2020 Burning Amp Festival

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diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
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We were the worst “helpers” ever! Nelson put us on the job to check that the kits were complete, and we did great with the resistors, then each thought the other had checked the caps. Got to the show and a cap type was missing. Fortunately Nelson had also sent some of his “distortion generator” kits to the Saturday show which we cannibalized. The next day he brought replacements for those....

He really works hard to bring surprises to BAF. What a guy!
 
diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
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The only good olde fashioned little electronics parts store I know of is in San Rafael, which is North over the Golden Gate from San Francisco. Until Jim thought of robbing the other kits, I had Zen Mod ready to accompany me on a “capacitor run”. I figured it would be a nice tourist experience for him....

It took all three of us plus Jack to screw that one up. Fortunately 6L6 thought fast
at BAF and stole the parts needed from the other kits.....
:cheers:
 
Please wait till a vaccine is available, especially the ones who belong to the high risk group (60+, hypertension, coronary disease, etc) Hopefully, it will be availble by January of 2021?

I hope to attend a festival one of these years!

In the mean time, how about a virtual burning amp festival? We will smoke our computers as well. :D
 
Official Court Jester
Joined 2003
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Well at least the guest house garage is full of goodies.

call me naive, I learned that day before departure, when Pa opened squeakyclackety doors, searching for two small Donuts to put in Plankey Iron

what he found is emanating magnetic field approx. to your house, when powered on; if something is disturbing your instruments before flight, that's it - Pa is listening with Plankey in chain

should spend 10 days there, just to bring mental process to normal speed and clarity, then I would be certainly capable to rummage through Guest House, by own will :)
 
diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Papa laid a truckload of goodies on us this last BAF! They came from the garage. Plus a bit more from the “secret storage”. The raffle was a huge success but too crowded. For reasons beyond our control we had one less room on the upper floor which really caused problems all day. Some people scored big in the silent raffle because a lot of the stuff was scattered around and overlooked by most.

At the moment, a Burning Online Festival looks the most likely. But not for me to officially decide.
 
It wouldn't be all that hard to set up a Zoom account where punters could present their projects from the comfort of their living rooms or maybe even their labs. 10-15 min each presentation w/questions, and it probably wouldn't be too hard to record all the presentations and stitch them together into a video.
 
Member
Joined 2011
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Perhaps you haven't noticed the pattern of attendance at the lecture presentations in Burning Amp Festivals 2017, 2018, and 2019.

They can be called "Nelson Pass and the Seven Dwarves."

Everyone comes to the lecture by Nelson Pass. About 15% as many people attend the other presentations. It is demeaning. My heart hurts for the other speakers on the lecture program, who work very hard, who rehearse, and polish up their very best lecture, only to see the crowd rush in 10 minutes before NP and rush out 3 minutes after.

If you want a virtual Burning Amp Festival you only need one speaker.
 
Perhaps you haven't noticed the pattern of attendance at the lecture presentations in Burning Amp Festivals 2017, 2018, and 2019.

They can be called "Nelson Pass and the Seven Dwarves."

Everyone comes to the lecture by Nelson Pass. About 15% as many people attend the other presentations. It is demeaning. My heart hurts for the other speakers on the lecture program, who work very hard, who rehearse, and polish up their very best lecture, only to see the crowd rush in 10 minutes before NP and rush out 3 minutes after.

If you want a virtual Burning Amp Festival you only need one speaker.

Interesting point. During 2019 BAF they started the auction before all the speakers were over, there were still some people attending the talks/presentations. Those who left early were rewarded with fewer people at the auctions and consequently a greater chance of winning their prize.
 
diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
Paid Member
My opinion, since I was supervising the mostly free raffle of cool gear, with a few fancy things to be auctioned off, is that we started the raffle at the announced time, but since the speakers tend to go on a bit and the audience asked a lot of questions, some people stayed at the presentations after the scheduled time.

I stalled for awhile, but people who had arrived at the scheduled hour were complaining that we should start at the appointed time, and eventually I had to agree, after stalling some.

Then, the silent auction items got very few bids even though we waited until much later, when the last of the people from the presentations arrrived. Various valuable items bought for pennies on the dollar with only one bid. It seems people only wanted free stuff. It’s hard for me to be very sympathetic, but at some future in person BAF, we will need more space to lay everything out so there’s less chaos. Unfortunately, the available space was less that in previous years and we did the best we could with what we had.
 
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diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
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Last year we had a presentations on two days. Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday presentation was excellent and we had a full turnout, SRO. At the same time we had the new Pass ACP+ Preamp Camp where people built the new preamp in real time. That workshop also had full participation.

Perhaps there should be more presentations on Saturday once things get back to normal.
 
"Perhaps there should be more presentations on Saturday once things get back to normal."

I do think it should be a two day event, it is a long way to go for only one day.
Secondly, I was watching Nelson's presentation while the auction was going on, I was sorry I missed the auction, but glad to see Nelson in person. That overlap was unfortunate, but I understand. Maybe the auction could be setup for both days, if you could get the rooms for over night.

On Saturday you had to choose between which workshop you wanted to attend. I wish I could have attended both. Maybe a morning and an afternoon workshop?

Last weekend my local audio club had Nelson for two hours in a Zoom meeting. It was great. The Zoom thing is the way to go for presentations, we could ask questions, get answers etc., Nelson could show a presentation in the Zoom meeting, although this meeting was not a presentation, just a talk about what ever the group asked about. We submitted questions ahead of time so there was some organization to it. (Nelson held up one channel of the new Sony VFET amp during the talk.)

I wanted to mention, it was really great to see the folks we talk to on these forums in person. I am a social guy and eating diner with this crew was one of the highlights.

Rush
 
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Member
Joined 2012
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I agree with you, Rush, that the social aspect was the great part of BAF: meeting and talking to forum people.

Being a first timer last year, I found it difficult to make the connection between online names and real life names. Having online names on name tags would have been quite helpful. It probably would have started even more conversations.

As it was, I did meet and talk to many people, including spending quite a bit of time with you, Astromo, and Dennis Hui, and meeting Nelson, Zen Mod, 6L6, among others in person. The Friday dinner was great too.

I forgot - I enjoyed the BAF Chinese dinner too!

Hopefully Covid-19 will be under control soon and there will be an in-person BAF to attend in the near future. Next year too optimistic?

The Friday dinner crew:
 

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