My first time at Snoopdog's.
Steve puts on a good show in time-honoured Wam fashion - main room has the big system which largely remains untouched as it is sorted, and the second room is free for his guests to assemble an impromptu system from disparate bits of kit. (In this case the second was unusually spacious, though a tad lively. The sound in that room was improved by the likes of GLB and Technobear as the afternoon went on I thought - different amps, cables helping to tame the live room.)
My main interest was Steve's very extensive (and expensive) system in the big(ger) room. Clearly a lot of thought had gone into this - there were new pre and power amps from D'Agostino, a streamer, and a CD player, plus a very nice Raven turntable, lovely American unipivot and a Transfiguration Orpheus, two REL subs complimenting the excellent TAD speakers and various strategically placed cylindrical room treatment towers, plus soft furnishings.
(Some of this equipment had been supplied by Mike, who was present, and I had a long interesting chat with him..)
I found the system's SQ matched its impressive looks . It had untold power and drove the room easily. I couldnt hear the room intruding at all and the music was unforced and clean, but not clinical. There was plenty of detail over all frequencies and the Tads handled all sorts of music with ease - though Steve plays loud it was never uncomfortablely so because the sound was so clean and undistorted.
I found this system useful as a reference by which to compare my big horn system. As we know there are many different approaches to high end, but they can be divided into 2 camps - high power/low efficiency and low power/high efficiency. In the latter camp you tend to find valve amps (at least at certain frequencies (mids and tops)) and in the former solid state supplying a lot of current. Steve's betting on high power and medium-low efficiency and its a convincing and successful example of its type.
Ive gone the other route - several of my compression drivers are 115 db/w and driven by 6 watt valve amps. The resulting sound is subtly different, but equally valid. I got an excellent handle on this as we played Nightclubbing side 1 (Grace Jones) - a record I'm entirely familiar with (ad nauseam) on Steve's CD player and vinyl player. So I was able to personally relate his sound to mine.
Good day and looking forward to the next one there in Alresford. Rockchild was talking about trying to get something together in the West Country - hopefully the Wammers down there, including Greybeard and GLB can put something together next year.
Jack NSM