PNW Gathering 2011

Thanks Arthur. I had a good time once again. Nice to meet some new faces and see some familiar ones once again. The turnout was better this year than the prior couple. I hope that trend continues.
 
Fun. (And only forty dollars in gas money.) Thanks very much, Arthur for hosting. Just got home two minutes ago. I'm listening to my dollar "Jazz Samba/ Stan Getz/ Charlie Byrd" album right now.
 
I would just like to thank everyone for showing up and making this gathering one to remember. This year's turnout was probably the best ever at around 37 people. The overage from the door was $35, which has been donated to AK.
 
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Arthur - thank you very much for hosting again! Everybody I spoke with enjoyed the event. Your efforts are most appreciated! :yes:

Thanks to all who made the time and effort to haul their gear. It is great fun to see and hear the wide variety of hardware that is out there, old and new. Like last year, I also learned of some recording artists that need to be on my play list.

Great speakers: Altec Valencias, JBL L88s (as a result of the two Fests that I have attended, I am developing a serious liking for JBL speakers), smooooooth Monitor Audios from across the pond, BIG ARs, some killer compacts, and Flyingtm88's homebuilts - all really nice to hear. This was also another opportunity to see a fine example of the stellar fabrication skills that Will and his dad possess. Thank you!

Until today I had never seen nor heard any of the big Yamaha power amps. Every time I turned around there seemed to be another one ready to go! And tubes, oh baby, Goldear's beautiful tubes :music: :tube pre-amp, tube power amp, tube SACD player. I just wish that I had looked under the hood of his car...

Sqcomp - We had a loaf of Dave's Bread sliced up to feed the hungry in your honor. Sorry that you could not attend.

This was a great event!

Thanks to all!
 
Hey guys. Had a great time. Thanks for the fun!

I had that little Pioneer SX-727 hooked up to the Altecs. Man that thing shined with those!

Sir.Boyd - I can't find anything on Stereolab (StereoVox?) or at least it is hard to find much on them, I don't think they exist anymore.

Also, to the guy that had all those linear trackers -- cool stuff I'll keep an eye out for one in the wild...
 
It was a great time today. I enjoyed hearing all of the different systems that people brought. Glad there was a big turnout, and that all of the tables were filled. Thanks to Arthur for hosting the event and renting the hall. Thanks to Scott for providing the van that hauled the gear to the hall. Great fun today!


Here are the photos of the event that I took. To much listening to allow for photos!


-Tim
 
Sir.Boyd - I can't find anything on Stereolab (StereoVox?) or at least it is hard to find much on them, I don't think they exist anymore.

Perhaps you are thinking of Speakerlab?

Nice to see you today - good tunes! Thanks!

Spalls
(the guy at the table to your right)
 
Thanks so much Arthur for hosting this event It was defintely worth the effort to attend!

It was great to meet a number of you who I had never seen face to face before. I honestly wasn't sure if it would be worth the trouble before I came, but I'm glad that I did!

Its fascinating to see how different aspects of our hobby attract various people and how vastly different some of our sonic tastes are. I especially appreciated the efforts of a few of our younger members who were showing-off their speaker-building prowess. Great efforts; keep it up the good work guys!

It's also great to see some of our younger members getting into vinyl. And I was impressed by how many bothered to take the time to bring turntables. Long live analog!!!
 
Thanks to everybody I got to talk with, live humans who speak the vintage variant of the audio dialect. And who risked transporting and potentially damaging their valuable collections to give us all a glimmer of what's possible.

Especially if you built it, fixed it, or restored it yourself!

Couldn't bring the Khorn replicas this time (posted tons of pics already though). For room-filling output SLF's Valencias comported themselves admirably... Koseltri's AR-9's were unstoppable too but I would like to have heard them with the mids turned on just once...but if that isn't a perfect match of a speaker with an AK'er then what is...

In that very 'live' large reflective tile-floor room it takes time to place well and effect imaging/soundstage in farfield with the more boutique-ish sets I brought this time. Oh well. So I cranked it a bit instead and you endured the random vinyl thrown at you. Had a scare when I accidentally brushed against the new Pre's solenoid selector switches and the sound *ahem* vanished (everything's fine, just pilot error.). The Magnat-built DQM-9c's did the woofer skiddly-doo-dance even with the 20Hz rumble filter on (TT acoustic feedback?)

Everybody helped out; plenty of Karma flying about. :thmbsp: Some but definitely not all: anxiety-stricken til BuckyB found a computer-type AC cord for the Parasound Pre. To the gentleman I barked at for using one of the speakers as a writing-desk please accept my apology for being tired and cranky. :worried: That particular speaker is more solid than my actual desk... :D

Sir.B loaned a CD player and SLF Pony-Expressed the DQM's...which produced the unintended but foreseeable consequence of no room left in the already Suburban-sized load squeezed into a passenger car. But this is AK: several people offered to run them down my way. Thanks Veggieguys for stepping up.

To our host venue and The Man Himself for putting it together, thanks.
 
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Thanks again to Arthur for hosting. It was fun to hear and see the different gear, and meet up and compare notes, share stories with fellow audio geeks, music junkies, and hoarders.

Thanks to the guy (didn't get his name) who shared out a stack of vintage audio literature and brochures, I snagged some nice Sansui, JBL pages.

It was good to meet Goldear, DavidGuilbalt, and others. Thanks to Goldear for bringing that sweet tube gear including the Conrad Johnson preamp. Great to see the younger guys into audio - doing digital nicely, little or no compression and using external DACs.

Someone mentioned that everybody should bring a section of carpet next year to help with the room. a joke, but seriously I think it would help, the room is a challenge. The Altecs were fun to hear in that big room.

I was also happy to see the interest in the LPs. I think I saw four boxes for sale/trade, and they were set upon as soon as they entered the room. I brought a box of records again this year - in past gatherings there was barely any interest, this year the entire box sold.

Lots of time on the road yesterday, but worth the effort. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures...

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What I brought to the gallery "for your entertainment" (no, not Jethro Tull):

Hales Revelation 3
M&K S1B sattellites
(Magnet) Dahlquist DQM-9compact
Bay Audio

__Yamaha:
PC-2002
M-2 (heard through Sir.B's setup)
M-4
C-4 x2 pre's
PX-3 TT w/WIN strain gauge cart

Parasound P/LD 1100 pre
Peavey CS-1000 (who says pro amps don't sound good!)

and a couple of LPs... Missing Persons, Genesis LLDoB, Allman Brothers live at the Filmore, Santana Caravansarai. Also played some I picked up, glad to help those driving longer distances lighten their load :yes:
 
Hey Sursus: It was especially fun to get to see that Yamaha TT of yours. I've read so much about these units, but had never actually seen one in the flesh before.

In one of speakerlabs posts above there is an especially rare amp that people have talked about from time to time on this forum. It was an Audio-Research ST-70-C3. This was originally my Dad's Stereo-70 that he handed-down to me as a kid. I never cared for the sound of the stock unit very much, and when I was in college I decided to rebuild it using an upgrade kit that was availble at the time. It was a mod for the stereo-70 which was designed by Willaim Z Johnson of audio-reasearch to replace everything excep for the iron in a stereo 70. The kid was manufactured by Old Coloney Sound Labs under license from audio-research, and I assembled the kit (with a few minor circuit enhancements of my own added to the mix).

I repainted the cage form the original ugly brown color to black, and added a built-in bias meter, as well as a very slow-speed muffin fan to keep it running nice and cool. The original power transformer eventually failed after about 7 years very hard use, and was replaced by a drop-in replacement that I purchased from triode electronics.

The preamp was a bone-stock Conrad-Johson PV 6 which I keep around as a spare. These are really very nice sounding little units, which I am very fond of (these sound even better when upgraded BTW).

The CD player was a VSE Level 6+ modified Sony SCD-1 for some of the best sounding digital that money can buy.

The speakers were a set of Monitor Audio Monitor 9s that I purchased while I was in college. These are a really great little bookshelf speakers which have been relegated to SS duty in my HT system at home since I prefer to use full range speakers whenever possible.

I ran a very similar system to this when I was in college. The differences were a highly modified PAS 3 which I used to run, and a modified Yamaha CDX-1100u CD player. But both the PV-6 and the Modified SCD-1 are substantial steps up from what I had back then.
 
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Also, to the guy that had all those linear trackers -- cool stuff I'll keep an eye out for one in the wild...

They're out there...An acquaintance just picked up a Pioneer PL-L800 for $60 at a thrift. I went a bit speaker crazy this time, and had little room to transport gear. Last year, I had 6 tables there. Next time it'll be less speakers, more gear. It was great to see it crowded. To those whose names I didn't get, it was great to meet you...
 
In one of speakerlabs posts above there is an especially rare amp that people have talked about from time to time on this forum. It was an Audio-Research ST-70-C3.

Nice college dorm system! Here's a better picture of the amp linked from Dan's batch of photos...

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As the guys that posted said a good time was had by all, put a few faces to names but am still trying to fill in a few.:scratch2:

Got to see some gear have read about but haven't seen, Yah..M2/M4, a TT, CJ PV6, a few speaker set ups. Got to respect the efforts some of the guys made to bring out alot of stuff, big effort made for this type of thing, thanks to all.

Thanks to GoldenEar for playing one of my reference recordings, Sue Rainey's "Emily" on his tube system. Although not an ideal set up/room it did sound great. Nice to hear something you're familiar with on another system to check the old ears out.:music:

Was good to see some younger guys doing great things in the hobby and hope to see more of them in the future.

Thanks to Arthur for getting the ball rolling and hosting and to the others who made it worthwhile to attend, just wished I only spent $40 on gas like someone posted!:tears:
 
The CD player was a VSE Level 6+ modified Sony SCD-1 for some of the best sounding digital that money can buy.

Well, let's give credit where credit is due. Goldear built that beautiful CD player himself. :thmbsp::thmbsp:
 
I like the idea of everybody bringing a piece of carpet next year if Arthur is gracious enough to host again. If I have a shell or cover for my truck next year I'll bring along a set of floor standers.
 

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Great event, saw a lot of gear, heard some fine sounds, saw some old friends, and made some new ones.
Crappy weather made the drive down a challenge, but as usual Arthur had the place ready for us and all appeared to have a good time, thanks again Tarior {Arthur} for your hospitality!
Ak appreciates the $35 donation too!
Casey
 
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