Chicago Polkfest???

hearingimpared

MikeC78 wrote: »

Well, unfortunately we encountered some kind of curse during this event...

It was a clogged kitchen sink that accured late Thursday night!:( It ruined part of my listening experience Saturday afternoon running to Lowe's to get a sink "snake" to unclog this curse with negative results.:( I finally said F*CK it, and figured I'd worry about it later.

Here are some pics of what I did to the pipes with the pressure washer Sunday afternoon trying to unclog the drain.:o

Notice the hole in the insulation... Water actually shot through the pipe, through the insulation, the sheathing for the siding and was leaking all over my deck!!:eek: I'm a horrible plumber!:o

Dude those holes are from the acidic vomit that was spewing from all the booze.!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

MikeC78

There were a few items left at the house...

* One grungy looking purple towel (Rich?)

* Four porno magazines (Ricardo?)

Seriously, are these items gifts or does someone want to claim them?

Lowell_M

MikeC78 wrote: »

There were a few items left at the house...

* One grungy looking purple towel (Rich?)

* Four porno magazines (Ricardo?)

Seriously, are these items gifts or does someone want to claim them?

Seriously? That's hilarious. ....Of course.... who needs **** with all of that sweet gear around..;)

dkg999

If the porno mags say Stereophile and The Absolute Sound on them, I left those for you. Just a little bathroom reading for ya

MikeC78

a_mattison wrote: »

Seriously? That's hilarious. ....Of course.... who needs **** with all of that sweet gear around..;)

They are actually audio "****" magazines.:D

MikeC78

dkg999 wrote: »

If the porno mags say Stereophile and The Absolute Sound on them, I left those for you. Just a little bathroom reading for ya

Yep, you got it!! Thanks Doug!!:)

heiney9

MikeC78 wrote: »

They are actually audio "****" magazines.:D

That's what I meant when I asked if you had any "****" to demo the Home Theater

hearingimpared

You guys are ****!!! LOL!:D

MikeC78

heiney9 wrote: »

That's what I meant when I asked if you had any "****" to demo the Home Theater

I actually thought you wanted to watch ****? If the wife wasn't around, I would of opened my secret stash!:p

schwarcw

Looks like a terrific event!

What model of SVS's do you have that everyone is raving about? They look like 20-39's????

MikeC78

PC-Ultra's...

Call me crazy, but I'm very close in pre-ordering the new ones.

halo

schwarcw wrote: »

Looks like a terrific event!

What model of SVS's do you have that everyone is raving about? They look like 20-39's????

Dual PC-Ultra's :eek:

oops Mike beat me to it

halo

MikeC78 wrote: »

PC-Ultra's...

Call me crazy, but I'm very close in pre-ordering the new ones.

Yer not just crazy, your certifiable! After hearing that HT I can't see changing a thing man. It ain't broke - don't fix it!

heiney9

Apparently when you're SDA addicted you let other things in your life slide, like putting the rest of my comments together from the Chicago PF :eek: .

Three other people I also need to thank are Aaron and Michelle for car pooling and not leaving my dead mutilated body on the farmers dirt road around Rochelle (inside joke), also Doug for sharing a hotel room, car pooling and helping load and unload my newly acquired SDA's. Thanks guys!!!! If you ever need any hauling, moving, or any other help in general let me know.

So much gear and listening experiences, this will probably end up being somewhat random so bare with me.

McLoki wrote: »

Nakamichi CA5 - SS preamp. Pretty old (maybe 15 or 20 years?) Sounded AWESOME. I liked the sound of the tube pre-amps that were playing, but switching to the SS Nak made everything sound so clean. I think it may have been my favorite of the pre-amps that I heard.Michael

I've owned this preamp since about 1986 bought mine new for less than $1000 and this is still my preferred pre. It is a sleeper of epic proportions, IMO. Very dynamic, open and smooth sounding pre. Anyone who is looking for a great 2 ch pre can pick these up for anywhere around $200-300 used.

Mike's dual SVS HT with the Plasma TV lift inside the cabinet was simply stunning. I have felt bass before but nothing like this. I could feel the floor flexing (a lot) under my feet. If you constantly run it like that you will need to reattach your floor planks. Serious, serious air movement going on.

Rich's vinyl rig sounded simply euphoric. I haven't listened to a proper vinyl rig in about 15 years. I really dug the sound of analog but I'm just too impatient to take the steps necessary to maintain such a set-up


The Inner Sound Eros had a lot more bass than I thought they would. The panels have a very laid back sound. Extremely open and “boxless”. They were a bit too laid back for my taste, but that’s not say they weren’t extremely enjoyable. The Sanders amps which we used for most of the shoot outs were very solid performers.

McLoki-That Cinepro is a beast. I’ve never seen one in person; a very manly amp until the Eros took away so of it’s manhood.

The Vonschweikert VR2’s were also an eye opener because they sounded so balanced. Not sure if they are worth the extra $$$ over the LSi 15’s but they had a “rightness” to them that was hard to deny.

The EPOS again stole the show for me especially for the sound to size to price ratio. What a nice sounding small monitor speaker. Open, seamless, effortless and a surprising amount of bass for a small speaker. The Lsi 7’s are a bit better especially the bottom end and I’m sure at higher volumes the 7’s sound better. But $329 vs. $899 retail that’s a tough one.

The LSi shoot-out went as expected, mostly. The 7’s are a great speaker but really need a sub to be top performers. The 9’s have a combination of smooth highs, punchy and accurate mids and a certain degree of “slam” that just makes them sound so good. Perhaps not the most accurate amount of bass, but a warmth that just seems to be so enjoyable.

I was personally a bit disappointed in the 15’s. I thought they sounded rather boomy and the bass was thin but we were using a tube pre and tube cdp initially and I still feel LSi’s and tubes don’t mate well. After putting the Nak pre into the mix they improved but they didn’t blow my socks off like I though they would. I still prefer the 9’s overall.

Now the highlight for me………………Norm’s modded SDA 1C’s. Upgraded x-overs with Solens on the mids and Sonic Cap Gen I bypassed with Sonic Cap Gen II on the highs as well as Mills resistors, RD0’s, Vampire Terminals and more used friendly IC cable which uses a banana plug.

I haven’t heard a proper pair of SDA’s probably since I stopped selling them. Although friends and ex in-laws still have some, it has been awhile for me. As soon as I heard them and found out they were FS it was a done deal. I actually at one point wasn’t going to get them then we compared them to the 15’s and I was sold. The stars were aligned properly as I got a great deal, got to hear them, know the history and could (with the help of Doug) transport them myself. A win, win, win situation!!! Except for my 9’s which can’t come close to competing with the SDA’s and really they shouldn’t have to. Sadly the 9’s have to go.

Again I want to thank our host’s and all the great people I got to meet and share with. Hopefully we can do this again on this type of scale.

H9

SCompRacer

Thanks for all the kind words. I was up 34 hours straight up to midnight Friday night, so if I seemed out of it at times, that is why. I didn’t intend on drinking but when Kevin brought all that beer I figured help was needed in consuming it. It was well worth it though and I enjoyed spending time with all of you. If there is one next year, hopefully it will be a week where I can get more time off.

Electrostats are not for everyone but if you never heard one, now you have. If we all liked the same things, this world would be pretty boring. We experienced many paths to different member’s concepts of audio nirvana, and that is what it should be about.


I spoke with Roger Sanders about the panel arcing on the Eros with the bridged Cinepro amp. Roger has been involved with ESL’s for over thirty years and even wrote a book about electrostatic speakers. He claims to have been the first to use curved panels but went back to flat panels. He felt they were more focused which sounds better and are more room placement friendly. This led to him working with Coda to improve upon an already existing amp design which became the InnerSound ESL amp, and later after he left InnerSound, the current Sanders Sound Systems ESL amp.

Clipping is different than the action of protective circuitry. Clipping is when the amp runs out of power. Protective circuitry usually works by disconnecting the power supply from the output transistors when certain conditions are present. Transistors have limits on both voltage, current, and a condition known as "safe operating area" (SOA). The SOA is determined by the phase angle between the current and voltage and the maximum values seen at a given time of both current and voltage.

For example, a transistor may be rated at 3 amps and 100 volts. But it can't deliver the maximum of both at the same time. And the degree to which it can deliver either is a function of the phase angle between them. So to protect transistors, protective circuitry monitors the load and shuts off the transistors if conditions become risky for the transistors. The problem with protective circuitry is that there will be a full voltage spike whenever it switches on and off. The voltage of these spikes are often much greater than the voltage passed by the transistors when playing music. When protective circuitry is active, the music can sound compressed in dynamic range and distortion can be present. When the Cinepro amp was bridged, the power supply voltage was doubled and the protective circuitry probably allowed a full voltage spike to pass through the amp as it protected the transistors from the load. It was at that point that the right speaker arced and provided the unplanned excitement.

The InnerSound/Sanders Sound Systems ESL amps use no protective circuitry (except for a speaker-protection fuse on the back panel). It is able to "get away" without protective circuitry because the output stage uses a large number of powerful transistors (36) that have a wide SOA so the load is spread over many transistors. As a result, each transistor only sees a tiny fraction of the load and is never pushed outside its SOA. It increases the cost of the amp, but he feels it works and sounds better than amps with fewer transistors with protective circuitry.

Lowell_M

McLoki wrote: »

Gear (I heard alot and only remember some of it so bear with me)-

Nakamichi CA5 - SS preamp. Pretty old (maybe 15 or 20 years?) Sounded AWESOME. I liked the sound of the tube pre-amps that were playing, but switching to the SS Nak made everything sound so clean. I think it may have been my favorite of the pre-amps that I heard.

Here ya go....

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nakamichi-CA-5-CA5-Pre-Amplifier-Beautiful-Condition_W0QQitemZ250101668600QQihZ015QQcategoryZ12050QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

SCompRacer

heiney9 wrote: »

Rich's vinyl rig sounded simply euphoric. I haven't listened to a proper vinyl rig in about 15 years. I really dug the sound of analog but I'm just too impatient to take the steps necessary to maintain such a set-up

Thanks. I don't go through all the trouble some do, I'm just a wet vacumn and play guy for the ~200 albums I currently have. I have no plans of replacing all my CD/SACD's with vinyl.

I am extremely pleased with the ModWright phono stage but am still waiting for the pre amp to settle in. I only have ~225 hours since the SWL to SWLP upgrade. Part of the upgrade was replacing the Sonicaps with ModWrights signature Teflon film & foil caps (probably a formula variation manufactured by V-Cap). I am told they need 400 hours to fully settle in. I do miss the Sonicaps that were in the SWL and hope the Teflon caps live up to the hype.

SCompRacer

MikeC78 wrote: »

There were a few items left at the house...

* One grungy looking purple towel (Rich?)

Not mine. I have all the towels I brought there. The only one I had in the house was a clean one under the cardboard box I had placed the Nitty Gritty record cleaner in. By that kewl digital picture.

engtaz

Could someone put forum names matched with pic. thanks

Ricardo

post # 459

hearingimpared

SCompRacer wrote: »

Thanks. I don't go through all the trouble some do, I'm just a wet vacumn and play guy for the ~200 albums I currently have. I have no plans of replacing all my CD/SACD's with vinyl.

I am extremely pleased with the ModWright phono stage but am still waiting for the pre amp to settle in. I only have ~225 hours since the SWL to SWLP upgrade. Part of the upgrade was replacing the Sonicaps with ModWrights signature Teflon film & foil caps (probably a formula variation manufactured by V-Cap). I am told they need 400 hours to fully settle in. I do miss the Sonicaps that were in the SWL and hope the Teflon caps live up to the hype.

Okay Pal-O-Mine when you get done listening to the 200 LPs, send the phono pre to my house, I'll get plenty of use out of it!!!:D

McLoki

SCompRacer wrote: »

The InnerSound/Sanders Sound Systems ESL amps use no protective circuitry (except for a speaker-protection fuse on the back panel). It is able to "get away" without protective circuitry because the output stage uses a large number of powerful transistors (36) that have a wide SOA so the load is spread over many transistors. As a result, each transistor only sees a tiny fraction of the load and is never pushed outside its SOA. It increases the cost of the amp, but he feels it works and sounds better than amps with fewer transistors with protective circuitry.

Ok then - thank you for the explanation. The Cinepro 3k6 has the following internal workings (specs and design info) Courtesy of this secrets review:

Inside is where this amp really begins to look impressive. For those interested, the internal layout is neat, simple, and crowded with goodies. With an unGodly toroidal transformer, 120,000 µF of filter capacitance, and ±95 volt rails, it delivers, without straining, 350 watts into 8 Ohms, and 500 watts into 4 Ohms with all six channels operating. There are 1,050 Joules of energy storage just waiting to send those bass drums into your wall studs, courtesy of six bipolar output devices per channel.

The output sections use output inductors to ensure stability into reactive loads at ultrasonic frequencies. Theoretically, this could cause minor phase shifts in the audible band, but it's a minor drawback considering the possible alternative. If an amplifier's circuit design uses global feedback without an output network for the sake of bandwidth specifications, or to tailor a rising response for a more lively sound, it might lead to problems. Amplifiers with response peaks have poor phase response within the top of their bandwidth, which leaves them open to oscillation with reactive loads and, occasionally, catastrophic failure. Is an output inductor a compromise? Maybe. Significant? The CinePro 3k6 still has a wider bandwidth than many highly regarded amplifiers without output inductors, so I'd lean towards not very (significant, that is).

The CinePro isn’t just another pretty face with no guts. It's a simple, dependable design. Input driver stages, and outputs, mounted to the rear panel, share a large central power supply. It isn’t dual-mono, or hexa-mono for that matter, which does introduce some theoretical cross-talk compromises, but also comes with its own advantages. The ability to share a single power source allows extra juice, beyond a channel’s normal share, to be allocated where the need demands it most.

The only change my Cinepro has from the one reviewed is that Cinepro doubled the number of output transistors per channel to 12 as a mid-season change to the MkI model to help when running speakers that preset difficult loads. Mine does have the 12 output transistors per channel. That is as much as I know about the internal workings of the Cinepro since they are now out of business. The business partner that was part of cinepro has reopened under a new name and I could call him with specific questions if you have any. For now suffice it to say - straight, bi or tri amping is good with the Cinepro - bridged is bad (at least with electrostatics). The following quote comes to mind - "ok, important safety tip - dont cross the streams..."

I did think the Cinepro was doing well with them when bi-amping. It was more a volume than critical listening test, but to my uneducated ear - it was sounding pretty sweet. (then again I am a HT guy - what the hell do I know... )

suffice it to say, they did/do sound good and I certainly understand their draw - even if it wasn't for me.

Michael

Note to self - in a crowd of peers is a bad time to start experimenting with things you have not tried before....:o

engtaz

HTrookie wrote: »

post # 459

You have help me out again
Thanks

opus

MikeC78 wrote: »

PC-Ultra's...

Call me crazy, but I'm very close in pre-ordering the new ones.

Sounds like a good way to get your entire house painted to me, you are going to need somewhere for those Ultra's to go.;)

McLoki

opus wrote: »

Sounds like a good way to get your entire house painted to me, you are going to need somewhere for those Ultra's to go.;)

I have an image of opus standing on a streetcorner in Bloomington holding a sign reading "Will work for Bass"

halo

opus wrote: »

Sounds like a good way to get your entire house painted to me, you are going to need somewhere for those Ultra's to go.;)

I think they'd want faux finishing for that price!

Ricardo

Mike, why would you spend the money on new subs that would only sound "different"????

opus

Geez, come on guys. :eek: Trying to do a deal here. I was hoping to catch Mike drunk on letftover beer and in the dealing mood.;)

halo

opus wrote: »

Geez, come on guys. :eek: Trying to do a deal here. I was hoping to catch Mike drunk on letftover beer and in the dealing mood.;)

Now we know why you offered to bring the beer! McLoki scoped out the location and you came up with the plan. 1 sub for each conspirator, right?

J/K!!!

McLoki

Halo wrote: »

Now we know why you offered to bring the beer! McLoki scoped out the location and you came up with the plan. 1 sub for each conspirator, right?

Now that is a plan I can get behind.....