A 'Horn Invitational' Bake Off?

lostwin

Tinker Bod
Wammer Plus
Nov 26, 2018
2,469
2,473
183
Folkestone, Kent
AKA
Richard
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Well, Jessica might be understandably modest but I am prepared to call it. I thought her combination of phono and buffer pre was the best combination of the day in the second room. I reckon she has developed a product that is ready to take on some pretty big hitters in this space.

There has been a bit of talk about cartridge loading on a couple of threads recently, I loved the way that Jessica has incorporated switches on the front of the phono that allows loading to be changed 'on the fly'. The ART cart was lacking sparkle at first but a couple of clicks to increase the loading, adjusted whilst the track was playing, immediately opened things out at both frequency extremes. The first time I have heard this demonstrated so obviously. If I understood Jess correctly, the separately adjustable setting for the MM stage changes the capacitance. The valve buffer pre might look un-assuming but has been carefully designed to control impedance.

The combination was dynamic, extended with plenty of detail. It's pretty neutral, certainly not dry but equally valve cozy warmth is minimised. Bass was truly excellent, extended but tight and driving, it has Jack questioning the need for sub woofers on the Jantzen speakers.

The VIDA is more idiosyncratic. Firstly, unless your MC outputs at least 0.4mV it lacks gain and sounds flat unless accompanied by an active pre or head amp - considering its cost, that is a significant shortcoming. I felt it also lacked the drive and bass control of Jess's phono. Through the mids it's pure - slightly delicate even- whilst its party trick is at high frequencies that have a sort of holographic ambiance. The addition of the active SJS shakes the VIDA awake and fleshes the soundstage out, but dare I say, it still sounded a tad plodding compared to Jessica's combo.

All in all a fascinating couple of hours as part of the day. You really get to understand better the characteristics of each piece of equipment aided by the knowledge and enthusiasm of those around you. It's what makes a Bake Off.
 
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Speedracer

Wammer
Wammer
Sep 2, 2014
1,628
1
1,437
183
Ferndown
AKA
Brook
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Well, despite the low numbers I really enjoyed the day, Jack hosted very well & the time went really quickly. The lower numbers helped in allowing us to be more focused in determining the merits of each system & subsequent additions,
The horn system has taken a while to get to the stage it is now, only to be expected really as it has many many parts, cables & plug sockets, but it is now really shining & showing what it can do.

Moving on to Jack's mono system, I am very familiar with it now & it never disappoints, I have a real interest in mono recordings, & now I am limited to one turntable I take any opportunity to hear a good mono system, which this certainly is.

But I will move on to the kit brought along by Jess & Richard to use Jacks Cary monoblocks & Jantzen speakers (minus the subs) as a base for Richard's Vida & SJS pre, & Jess's LP12 (ish) & her Alpha2delta phono & buffer pre.
I won't go into it too much as it has already been covered by everyone in detail, save to say I was a little disappointed in the Vida at first, though it did improve as it was used. It actually saddens me to say that, as I had a Vida for a while & loved it for the most part, but I was irked by the fact it could easily be improved with a decent SUT, or preferably a good Head amp, & for what it costs I didn't think that should be the case. However, as I say it did get better, especially when the SJS pre was put in with it, which was lovely by the way, as with Jess's pre the pair didn't gel for me.
I felt that the best sound was produced using the alpha2delta pair, hardly surprising really as Jess designed them to work well together, which they did. In fact I like the pre so much I have decided to buy one.

Big surprise of the day was finding out the the Jantzens don't need subs!
 
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Non-Smoking Man

Wammer
Wammer
Mar 31, 2009
6,482
2,522
158
Chichester W. Sussx.
AKA
Jack lambert
HiFi Trade?
  1. No
Some thoughts:

First of all, thankyou to the merry band of Wammers who made it to the first 'Horn Invitational'.
Its plain to see it was a most enjoyable day and really easy to organise.
In contrast with other bake offs Ive been to, we all concentrated on the equipment and how it was playing the vinyl, with chat taking a back seat unless it was related to the systems.

Jess stayed behind and she got an opportunity to pop the first (pre) production model of the PRE 1 into the Vinyl Passion system, replacing the 'bare bones' one that Brook had smuggled away to Dorset. It was very good, possibly surpassing the other one. The tranny was out sat next to it connected by wires and no lid so it was a private listen.
I wanted to see where my Basie Pre stood (having been puzzled but pleasantly surprised by the Jantzens newfound bass capability). The Basie (admittedly a £300 bit of kit only) soon showed itself to be the weak link in that system, lacking top and bottom.

I had blithely assumed it was doing its job adequately, but the experience of pitching it against something a lot better in this controlled context gave me an insight into how the second system can be improved. This is invaluable info and with someone sitting next to you hearing the same thing you neednt worry you are fooling yourself.

I'd like to comment on 2 remarks Richard made about the horns: 1. They may indeed benefit from a bigger room (as others have said) but I'm not totally convinced, as horns are directional, or, rather, have directivity - they point the soundwaves AT you and AWAY from reflecting walls and ceiling. Thus out of phase reflections are minimised. In a x4 larger room this could be lost; 2. I appreciated Richard's compliments re the horn system, but, tbf, Richard only heard a small sample of music in that room as we spent the majority of the time in Room 2. My thought is that they perform on all types of music, not least classical, where their scale and soundstage benefit that genre greatly.
Finally, much of the credit for what ive been able to achieve is due to Martin Ware, my RH man, who, unfortunately, could not make it due to illness He deserves a lot of the credit. M is not a Wammer, but has helped at all my past Wam Show exploits and came to Baggawire's recent bake off.

Jack NSM
 
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