Staten Island, New York, AK Spring Meet

What a great day and a special thanks to Chris for hosting us. I hope the clean-up wasn't to much effort. It was very nice to see members from other meet-ups and be able to match a face to members I have not met before.
Lot's of great conversation and listening to music on systems that I have never seen before.
This is what makes AK such a great forum and community!
Thanks again to Chris and to all the members that attended.

BillWojo
 
Chris! That was awesome! Thanks so much for hosting the meet. It was great to see some old faces and meet new AKers as well!
Those Dayton speakers were terrific, very impressive!
Chris, the LST's sounded great and driven by gorgeous gear and love that Pas 3 preamp!
Got to listen to some STAX electrostatic headphones, DAMN! Those were great.
Tube active, great talking with you, and I'm so impressed with all your tube gems you brought.
And of course, the Pizza was a huge hit!
Here's a few pics of the days activities.
Cheers all, and look forward to the next meet.
Glenn
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Guys what a great day! Thank you all for participating...more and more it feels like a community of good friends as we get to learn more about each other...this is number 5 in terms of fests I've attended and as much as each one had it own qualities the best part is always the friends! Glenn you are much quicker and more durable than me...I came home, unloaded and passed out from exhaustion and overload. I'll get the pics up in a day or so with further comments after work and child rearing tomorrow! Thanks again for making this a dream come true.
 
Guys what a great day! Thank you all for participating...more and more it feels like a community of good friends as we get to learn more about each other...this is number 5 in terms of fests I've attended and as much as each one had it own qualities the best part is always the friends! Glenn you are much quicker and more durable than me...I came home, unloaded and passed out from exhaustion and overload. I'll get the pics up in a day or so with further comments after work and child rearing tomorrow! Thanks again for making this a dream come true.
I had some time after unloading and getting everything set up back in the cave. I wanted to get some initial pics posted for fun. I wish I had taken more. Im sure besides yourself, others took some as well and will post.
Again, had a great time!
 
Chris,

Great event!! Thanks for Hosting it. It was great hanging with some of the NYC Metro area AK'rs as well as meeting others as well as some newer members to the AK Fests!!

Tom
 
Just wanted to say a HUGE Thanks to Chris for hosting this event. As this was my first ever meet I was blown away by how nice everyone was and how willing they were to share info. Really a fantastic time. Thanks to Tom for bringing me that awesome SX-650! My son is one VERY happy camper lol. To Lar for bringing me the 1060. I almost slept with it last night LMAO. Those Tri-Trix's Chris had setup blew me away. So much so I ordered the kit this morning along with the super tweeters that Chris had set up on top! These will be finished in either Birds eye maple veneer or Walnut veneer with real carbon fiber front faces. Trying to figure out how to mount the ST's in custom formed enclosures on top. Should be a fun project and I will have a full build thread on them. Thanks to Bill and Chris for the warm greeting when I first got there. You guys really are a great group of people! And I even made it into one of the pics lol.

See everyone at the next one!
 
I want to thank Chris for hosting. Always nice seeing old and new faces !
Glenn, I like the magnepans better without the sub but ymmv:dunno:
Larry thanks for the education on the vinyl eq curve.
I want to thank Kevin for lending me time on his OBs
Its still not clear to me what the western electric repeater does (my best guess in this application is its some kind of impedance transformer:idea:)
Oh whoever picked out pizza place , good call! great pizza!:thumbsup:
The sub will be replaced with one much better. The SMGs are very nice on their own no doubt, but are volume limited. The sub relieves them quite a bit allowing higher volumes.
 
The sub will be replaced with one much better. The SMGs are very nice on their own no doubt, but are volume limited. The sub relieves them quite a bit allowing higher volumes.
Glenn, not sure if it would make the difference with your SMGs but try to lift them about 6" off the floor and position them vertically. When I did that to my MMGs, I liked the sound much better (though you have to be sitting now to fully appreciate the sound). The stands I built are based on cheap Ikea brackets. Also, I do agree that sub helps. Mine is 10" sealed sub and it complements the Magnepans quite nicely. The other two ported subs I have tried did not work well.
 
It was so nice to meet all of you. Looking forward to seeing you all again. I had a great time chatting and listening to some really good systems.
 
First I would like to thank Cris for hosting this party. This was my first AK meet and I do plan on doing more. It was great meeting people and putting a face to the name ( Glen looks just like his avatar)Glen that was the first time I heard Magnaplans they were wonderfull. There were too many people at once to remember all the names. I must say I learned alot and heard systems I never heard before. To the guy with the drowned Micro Sieki beautiful restoration sounds great.The open baffle speakers sounded far better than I thought they would.the stax electrostatic headphones were great and I really don't use headphones but those were a different story. Learning about the different recording EQs was enlightening after this I still don't fully understand why they went with RIAA over AES and Larry I would like to know who was the drummer on the 78 demo record? All in all I had a blast thank all of you but especially Chris. Next time
 
As usual, Tom B blasted everyone out of the house with his superbly restored receivers. I couldn't hear a thing from Glen's set up. Maybe next time Glen could turn up the volume. :dunno:
This message might include bits of sarcasm:D
 
Glenn, not sure if it would make the difference with your SMGs but try to lift them about 6" off the floor and position them vertically. When I did that to my MMGs, I liked the sound much better (though you have to be sitting now to fully appreciate the sound). The stands I built are based on cheap Ikea brackets. Also, I do agree that sub helps. Mine is 10" sealed sub and it complements the Magnepans quite nicely. The other two ported subs I have tried did not work well.
I can try that. I'm convinced though a sealed sub is what I want with them. I'm also starting to lean towards a 10 inch, thinking a little smaller will be quicker to keep up with the SMG's.
 
As usual, Tom B blasted everyone out of the house with his superbly restored receivers. I couldn't hear a thing from Glen's set up. Maybe next time Glen could turn up the volume. :dunno:
This message might include bits of sarcasm:D
Hey Kevin! Whadu say? LOL!
Toms receivers always look great!
 
Hey guys, lets see more pics! I can't be the only one that took some besides Chris!
 
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The 1060 I picked up from Lar. Simple cleaning at this point about to undergo a full resto.
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The 650 I picked up for my son from Tom! . His first vintage piece. Sounds really nice with the HS-71 Kenwoods he picked up for free from my neighbor. He wants a pair of TriTrix so we may build them together as a project over the summer together. 26441FC7-4485-462B-82D8-0AF9F3AC80A7.jpeg 9C635BC4-4E9A-4155-B554-A08D4EFA13F4.jpeg
These sounded AMAZING! So much so I ordered the kit last night with the super tweeters!
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A classic poster!
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Gorgeous Pioneers by Tom! 3609B6B2-1683-4505-B04A-626F7BF96C2A.jpeg
Killer setup. The amp, that Sui!

I grabbed these few. Nothing special though.
 
Great Event ! A True Happening ! Genuine Audio Fun ! Thanks to Supercool Chris for setting this up ! Thanks to all the attendees !

When and where can the next event be held ? Anyone know of any cool pizza places, restaurants or lodges which will let us encroach on their space for little expense ? I think there might be a ground level restaurant near me that might agree to open early for us...and hopefully not take too much $$ from us....But, I am in central NJ, with those famous tolls on the way....

At the SI event, I truly enjoyed the listening sessions and conversations. The crowd was easygoing and nobody appeared to be of the "buying today to sell tonight" type. It is obvious that AK generates some serious, obsessed audio folks. I am glad to be among these ranks....

That demo record featured the Mercury All Stars...Chubby Jackson on Bass, Mike Simpson on Sax, Dick Marks on Piano and, of course, Red Saunders on the drums, circa 1953-1954. All Mercury label LP, EP, 45s and 78s from 1951 through 1954 should have been mastered presuming the AES Phono Playback EQ would be used. While that demo disc sounded good with RIAA or LP playback EQ, it is obvious the AES playback EQ was the better sounding "correct" playback curve to be used. As to the question concerning why the industry later chose the RCA "New Orthophonic" curve as the RIAA endorsed curve, I believe there were some "politics" and "business" involved.

With RCA and Columbia probably owning more record companies and many audio industry related companies during the early to mid-1950s era, the chosen "RIAA" curve was technically between the various 78 EQ curves and the now becoming very popular Columbia "LP" microgroove EQ curve. Since the "AES" playback EQ curve, originally conceived as an average of the 78 curves by the Audio Engineering Society in 1951, their professional interest was in standardizing all of the 78 rpm and blossoming lower speed disc manufacturing recording/playback EQ curves. Standardization would promote industry-wide sales of records and sound equipment.

As vinyl quickly evolved, the mastering and cutting facilities also probably realized that the RCA "New Orthophonic" and Columbia "LP" type EQ curves could take better advantage of the vinyl disc medium, possibly resulting in less high frequency record scratch noise than using the AES EQ curve. As the mastering facilities "encode" the master discs by accentuating the treble (Pre-emphasis)and attenuating bass during recording, playback curves are the "inverse" of this. The playback EQ curve functions to "decode" by accentuating the bass and de-emphasizing the treble (Rolloff), (hopefully)ensuring flat response.

There are definitely some great sounding discs from the late 1940s to mid-1950s early mono LP era as well as potentially fabulous sounding earlier 78s. However, having various phono EQ curves available to be quickly switched in becomes needed to elicit the most natural sounding playback.

Supercool Chris , Thank You, Thank You and Thank You !
 
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Here is a cool link for early disc labels' phono playback curves:

http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/mixlabls.htm

Here is another extensive playback EQ listing after some serious reading. Surprisingly, this disc spinning info comes from the foremost digital transfer site :

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/78rpm_playback_curves

While transferring mono discs to digital files, Audacity actually recommends using no phono preamp, endorsing their computer programs. Yet, they have kindly compiled some of the most important Phono Playback Equalization info and charts for us genuine, old school, spinning in real time groovers

Keep 'em Spinnin'....
 
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