BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

Audiophile Jazz Prologue Vol 3

Many of you enjoyed a 24/192 cut – “Lush Life” – that I used to demonstrate ultra-high-resolution at yesterday’s event.

The CD/DVD containing that track is now available in limited quantity from Kent Poon’s web site (click here).

Recommended. Even in CD (also available) this material sounds great!

Bob Walters

BAAS AIX/iTrax Event featuring Mark Waldrep

About 40 members and theirs guests were treated to some great music yesterday, courtesy Mark Waldrep and Bay Area Audio.

Between teaching at a local university, recording audiophile gigs at AIX Studios, and running iTrax.com, Mark Waldrep leads a very busy life. And did I mention Mark is also employed by a hot video startup?

One of the key elements of the event was the ability to compare/contrast 2-channel and 7.1 surround versions of Mark’s audiophile-quality recordings.  And what great music it was, especially since it included “private” (unreleased) acoustic tracks from the likes of Jennifer Warnes!

Here are some notes from the day (mainly from the 2-channel room:

•  Most sessions began with a conversation by Gabriel Sakakeeny – Music Director for the American Philharmonic, former tube amp designer, music synthesizer inventor, and audiophile. (He’s probably a 007 agent too!  )
  • In addition to providing some very cogent comments during the sessions, Gabe also volunteered to teach some classes on “audio electronic” and “music appreciation.” BAAS members present were enthusiastic.
  • You can reach Gabe here.
• We featured Medea and Minerva DAC’s from Weiss Audio (this link also contains a list of web sites featuring high-definition music). The Minerva (PM session only, as FedEx didn’t arrive until noon!) was particularly stunning – easy-to-install and very musical. [Thanks, Clive, for the Medea.]
• We connected the Medea with the RME Fireface 400 firewire adaptor box (I bought mine here). Excellent (German) engineering, and great sonics. Another great option is the Apogee Duet ($500 street), especially for Mac’s. We also discussed the Bel Canto USB adaptor and the Lynx AES16 sound card.
• The speakers were the uber Ficion F300‘s in stunning black laquor. They were great, especially since they were only out of the box for 4 days. Some of you will recall that they made my “Top 5″ list at RMAF 2008. They are described here.
• The amplification was by Goldmund and the cabling by Verastarr, Oritek, and Furutech.
• Two important software utilities for Mac were discussed: Max (for ripping and transcoding formats) and Audacity (for really geeky stuff like sample-rate conversion.)
• We also discussed the promise and perils of attenuation in the digital domain(often to elimanate the need for a preamp). Rather than rehash that thread, check out Bob Katz’s excellent articles here (read “Dither”).

I’m sure there’s some stuff that I’m forgetting, but duty calls….

Bob Walters