sunday? I wish I'd got a better chance to chat but it seemed like there was the whole day and then I lifted my head up to find everyone was loading their cars up and that was the end of the weekend.
Hi All,
Well, I'm finally back from an extended weekend in North Yorkshire.
It was amazing to see you all, and listen to the kit at the event.
Shame I couldn't stay, especially for the Sunday as there did seem to be more kit.
When I get to work tomorrow, I'll upload my photos.
Highlights for me:
Meeting everyone.
Hearing other headphone amps (thankfully, mine's not that bad - just a bit quiet {especially by John's standards 🙂 } and only really able to drive my Grados) and being inspired to rebuild mine (I want to do a balanced in pre/headphone amp anyway - that's MY excuse 😉 )
Hearing Vikash's Orions - very nice, but I wasn't sure about the laptop either.
Hearing fullrange speakers for the first time. RAndyB and Chris' speakers (and amp) especially. I think I preferred them to all, but maybe because I could imagine them working well at home.
I'm totally unfamiliar with orchestral music, what were you playing on it?
Hearing valve amps. There were a few there, and it was a realy eye opener.
I wish I had room in the car to bring up my transport and even basic NOS DAC, but all the kids stuff made that impossible I'm afraid.
As with so many, I think it would have been good to have some decent sources, and finding myself listening to 'I will survive' was a shocking scenario to find myself in, but I think it was a great event.
Thanks to all involved.
Cheers,
Phil
Well, I'm finally back from an extended weekend in North Yorkshire.
It was amazing to see you all, and listen to the kit at the event.
Shame I couldn't stay, especially for the Sunday as there did seem to be more kit.
When I get to work tomorrow, I'll upload my photos.
Highlights for me:
Meeting everyone.
Hearing other headphone amps (thankfully, mine's not that bad - just a bit quiet {especially by John's standards 🙂 } and only really able to drive my Grados) and being inspired to rebuild mine (I want to do a balanced in pre/headphone amp anyway - that's MY excuse 😉 )
Hearing Vikash's Orions - very nice, but I wasn't sure about the laptop either.
Hearing fullrange speakers for the first time. RAndyB and Chris' speakers (and amp) especially. I think I preferred them to all, but maybe because I could imagine them working well at home.
I'm totally unfamiliar with orchestral music, what were you playing on it?
Hearing valve amps. There were a few there, and it was a realy eye opener.
I wish I had room in the car to bring up my transport and even basic NOS DAC, but all the kids stuff made that impossible I'm afraid.
As with so many, I think it would have been good to have some decent sources, and finding myself listening to 'I will survive' was a shocking scenario to find myself in, but I think it was a great event.
Thanks to all involved.
Cheers,
Phil
I'd just like to buck the trend here and say that the music I enjoyed most came from Chris' (I think) dvd player playing 461 Ocean Boulevard by Clapton (SACD layer) into I think Chris' Pass preamps, and Hugo's Aleph Xs driving Vik's rebuilt TDL MTM speakers. Rich's sub filling in underneath. This was such a gorgeous sound to me!! So much weight, dynamics and detail. I dread to think how much it would cost to make those amps though, never mind pay the electricity bill..... 
float said:
Exactly my thoughts! It was great to meet you all and feel that power and ambition for all those projects you were working on.
Enjoyed the sound demos, very impressed with Pinkmouse and Chris's speakers. Although very different, they both sounded very 'right' and complete. Chris's full range Jordans sounded as if they had a hidden mini-sub, awesome really. Excellent design.
For me these events are a great motivator to go ahead with my own ideas and projects. It's time audio amatears come out!
I made it home Monday evening around 22.30, struggling not to fall asleep on the way after Hugo's wife fed me that excellent spaghetti and Hugo forced another glass of excellent red wine on me 😉 when I dropped him of in Gent.
Jan Didden
A few people have mentioned laptops here in negative light. I don't see why tbh unless we're talking about using the cd drives on them. Using something like EAC to extract, followed by lossless encoding would be superior to a disc transport. So I think what we're talking about is soundcards.
I was using the EMU-0404 USB which has good spec for the price: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=609&product=15167&nav=1
After swapping with Al's laptop using just the headphone output into his valve pre made a significant difference to my ears. Could it be the DAC in the EMU? Well we tried the valve pre on the end of the EMU and again it sounded much better - so it seems not. Valves? Maybe it was the distortion that sounded better? To be continued...
Anyway, my point was that laptop's/pc's are certainly not inferior to any disc transports. A good soundcard and DAC become the focus in this case...
--------------------
Simon, I was quitely suprised at how balanced the TDL rebuilds sounded too considering the the old and relatively cheap drivers used, not to mention my first crossover attempt. They still thrive on good amps and Hugo's were fantastic. I wish we had more time...
--------------------
I can't believe I missed the disco tunes! I have loads but didn't play them for fear of being laughed at 😀
V
I was using the EMU-0404 USB which has good spec for the price: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=609&product=15167&nav=1
After swapping with Al's laptop using just the headphone output into his valve pre made a significant difference to my ears. Could it be the DAC in the EMU? Well we tried the valve pre on the end of the EMU and again it sounded much better - so it seems not. Valves? Maybe it was the distortion that sounded better? To be continued...
Anyway, my point was that laptop's/pc's are certainly not inferior to any disc transports. A good soundcard and DAC become the focus in this case...
--------------------
Simon, I was quitely suprised at how balanced the TDL rebuilds sounded too considering the the old and relatively cheap drivers used, not to mention my first crossover attempt. They still thrive on good amps and Hugo's were fantastic. I wish we had more time...
--------------------
What, and take the sprinkling of magic dust that made them sound so good away?
I can't believe I missed the disco tunes! I have loads but didn't play them for fear of being laughed at 😀
V
ShinOBIWAN/Andy's work in progress: A high-tech cordless drill stand doubling as a speaker.
Seriously, the workmanship on this was impeccable. Hope Andy can bring the set next time so we can audition it.
BTW Kudo's to Andy for setting up the projector and screen etc for my presentation in adverse conditions to say the least. I owe you!
Jan Didden
Seriously, the workmanship on this was impeccable. Hope Andy can bring the set next time so we can audition it.
BTW Kudo's to Andy for setting up the projector and screen etc for my presentation in adverse conditions to say the least. I owe you!
Jan Didden
Attachments
Laptops, fine... Onboard sound - not so fine!!! Yes, we're definately talking DACs here. The output stage is a big deal in a CD player, so should it be in an offboard soundcard.
I've never heard onboard sound like Al's laptop was putting out (due to nice gear on the other end!) but naturally it was sorely lacking in detail, space, dynamics, proper treble, resolution etc.
Next year this won't happen. I will make sure of it! Already looking forward to the next meet!! Do we have to wait a whole year??
I've never heard onboard sound like Al's laptop was putting out (due to nice gear on the other end!) but naturally it was sorely lacking in detail, space, dynamics, proper treble, resolution etc.
Next year this won't happen. I will make sure of it! Already looking forward to the next meet!! Do we have to wait a whole year??
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