BAASnotes.com – Bay Area Audiophile Society

A Godel-Escher-Bach Moment: Cello Music Made Geometric

I don’t think Hofstadter’s “golden eternal braid” book needs much intro – it’s simply one of the most well-read tomes ever on the correspondence between math, science, and art. It practically started a movement.

It’s also the first thing that I thought of when I saw the video below.

Enjoy,

Bob

Baroque.me: J.S. Bach – Cello Suite No. 1 – Prelude from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

Bay Area Audiophiles Hear the DaVinci 384K DAC

Last Saturday, BAAS members were treated to a private sitting with the trend-setting DaVinci DAC.

Impressive in both design and specs, members noted in particular the impressive soundstage that the unit projected.

The music played, all hi-res except for the Montserrat Figueras tribute, was either classical or jazz: excerpts of Haydn and Beethoven string quartets, Mozart, Ole Bull’s very romantic violin, Paul Motian and Vince Guaraldi’s jazz, Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall’s period instrument Monteverdi, and, in the second session, Kumiko’s Steve Reich on marimba. A fine tribute to a pair of fallen artists.

Thanks again to Jason Victor Serinus for hosting. His fine room, system, and expert musical selections make auditions a treat.

And, of course, special thanks to Larry Ho and Light Harmonic for supplying this elegant piece of reproduction equipment. You can learn more here.

Bob

Bay Area audiophiles meet the new Qol technology

This weekend offered something new few BAAS members, who were introduced to one of the first net-new technologies to hit the high-end scene in years. Of course, I’m talking about the Qol (think “coal” re pronunciation) algorithm from BSG Technologies.

Each of the three sessions began with a thorough briefing from BSG CEO Larry Kay. We then tested the transparency of the analog circuits in the Qol device. With Qol in a tape loop of the Wavelength preamp, we switched the unit in and out while playing the Mahler 2 from Classic. Not a single member could hear a difference. Nada. This in itself can be considered a fine accomplishment IMO. In fact, add an attenuator and a little gain to the Qol and a great preamp would emerge,

We spent much of the rest of the time switching the actual Qol processing in and out. This test was a bit tougher to interpret, as the nature of the Qol – adding (“restoring”) phase and harmonic information to the signal – results in a 0.5dB-2dB rise in acoustic power. So everybody heard a big and positive difference when the Qol was switched in. The question was how much of this goodness was due to the effect and how much do to the gain.

It’s not my role here to render a judgement. But I will say two things. First, BAAS members were unanimous that the Qol processing did no harm, i.e., the processed signal sounded at least as good as the raw signal. Second, one minute into the demo, an experienced BAAS listener sitting in the room’s sweet spot pronounced “I’m sure it’s doing more than a gain change!” Beyond that, I’d urge interested listeners to spend time with the unit themselves. (As I understand it, BSG has a reasonable home audition policy, at least in the Bay Area.)

All of our testing was supported by the new Triode loudspeakers from Jim Jordan of Vaughn. Jim also brought a stack of Wavelength electronics, which featured NOS Western Electric 300B tubes. The source was my highly-modified Pioneer Elite universal player.

Many thanks to Larry, Jim, and Shawn Herrara (local Qol dealer) for making the event a success.

Bob

Edit: The new issue of The Absolute Sound (#220) contains a seven-page rage of the Qol device by Robert Harley.

Burning Amp 2011 – My Highlight

Here’s my “best in show” award for Burning Amp 2011 (the audio track actually captures the speaker’s audio signature pretty well):

Zenwood Audio speakers – check out Zenwood’s other videos! (They are located in San Francisco.)

Bob

Lindemann System Impresses Bay Area Audiophiles

Jonathan Josephs, head of importer One World Audio, wowed local audiophiles yesterday with an impressive array of mostly-Lindemann components.

Front-and-center in the performance were the small-but-mighty BL-10 monitors (pictured). They not only sounded great, but also measured well using the Goldline MP-30 Real-Time Analyzer that was on hand.

Vinyl-loving members were also impressed by the vintage Luxman turntable and Zesto phono stage being demmed.

Later in the day, newly-minted BAAS member Baron Lum was informed that he won the event’s house prize – a new $990-list Lindemann USB-DAC 24/192. (Unbiased post-event drawing shown.) Talk about “membership has its privileges”!

Many thanks to Jonathan and One World Audio….

Bob

It’s (Almost) Time…for Burning Amp 2011!

One of the true audiophile highlights of the year will be held on October 1st at Fort Mason in SF – Burning Amp.

Virtually mandatory for do-it-yourself (DIY) folks, I also recommend it for “general” audiophiles.

This year will feature a veritable “DIY God” – Douglas Self. I’m sure that I’m far from the only builder who got major acceleration from Mr. Self’s teachings.

Edit: The BA organizers are looking for help, especially in providing high-end digital and/or analog sources for the event. Contact info is on their site.

See you there,

Bob

What BAAS members thought of CAS 2011

BAAS members completed a survey to provide Constantine and Dagogo with feedback on the recent 2011 California Audio Show.

I’ll leave it to Dagogo to publish the full results, correlated with other inputs.

But I will say that the majority of BAAS thought that the best sound they heard came from the Magico/Acoustic Research system. As I’ve stated earlier, ’twas reference quality sound – helped by one of the few rooms that let the system breathe.

Bob

Pictures from the 2011 California Audio Show

These pictures via BAAS member Vince (skeptica).

If other members have pix, let me know and I will post them.

Thanks, Vince!

Bob

Impressions of the 2011 California Audio Show

The 2011 California Audio Show (CAS) kicked off today in a hotel just south of the SFO airport. Attendance was moderate, as one might expect for a weekday. This made for minimal waits in the listening room, and plenty of seats at the seminars and lectures.

Overall impressions:

• Venue: The hotel was fine, both in location and facilities. Plenty of parking, BART access, SFO access, and the elevators *all* worked!
• Music sources: A fairly balanced mix of computer, turntable, and optical media. I could not play the hires media on my USB stick in many rooms. Aberration or reversal of a trend? I dunno.
• Innovation: Not much IMO. The new-and-beautiful DaVinci 348K DAC and the imperious Magico 350# Al flagships were perhaps two exceptions.
• Whither flagships? Several vendors brought product well down in the lineup. In particular, small stand-mounters prevailed where floorstanders would have previously stood.
• China marches on. A few more Chinese imports appeared. To my ear, the sound-quality gap narrowed.

Bob

Life of a BAAS Event – Photographic History

Here’s the chronology of our most recent event:

8AM - Setup

9AM - Deliberations on setup

10AM - The Master Decides

Noon - Session 1 on Full Swing (Q&A)

1230PM - Our Youngest Member

1PM - Session 1 Ends

Then repeat for Session 2, Packup, and Go…

Bob

Dr. Linkwitz & His Orion Impress Bay Area Audiophiles

Yesterday, BAAS members were treated to the unique and highly capable “Orion IV Loudspeaker” system from Linkwitz Lab and Wood Artistry.

Sporting a “classic” planar baffle for mids and treble, bass is handled by a clever “W baffle” – a feature that no doubt contributes to the speaker’s fine top-to-bottom tonal balance and soundstage stability.

Also contruting to the overall sound were electronics from Pass Labs, Marantz, Bryston, and Auraliti (whose music server is becoming as ubiquitous at BAAS events as the first movement of “Symphonic Dances).

Indeed, I heard several members comment to each other after the event: “best sound I’ve heard in a long time.”

But that’s not all…. Also on hand were the designer (Siegfried Linkwitz) and builder (Don Naples). In addition to the obvious technical expertise of these two professionals, it was clear to me that both were avid audiophiles and music lovers too. Each describes his path in the audio biz, and the technical goals that were the targets of their efforts on Orion.

A discography of the music played is given below.

Thanks to West Valley College and all the folks that helped make this gig the success that it was.

Bob

JVS Hosts Audiophile Tour-de-force in Oakland

[Late post, with apologies.]

Late last month, our Jason Victor Serinus hosted an event at his home featuring both a vast array of new audiophile technologies and three guest presenters: Jason Jones of Jones Audio and Ray Burnham and Demian Martin of Auraliti.

Highlighting the equipment demmed were:

• The mighty Eficion F300 4-way loudspeakers;
• The sophisticated and elegant (prototype) Auraliti L-1000 file player; and
• The also-mighty Jones Audio PA-M300 Series II monobloc amplifiers.

Also on hand were the Gen. 8 Series II’s 24/192 (and 176.4) upgrade, Stillpoints isolators, Magico QPods, the PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport, Nordost Odin cables Odin everywhere, the Wavelength Wavelink USB to S/PIDF interface, and the Amarra playback software (2.2).

Musical selections included hi-res tracks from the new Attention Screen CD, more Yarlung Records via Linn Records hi-res download site, the ever-present works of Reference Recordings and Chesky Records/HD Tracks, and interesting hi-res content from ECM Records. There was also some funky hip-hop!

A bit of levity was added to the proceeding as JVS demmed how a particular orchestral crescendo could literally blow one of his gym socks out of the rear port on the Eficion’s midrange/tweeter module (a “knock your socks off” recording that indeed)!

In addition to the simple joy of hearing great music on a formidable system, members got yet more exposure to the realities of “why all digital does not sound alike.”

Many thanks to all those who made it happen.

Bob

Bay Area Audiophiles Wowed by APL and Yarlung

Lysy on Yarlung

It was just one of those days where everything seemed to click.

At 8AM yesterday, a 3-car caravan descended on West Valley College in Saratoga. We were met by a smiling Gerard Carter of the Music department, and we started unloading the gear and setting up. We had the gear assembled, room redecorated (chairs and tables moved), and music playing by 9AM.

We spent an hour dialing in speaker positions and the like. Alex Paychev of APL Hi-fi liked what he was hearing – a good sign. So did Doug Olsen, who had graciously contributed some of the gear. Just after 10AM, Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records landed at SJC, and was picked up by member Andrej Sali.

In fact, just about the only thing that went wrong was a formatting error on one of my hard drives. The drive wasn’t needed anyway. Oh, and the founder of a famous audio webzine couldn’t find the place.

APL UA-S4

And then came the music. And things got even better. About 50 BAAS members listened for hours to great music, carefully recorded and produced, and rendered beautifully by the APL DAC-S and accompanying amps and speakers. And just when we thought things couldn’t go any batter, we were treated to some tracked on the über alles $30K+ APL NWO Universal Player/USB DAC. Nice. Very.

Along the way, we learned some very interesting things about Bob’s recording techniques, Alex’s design philosophy, and the effects of sampling rate on fidelity.

Special thanks to Bob Attiyeh and Alex Peychev – great stuff!

Bob

Audio Expert to Conduct “Room Measurement” Class

Bay Area audiophiles have an exciting new event coming up on March 12^th.  This will be a room and loudspeaker measurement techniques class taught by Manny LaCarrubba.

The class will be limited to 6 participants, will be held at Manny’s facility, Sausalito Audio in Novato and will cost $150.00.  Class will start at 10am and will end around 3pm with a break for lunch.

Manny, a longtime BAAS member, is a respected recording and mastering engineer, speaker designer and acoustic expert. Among his many accomplishments is the design of the award-winning Beogram loudspeakers.

If you wish to sign up for the class or if you have any questions, please email:

California Audio Show (CAS) Set for July in Burlingame

Constantine Soo - Show Organizer

Everybody I talked to loved CAS 2010 in Emeryville – a moderate-sized show with a big heart!

Well, the followup has been scheduled for mid-summer – July 15-17 — in a nicer hotel and accessible by BART.

So go to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Burlingame and see/hear reference sound at its best. It’ll only cost $10 for all three days. (Sorry, no BAAS discount this time.)

Also, organizers are looking for volunteers to help! Please support this cause. You’ll also get free admission and lunch. Look for the show thread on our forums for details (it’s under “Other Audio Events”).

More details on the event here.

I can’t wait….

Bob

DIY Tube Phonostage Class at the Randall Museum by Ed Yang

Some of you may know that once a year I teach a DIY tube gear class. This time I’m offering a phonostage / phono preamps class. You will lean about RIAA equalization circuits and build one of my designs known as The Randall Phono.

I have subjected Randall Phono to a number of shootouts / comparison and it has always come out on top. It has a big tone with superb midrange, sparkling treble and solid extended bass. The sound stage is big without being bloated. Imaging is spot on where you can easily pin point the location of performers and instruments in space. At $196.00 for the class, around $350.00 in parts and 8 class sessions you take home a phonostage that is truly high end.

The phonostage you will build is the “passive” type based on the 6SL7 family of tubes, 5V4 rectifier with selectable cartridge loading. This is a medium gain phonostage so you can use it straight with 2mv and greater cartridge. If you use a low output moving coil cartridge (LOMC) you will need to use a step-up transformer (SUT). With a good SUT this phonostage have enough gain to accommodate LOMC as low as 0.14mv. The output impedance is around 30K so it should be able to drive most preamps or integrated amps.

This class is recommended for intermediate or advanced students. If you have taken any of the previous Randall Tube Audio DIY classes or have experience soldering, you are good to go. Even if you have never soldered but have good dexterity, then this class could be ok for you but contact me first. The class is limited to 10 students. This will be the only time I’ll offer the class so don’t wait till the last minute to register.

Class Announcement / Info:

http://www.randallmuseum.org/Flyers/Winter2011FlyerWeb.pdf

Go to page 12 class #18824

Winter Class registration:

http://sfrecpark.org/Rec-ClassActivities.aspx

I think you can enter the class number on the search function. The class may not show up on the reg site until 12/18 but do check.

Museum Member registration:
December 11, 10 a.m.

General registration:
December 18, 10 a.m.

First meeting 12:30 PM Jan 8^th 2011 in the Randall Room at the Randall Museum

If you have any questions email me Ed Yang at:

Randallphono@yahoo.com

2010 BAAS Event Season Ends on an Analog Note

It’s been a great year for High-end Audio here in the Bay Area:

• We once again got a local audiophile show, thanks to Dagogo
• The pro’s were in town again, at AES 2010
  

  ampex redux

• So were the tweakers and builders, at Burning Amp; and lastly
• BAAS hosted a record nine events.

So it’s only fitting that we ended the BAAS year at Jason’s place, listening to fine analog through tubes and into elemental two-way loudspeakers.

The stars of the show (IMO) were the very-fine deHavilland 50A mono power amplifiers and

the other dehavilland

the very-capable Sonist Concerto 3 loudspeakers (all wood version). This coupling, while a bit small for Jason’s large listening space, simply made great music. They got out of the way and flat-out delivered. Great kit.

Also intriguing was the deHavilland Ampex-based 1/4″ reel-reel source. A turntable without pops? Maybe. But I’d just say that it’s a fine uncolored source.

Many thanks to Kara, Randy, and Jason – a memorable finis to a notable year.

Bob

Blue Coast Records Hosts Invite-only Holiday Gig

On Saturday, December 11th, Blue Coast Records will host their annual, invitation-only “Blue Coast Artists
Holiday Party with the World” event in their Belmont, CA studio.

The gig will feature Keith Greeninger, Dayan Kai, Jane Selkye, Chris Kee, and a few other new artists performing live in the studio…and uploading the music to the internet in DSD and High Resolution PCM formats.

And BAAS has received a block of tickets! I’ll be there with a score of other BAAS members and special guests.

Sign-up emails have been sent. It should be great!

Bob

The Tape Project and Focal Rock Bay Area Audiophiles

BAAS members got a special treat treat today, served up hot at 1340 Mission Studio in San Francisco.

Members coming out of the mastering room uniformly commented that they had just experienced the best sound that they had heard in a long time. I had to agree.

In my experience, this level of fidelity requires attention to all elements of the reproduction chain. In the case of today’s event, four elements stood out:

• THE TAPE PROJECT SOURCE MATERIAL – Have you ever heard a master tape? We came about  as close as mere mortals can. We listened to direct dubs of the master, recorded on 1″ two-track media at 15 ips! Wow. Nothing quite like it. And I’m not sure that I ever heard an analog source this quiet.

• SUPERB ELECTRONICS BY EAR and VTL – These premier brands need no introduction. Top-of-the-line line-level components designed by Tom deParavicini himself. And power from the mighty Siegfrieds.

• FOCAL GRANDE UTOPIA LOUDSPEAKERS – About 7′ of pure linearity. The effortless bass was  striking to me. The smooth treble from a Be inverted dome was also quite moving. But the degree of driver integration was perhaps their most impressive quality. These huge multi-driver boxes sing with a single voice.

• CUSTOM, PURPOSE-BUILT LISTENING ROOM. No parallel surfaces. Balanced use of absorption and diffraction. Ballast (mass) in key areas of the structure. A great showcase for sound.

Our hosts made a great event even better. Many thanks to Bob Hodas, Paul Stubblebine, Michael Romanowski, and Bea Manley. Your hospitality, expertise, and enthusiasm were terrific!

PSI Audio Studio Monitors Impress Audiophiles

BAAS members enjoyed a hours of great listening yesterday, courtesy Tim Ryan of Simplifi Audio. [Thanks, Tim, for bringing your entire inventory up from San Diego!]

Loudspeakers from DSPeaker, Gradient, and PSI Audio were all on hand. Resolution Audio provided the front end. Regrettably, the Audiovolver II DSP platform did not quite survive its recent round trip through Germany.

Judging from member comments, the PSI Audio full-range, self-powered speakers were the star of the show. An honorable mention goes to Resolution, whose new component line is GORGEOUS (see pic).

Also, many thanks to Blaine and Gerald at West Valley College – a great place for BAAS events!

Bob