Harrogate photos

Brigadoon

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Okay, finally got to dig out some pics.

Firstly,  thanks to Peter, Danny, Rachel , Sophie and Carolin for their hard work in organising and running the show. While there are will always be lessons to be learned, I felt the running and organisation was slick and professional.

A couple of show highlights for us were:

- meeting some lovely people, and finally putting faces to names

- one visitor, in his late teens/early twenties asked for some Faithless.  We played God is a DJ & Come One, after which he said not only did he hear things he normally only hears with headphones, he also heard things he didn't even hear with headphones, and that he not only heard the music but felt it too, something he missed with headphones, and he parted saying he needed to get into proper hi-fi.

- one couple came in and asked us to play a track off their newly purchased Neil Young album on vinyl.  They sat listening with eyes closed and the sweetest smiles on their faces, totally lost in the music, and the woman later approached my fiancè downstairs, and thanked her again for letting them listen to their music on our hi-fi

- just before closing on Saturday, we sat with Chris (Bohemian) and listened to the whole of 1812, and got completely lost in the music.  When the last note faded, I opened my eyes to discover they were somewhat teary

- the fact that aside from a slower start on Sunday, we had a full room pretty much constantly both days - with only a few short instances when we had less than three  people in the room, and for the most part people that came in stayed for a minimum of about 15 minutes, with the most staying even longer.

- a visitor who said that seeing the Wam systems has changed his thinking on hi-fi, and he is going to go back and start from scratch, now the he knows what can be achieved with home systems

- the constant praise for the high standard of systems in the Wammer rooms

- the looks on peoples faces when we played the little Krieslers..... :D

- the visitors who came back - sometimes two or three times

- discovering some great new music

- the relaxed sense of community

Aplogies that my pics are of my own room only - they were all I had time to take.

IMG_1825.JPG IMG_1848.JPG IMG_1849.JPG IMG_1852.jpg

 
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bencat

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Thank you very much for your kind comments about our little SA1 system :)  Having everyone pick their own music was a real highlight for me and I've got a long list of great new tracks to explore! I find it hard to truly evaluate a speaker / system unless I'm listening to a familiar recording and I think most people are the same ... so it makes perfect sense to me and is definitely something I'll do going forward.

P.S. I'm very partial to a bit of bass music, but as an exhibitor need to be careful not to put anyone off, so I'm only too happy when someone else chooses it!
Hi I called in your room on the Sunday and asked you to play some Grace Jones bit unfair really as your system was not really set up for deep bass . Thought that the system sounded very good with all the different parts in place and nothing highlighted . As mentioned not the system if you want very low bass but I am sure you have other models that do that instead. Given what is included in your box of electronic delights thought the asking price of (£1500 I recall please correct me if I got this wrong) was really good value for money . Would also say that you made me and so I presume all your visitors very welcome and answered all my questions with good humour .

 
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Ceri Thomas

Ceri Thomas (Code Acoustics)
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Hi I called in your room on the Sunday and asked you to play some Grace Jones bit unfair really as your system was not really set up for deep bass . Thought that the system sounded very good with all the different parts in place and nothing highlighted . As mentioned not the system if you want very low bass but I am sure you have other models that do that instead. Given what is included in your box of electronic delights thought the asking price of (£1500 I recall please correct me if I got this wrong) was really good value for money . Would also say that you made me and so I presume all your visitors very welcome and answered all my questions with good humour .
Yeah, I remember, thanks so much for coming over to check our room out! Also, I really appreciate that you enjoyed it :)  The SA1 system is pretty much flat down to 60Hz, where there is a gentle hump, then it rolls off fairy quickly. We could EQ so the system runs lower, but you limit the max volume (SPL), so it's a bit of a balancing act. Whilst with most music you don't really notice you're missing anything, there are certain genres such as drum and bass where you definitely do.

Our Digital Signal Processing (DSP) crossover has 6 channels, and we only use 4 on the SA1, so we have two spare for optional bass modules. I'm just running the simulations now, but it looks like it'll be a pair of active force opposed 8" high excursion drivers that should run flat to 25Hz (using two modules). This should turn the SA1 from a very competent mini system into a very high quality 3-way floor-stander. My plan is to bring this combo to Harrogate 2018, though it should be developed some time before then.

Apologies, I think that's probably a little more info than you were after!

 
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bencat

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No not at all Ceri I wanted to ask lots more questions because I think yours was a quite unique product which could be tailored to many peoples taste . problem was I only had someone to babysit my room for an hour and I wanted to see as much as possible .

If you have those channels free them a sub woofer sattelite arrangement would be a possibility . For domestic blis I would love to have a system that is just one box and a small pair of speakers hard against a wall but really could not manage without some decent low level bass . As you say the music you play on it makes all the difference . Just a suggestion but try and get a CD The Church With One Bell by John Martyn it has some really testing bass with out being Dance or Drum and Bass .

 

chrisstares

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I thoroughly enjoyed helping Mark of Malvern Audio Research set up and run the room last weekend and meeting/interacting with so many nice people who stopped by for a listen and a chat.  As I'm actually a customer of Malvern Audio Research, I suppose our room was a little bit of a "hybrid" of dealer and "wammer" gear, as the Ming Da Dynasty Octet EL34 tube amp, LampizatOr Lite 7 Mini DAC and Albedo silver cables were my own personal kit.  However, all of the equipment we exhibited is available from Malvern Audio Research, either as a manufacturer (Audio Detail phono stage, pre-amp, pre-amp/DAC), or reseller/distributor (Ming Da, Planalogue Prelude (turntable), Audio-Technica, hORNS (speakers), LampizatOr, Albedo Pure Silver (cables), GigaWatt (power front), etc.)

2017-10-22 15.50.32_small.jpg

2017-10-22 15.49.24_small.jpg

 

Ceri Thomas

Ceri Thomas (Code Acoustics)
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No not at all Ceri I wanted to ask lots more questions because I think yours was a quite unique product which could be tailored to many peoples taste . problem was I only had someone to babysit my room for an hour and I wanted to see as much as possible .

If you have those channels free them a sub woofer sattelite arrangement would be a possibility . For domestic blis I would love to have a system that is just one box and a small pair of speakers hard against a wall but really could not manage without some decent low level bass . As you say the music you play on it makes all the difference . Just a suggestion but try and get a CD The Church With One Bell by John Martyn it has some really testing bass with out being Dance or Drum and Bass .
Great stuff, yeah if you've ever got any further questions, comments or suggestions, just send them over. All feedback is greatly appreciated :)   In addition to the bass modules, I'll design a pair of wall brackets as a few people were asking about that. There will also be a specific crossover setting for this. Given we get additional boundary reinforcement, we'll have the headroom to run the little speakers a bit deeper in the bass range. This may be a way off but I think we can also add Hifi streaming to our electronics box by way of a Raspberry Pi Zero (Wifi) running Roon. Could be a nice little upgrade.

I'll track down that recording, thanks for the tip!

 

Ceri Thomas

Ceri Thomas (Code Acoustics)
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my modest setup.

IMG_20190109_155101.jpg
I love this set-up and wish I could have heard it! The Behringer DCX2496 is a great unit and I saw a chap online offers an upgrade service for the analogue output stage. I've also played around with the Alesis amps, which are great value for money. I had an RA500 in bridge mode hooked up to an IPL transmission line speaker and the bass was fantastic. What's your little box on the right? Very cool.

 

greybeard

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I love this set-up and wish I could have heard it! The Behringer DCX2496 is a great unit and I saw a chap online offers an upgrade service for the analogue output stage. I've also played around with the Alesis amps, which are great value for money. I had an RA500 in bridge mode hooked up to an IPL transmission line speaker and the bass was fantastic. What's your little box on the right? Very cool.
The little box on the right is a Oppo Sonica DAC, great piece of kit IMO.

 

bohemian

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Did I miss the result of the draw for the headphones prize?  Or has the draw not been made yet?

 

bohemian

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HiFiWigwam said:
Hello Chris,

B&O have the entries and I'm just awaiting the winner.
Thanks for the update, Peter.  I thought I had missed an announcement.

I received an email from MCRU giving the name of the winner of his draw. (Not me!)

 

Brigadoon

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Your system was very musical - we the Mrs and I liked it very much.
I agree - I only got to spend a few minutes listening to Colin's system - I would have loved to be able to really get 'up close and personal' with it.

Unfortunately  the only systems I got to really listen to were Harv's Brother and Ed & Tony (and even then it was waaay too short)

Harv's Brother's system was  a lovely combination of accuracy, detail, and naturalness - a very well balanced system IMHO ( and really sexy pavers :D )

What Tony & Ed did in what was quite a small and very odd-shaped room was remarkable.  The depth and dimension of the soundstage gave me chills, and I thought the sub was very well integrated - lovely  subtle bottom end extension.

If I was a punter I know where I'd have spent most of my two days... ;)

 
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Tony_J

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What Tony & Ed did in what was quite a small and very odd-shaped room was remarkable.  The depth and dimension of the soundstage gave me chills, and I thought the sub was very well integrated - lovely  subtle bottom end extension.
Thanks - glad you enjoyed it. We had a bit of a play in the week before the show to see how it would fit together, but it really wasn't until we set it up in the room that we got to see what it was capable of. I agree, the sound stage with that setup is rather special. From the experiments we have conducted so far, the DSP seems to help greatly with the soundstage - maybe relieving the Lowthers of the low bass improves their performance in the mids and top end.

A couple of people commented that the Lowthers might be better on short stands as the drivers are below ear height, which has inevitably got my brain working overtime since - looks like 300mm would be about right, which means there would be room to build a sub into the base of each speaker. It so happens that I have a spare pair of home built Bicor cabs (same design) that I could experiment with...I feel an active Lowther project coming on...

 
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gintonic

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Brigadoon

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A couple of people commented that the Lowthers might be better on short stands as the drivers are below ear height...
Definitely worth trying, and an active Lowther system could be something quite special ;)

Interestingly I did the same with the Krieslers (also single driver) and they sounded  very shouty.  I experimented with various stand heights, and when I put them on the stands they are on now, which gets the drivers to about chest height they transformed and suddenly I had all the detail and accuracy, with no shout.

 
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