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Don’t ask me how this happens…or how long it”ll last…but I like it!  

Bob

More on the Beethoven Sonata Series

New DIY class next January

San Francisco audio designer, Edwin Yang, will be once again teaching a class starting in January, 2011 at the Randall Museum. For the last few years, Edwin has been teaching students how to build a tube linestage, myself included. The linestage, although not expensive, is a terrific piece of gear – I sold my other 2 tube linestages after building it.

The next project is a tube phono stage. This class will be more challenging than the linestage class, but still possible for the student that has confidence and some dexterity. It is not necessary to have built anything before but that it desirable.

The class will be for several Saturdays starting in January. Some will finish quickly while others, like myself, will take the total of 10 Saturdays to finish. The class is always entertaining and educational and I highly recommend it. Cost will be around $600 – $700.

Phono stage comparison at the Randall Museum October 9th

The Bay Area Tube Users Group will be hosting a phono stage comparison at 1pm on Saturday October 9th. I will be bringing my Nighthawk and Prism Orpheus to compare to Edwin’s phono stageIf you have a favorite phono stage you want to compare, please bring it along. So if you are on the fence as to whether it is worth the effort to build one, attend the event and decide for yourselves.

Peter Truce

Sumiko to Hold Open House in Berkeley

See the flyer below for details of Sumiko’s Open House (9/15/2010):

Silverman to Return to Beethoven Sonatas

Audio High will bring pianist Robert Silverman back to the Bay Area, this time for an eight-concert series of the entire cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas (32 in all).

These events will be open to the public and all proceeds will benefit the Elf Foundation. Dates are Sept 9th & 16th and Nov 11th & 18th, 2010; Feb 3rd & 10th and Apr 7th & 14th, 2011.

Audio High will be recording and producing a CD set of all 32 sonatas with Mr. Silverman that will also contribute to the Elf Foundation’s Rooms of Magic program. The recordings will also likely be offered in a high-resolution format. (Yah!)

BAAS was treated to Silverman’s masterful playing in a private session last year.

More information will be available at www.audiohigh.org (note the .org).

Blue Coast “BAAS Session III” Coming June 26th!

Matt & Jenna at Blue Coast BAAS Event II

Great news: BAAS members and their guests have been invited to another “insider” recording session at Blue Coast Records.

The recording artists include Jane Selkye and Chris Kee (think “Blue Coast Collection”). Yeah!

In addition to the recording session itself, two other special events will be featured:

Invitations are being sent today.

Bob

New Audiophile Web Site Launches

There’s yet-another-audiophile-website up and running – the e-zine HIFI ZINE.

And the first issue looks good: an interview with the colorful Albert Von Schweickert, a DSP article, DIY stuff, reviews, and more.

A pretty impressive debut IMO…enjoy!

Music@Menlo to Kick Off 2010 Summer Festival

If you love chamber music, let me recommend a local festival put on by Music@Menlo in – where else – Atherton (near Menlo Park!). This Merc article provides a nice preview.

Great music, performed well. And sometimes much better than “well.”

If you don’t believe me, try a couple of their well-produced CD’s (available on the web site).

Good listening!

California Audio Show (CAS) Exhibitors List

The list is up – and it’s growing.

I think the show is already at critical mass – and worthy of a visit.

July 30 – August 1 in Emeryville.

Bob

New audiophile show coming to the Bay Area!

This summer, we will once again be blessed by a local audio show. And attendance will be free to registered guests!

So save the dates: July 30 – August 1

The event will be in Emeryville and comes courtesy the good folks at Dagogo.

Organization is still in its early stages. In speaking with Constantine Soo, Dagogo founder, last week, I learned that several key exhibitors had signed and invitations had gone out to many more.

Given that at least twenty high-end vendors call NorCal home, I’d expect a very nice event. Of course, many non-local folks will also exhibit.

I will later send out an email containing a registration link…

THE Event for DIY Audio

See how the DIY crowd lives, meet accomplished designers (e.g., Nelson Pass, John Curl, S. Linkwitz) have fun!

Web site.

Bob

Fall Event for Vinyl Lovers

THE RECORD MAN, 1322 El Camino Real, Redwood City, Ca 94063

Web site.

Great Classical This Weekend!

Looking for something cool to do this Sunday (9/13/09)?

Click here for tickets to what promises to be a great event.

San Mateo Record Sale – May 16th and 17th!

Attend our Steve Hoffman show, and then buy some music:

Bob

Music players — I Mean Servers?

CES featured a new trend – music players that act like music servers. In particular, they can:

• Read music from a hard drive and play it;
• Play hi-rez disks directly (like Ref Recordings HRx); and
• Rip the music from CD to hard drive (in some cases)

A couple of these new machines were the rage at CES. Soundstage (among others) has the details here and here. (One of them even has tubes!) I think that PSaudio will sell a bunch of their product. They have the engineering budget to really do things right, and seem to have the vision as well.

One sobering note: of the four products that I saw in this category in Vegas, two were “down” for a period of time for software errors (“bugs”). It’s hell being on the bleeding edge….

In any case, this category will likely do well as a whole. Many audiophiles are turned off by the concept of a “computer in the music room.” Likewise, using a computer to rip/organize a massive music library is daunting. So the appeal of just inserting a disk and getting the sonic benefit of playback from a large memory buffer is substantial.

For me, I’ll take a Mac/1TB drive/Firewire any day!  <g>

bob walters

Burning Amp 2008 (Oct 19th)

For many of us, tweaking or building our gear is a key part of our musical expression.

We Bay Area folks are lucky to, through DIYaudio.com and others, be a mecca for this activity.

I highly recommend dropping by Burning Amp, the annual celebration of DIYaudio. Among other things, you can meet folks like Nelson Pass – a real treat!

See below for the link….

Bob

————————-

Dear Bob,

Burning Amp is October 19th this year. Could you please alert your members?

Thanks,
Mark Cronander

“Desert Island” Discs

We all have our favorite disks – the ones that we pull out to elevate our mood or to test a new system. What are yours? Please share your top 5-10 disks or LP’s. Specify enough information so that our members can find them! Either reply to this post (you must register if you haven’t already) or email me. This should be fun. Thanks in advance!   – Bob

Belated Thanks to Cookie and Jason McGuire

A couple of weeks ago, we had a very successful event at the studio of Blue Coast Records in Belmont.

I think that each of us came away with a deeper understanding of the challenges and tradeoffs that recording engineers face in bringing the live event into our lives.

Our Chief Instructor was Cookie Marenco, a primo engineer and “emerging audiophile.” Assisting her was Jason McGuire, flemenco guitarist par excellence.

If you think that the goal of your playback system is “to reproduce the live event,” I guarantee that the “Blue Coast Sessions” would have give you perspective on the impossibility of that goal. Reproducing “what’s on the media” is a more reasonable standard.

So again our thanks to Cookie and Jason M – bravo!

As “Friends of BAAS,” I have added a link to each of their sites to our home page.

Note: Both sites have numerous music tracks and/or videos.

Person Jason McGuire

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Invite to THE Show in Denver in September

FROM “THE SHOW”:

If you are involved in Home Theater…….This is the place to be during September.

T.H.E. Show Denver is Sept 4 – 7 during CEDIA…….and we have large exhibit rooms still available. Society members can receive a 20% discount OVER our already low published rates on our website.

Audiophile Society Members are also invited to exhibit at T.H.E. Show Denver…..AT A 20% DISCOUNT.

Call us at (702) 242-4545 with questions or to reserve spaces.

Want to go to THE Show?

For the first time ever, BAAS members (and those of select other audiophile societies) will be invited to The Home Entertainment Show in Vegas during CES.

Specific dates are January 9-11.

Here’s what we know so far:

After a decade of being exclusively a Trade-Only convention,
T.H.E. Show Management and its Exhibitors have decided
it’s time to open the doors to all those who truly love and
appreciate High-End Audio.

As you probably know, T.H.E. Show occurs each January, and
this year we want to include YOU and YOUR MEMBERSHIP from
Noon on Friday the 9th, through the closing of T.H.E. Show on
Sunday, Jan 11th.

[ Thurs & Fri until noon will continue as Trade Only ]

T.H.E. Show annually touts over 200 exhibitors in over 100 active
display suites and recently expanded into both The St Tropez and
Alexis Park hotels, allowing the return of software/rare record & CD
exhibitors including Classic Records, The Music.com; Elusive Disc;
Reference Recordings; Acoustic Sounds; Cisco Music; Music Direct;
Straight Ahead Records; Discland and many more.

You will be seeing new equipment from around the globe, much
of it before its public release dates and many features will be aimed
directly at the Audiophile public:

• Discounted hotel accommodations
• Exclusive high-end oriented “guest speakers”
• Endless networking possibilities
• Participation in Demo Sale items on the final day
• Discounted tickets to many Cirque du Soleil presentations

And, much more…

See you there!