I attended the Northern California DIY Audio meeting with Roger Modjeski last weekend. The meeting was more fun than I expected. This gathering involves mainly speaker builders, but there were quite a few DIY amplifiers present as well. The room was rather large with high, vaulted ceilings, but the room acoustics were actually decent since it was carpeted and the ceilings were treated with sound panels. I've attached some photos and listening impressions here as well.
Bottlehead Quickie Preamp, Quicksand TPA3121 Class D Amp, and SEX SET Amp
With the restored EPI bookshelf speakers, the sound was good. The system had a thinner sound with the Quicksand Class D amp versus the SEX amp. The system is best suited for smaller room. The system ran out of steam quickly in this large listening area, but was musical nonetheless.
Bottlehead BeePre with Linkwitz Plutos
This system had a very nice, realistic midrange. The sax was so fluid and present played through this system. The soundstage with the Pluto speakers was large, and imaging was decent. The system was an attention grabber.
Linkwitz LXmini's and MiniDSP
This was probably one of the best sounding systems. Sigfried Linkwitz Labs sells these speakers as a kit like the Plutos, but the difference here is that the builder can use his own amps instead of having to use the Plutos' built-in chip amps. For this demonstration, Sigfried Linkwitz used an Emotiva multichannel SS amp and MiniDSP as an equalization system to biamp the pair of LXmini's. The soundstage was large and expansive and loaded the room nicely. This system had a more refined frequency response than Bottlehead BeePre/Linkwitz Pluto system with deep bass and smooth, detailed highs. The midrange was very nice, which seems to be the strength of these speakers in terms of tone.
The Barnyard Tube Amp and Barrel Speaker System
The people who brought this system worked quite a bit to haul in this massive system. The bass and treble were decent, but the heart of the music was lacking in finesse.
Class D Triamplifcation, MiniDSP and Waveguide Monitors with Subwoofers
Bill, the builder of these speakers is the same guy who built a pair of Metronome TQWTL speakers I heard at the first Burning Amp Festival back in 2007. He used a pair of TPA3116 amps including a stock Yuan Jing TPA3116 Class D amp. From my position, it was difficult to assess the sound, and even Bill mentioned the sweet spot was about 10 feet in front of me.
Music Reference OTL-1 and Seas Monitors
This set-up was close to the Linkwitz LXminis, with the exception that the bass did not extend as much, but the mids and highs were beautiful, and the imaging was focused.
We tried the OTL-1 with another pair of Seas driver-based monitors, and these sounded nice as well, but the low end was even more limited.
I enjoyed this Class D triamped open baffle system. It was driven by a wireless connection to the laptop music server, and was aesthetically appealing.
There were more systems at the show, and talking audio with others there was a fun time. Thank you Charlie Laub for organizing this event.
Bottlehead Quickie Preamp, Quicksand TPA3121 Class D Amp, and SEX SET Amp
With the restored EPI bookshelf speakers, the sound was good. The system had a thinner sound with the Quicksand Class D amp versus the SEX amp. The system is best suited for smaller room. The system ran out of steam quickly in this large listening area, but was musical nonetheless.
Bottlehead BeePre with Linkwitz Plutos
This system had a very nice, realistic midrange. The sax was so fluid and present played through this system. The soundstage with the Pluto speakers was large, and imaging was decent. The system was an attention grabber.
Linkwitz LXmini's and MiniDSP
This was probably one of the best sounding systems. Sigfried Linkwitz Labs sells these speakers as a kit like the Plutos, but the difference here is that the builder can use his own amps instead of having to use the Plutos' built-in chip amps. For this demonstration, Sigfried Linkwitz used an Emotiva multichannel SS amp and MiniDSP as an equalization system to biamp the pair of LXmini's. The soundstage was large and expansive and loaded the room nicely. This system had a more refined frequency response than Bottlehead BeePre/Linkwitz Pluto system with deep bass and smooth, detailed highs. The midrange was very nice, which seems to be the strength of these speakers in terms of tone.
The Barnyard Tube Amp and Barrel Speaker System
The people who brought this system worked quite a bit to haul in this massive system. The bass and treble were decent, but the heart of the music was lacking in finesse.
Class D Triamplifcation, MiniDSP and Waveguide Monitors with Subwoofers
Bill, the builder of these speakers is the same guy who built a pair of Metronome TQWTL speakers I heard at the first Burning Amp Festival back in 2007. He used a pair of TPA3116 amps including a stock Yuan Jing TPA3116 Class D amp. From my position, it was difficult to assess the sound, and even Bill mentioned the sweet spot was about 10 feet in front of me.
Music Reference OTL-1 and Seas Monitors
This set-up was close to the Linkwitz LXminis, with the exception that the bass did not extend as much, but the mids and highs were beautiful, and the imaging was focused.
We tried the OTL-1 with another pair of Seas driver-based monitors, and these sounded nice as well, but the low end was even more limited.
I enjoyed this Class D triamped open baffle system. It was driven by a wireless connection to the laptop music server, and was aesthetically appealing.
There were more systems at the show, and talking audio with others there was a fun time. Thank you Charlie Laub for organizing this event.
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