Dave, what a great event!! It was nice to catch up with those I have not seen since last year's gathering, and there was plenty of great food and drink to boot. :yes:
Well, onto to the event.
Various people rotated in and out for the first three rounds and then the shootout of champions. I counted the average listening audience to be approximately 15 people at a time.
In the first round, the majority of the crowd voiced their preference for the Trends 10.1 tripath amp (with an upgraded stand alone PSU) over the pair of SET amps. After all, the little Trends (the size of a matchbox) won StereoMojo's 2007 blind digital amp shootout among 14 different amplifiers, and with an upgraded power supply, the little amp is no slouch. To my ears, the little Trends was almost as smooth as the SET on the top end (and amongst the smoothest solid state I have heard), and the Trends was superior in detail and bass definition.
The second round was a route. To my ears, the Monarchy class A solid state sounded thin and edgy. On the other hand, the rebuilt Marantz 8B was smooth as silk, detailed in spades, and forceful at the same time. Having previously heard (and loved) this particular 8B in its original form, Craig Ostby's rebuild (NOS Valves) truly did a great job in restoring this beauty to its legendary status. Even though it was detailed on the top end, the 8B truly lived up to its moniker as the "king of the midrange." The crowd voiced its approval for this amp after the very first song. "Natural," "realistic" and "just like being there" were numerous comments heard by the crowd about the 8B.
The last round was much closer. On the lower end, I actually preferred the bass of the Mark Levinson as sounding much tighter, and I thought that the bass of the Audio Research D115 was just "slightly" bloated. On the top end, however, the Levinson sounded a bit dry and slightly thin to my ears, and the AR tube monster sounded almost as sweet on the top end as the 8B. Given that the D115 was such a powerful tube amp, I was impressed with the amount of detail on the top end, and the lushness of the midrange was only exceeded by the Marantz 8B. As Dave mentioned, the crowd preferred the Audio Research over the Mark Levinson, and this may also be a function of the speakers being run (horns love tubes).
Ah......the speakers. As some of you may know, the test speakers were a pair of 1962/63 Klipschorns with JBL 2404 tweeters and a sweet pair of Universal aftermarket crossovers designed by Al Klappenberger (ALK Engineering). Kudos to Dave - his Khorns sounded great.
They were very revealing, yet they adapted to the variety of musical formats with ease. Other than the various amps, the Khorns were the star of day.
Thanks again to Dave and Colleen for again hosting this annual event!! Cannot wait until next year.