Voltron

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. DIY!

Peter, great pics as always but some of them are oddly cropped into strips. May be it is a panorama image but they seem incomplete. In lighten us.

Peter Gabriel -- Scratch My Back Covers album.

Rogue Wave -- Permalight

A gal's gotta keep warm, you know.

Get it right, wino! The Tag Team approves! Nice Tag Dinny. I got mine as a 10th wedding anniversary gift and love it. Well, I loved it a little more until putting in on again after my poison oak was receding and it re-infected my wrist because some of that fricking oil stayed in the crevices even after I had thought I sanitized it.

I don't know if Gene or Peter got a pic of it early on, but I had it set up with a row of Glencairns up front, with the d-_-b versions in the middle. I thought you were going to say that we should post a chopped version of this pic with Leonidas' head. For those with the skilz, this one would be an option:

Cool that you will have the 307A. Love it. You can probably leave your Apache at home if you want to minimize. I have some pre-made Nugget Audio XLRs available if needed. That all sounds great. You will love the JH13s balanced out of Marc's amp. Very cool stuff.

Great pics so far Steve and Gene. I am both excited and frightened by what may follow in the unsanitized set.

It turns out El_Doug was bringing both a WES and SR-Omegas. Already sent the Woo unit, so there you go. The adapter I mentioned is to utilize the HE90 jacks on the WES and the with Stax phones. I am trying to find one to allow the head to head comparison of SR-Omega to Omega II, so if anyone knows of a member who has an adapter with a male HE90 connector on one end and a pro bias female Stax connector on the other who might be willing to ship it to somebody at the meet at my expense, let me know. If I can leave the Omegas at home, I could bring the Beyer T1 instead. My gear list would be this: luvdunhill Balanced JFET amp Balanced TWag JH13 replacement cable with Tiny XLR termination for JFET amp Beyer T1 iMod/iPod TTVJ portable and maybe the Hybrid portable as well I will need access to a balanced source, or bringing the JFET amp doesn't make any sense. Anybody got a pair of XLRs of output available for a loan at the meet? Maybe drp could loan me the Opus?

Dude, you're not going to get terrible news the day before your birthday! March birthdays rule and there is an extra added buffer of protection against negative waves during the actual month, let alone week! Keeping fingers crossed, but seriously don't even think about not hobbling your ass to Boston. I will pick you up and load your [and my ] shit myself if necessary. Others would obviously do the same.

I don't have a clue about what will be there overall, but that is a nice balanced source and it might be useful.

Niiiiiice. LE. Please PM address forthwith.

Well, I had a good idea for a change this morning. I have the WES in crates and ready to ship back to Woo Audio, and my secretary was making up labels. While reading the Stax thread while I was on a call it struck me that a detour to Boston this weekend would not be a bad idea. I called Jack and he said Yes, so the WES will be shipped to a responsible citizen or documented alien in the area to bring to the meet. Jack and Woo Audio are totally awesome. I will bring SR-Omegas and if anybody has an HE90 to Stax adapter we can have dueling Omegas going at the same time on the WES and then on the BH(se).

Sorry in advance for the mega-multi-screamer multi-quote post, but easier this way than the alternative: Fuckloads much. They sound nice and polite but weak and hollow out of the 007t and the GES, oops jumping ahead of my multi-quotes. The O2 have only really sounded good/decent to me on two amps: the BHSE in particular and the WES to a lesser degree. :D If that equals a big number, then that much. This last weekend built up so much tolerance that I am still drunk and we didn't even drink yesterday (to speak of). Well, OK, loaner program of one for the very tall man from Western MasNoNoNoNoNoNosetts is Like Jim, I totally agree with Dinny. Is anyone in Boston going to have a GES? There is going to be a lot of stat action and would love to hear the SR-Omega on it. I really think that could be a good combo, although Jim says only good and not great like the HE60. Maybe Mike just needs a WES after all.

Craig was pretty adamant that the phono stages are being built now and that the one at the meet was a production unit that was the sample used by the build house (or whoever it is). He said that the MM only version is $900 and the MM/MC with the Cinemag something or other transformers is $1200. He also said that he plans to offer two versions -- maybe later on? -- one with 6SL7s like the current one and one with 12AX7s as an alternative. Anyway, it sounded really quite nice. It has a deep black background with effectively no noise (I couldn't hear any) and a very nice sound even from a pretty economical old TT. Good stuff and a definite possibility for me.

Well, the meet weekend started at around 3pm Thursday and lasted until I dropped off Gene and Matt at the airport. Here's a synopsis of events: 1. Thursday, 3pm. Converged at Toronado with Gene and Matt who had flown in from Florida, Ken who drove up from Santa Barbara and Peter who came in from the Sierra foothills. Gene was on his fourth beer when I arrived less than an hour after they did. I managed to get a couple of beers while the rest kept up the pace. 2. Thursday evening. Dropped gear in Mayberry, added Grahame to the merry band, continued with Pliny the Younger (thankfully the growlers I bought on the black market were not filled with man piss as JP had speculated jealously from afar) and some whisk(e)y from the Whisky Cart I had set up, had dinner at Iron Springs brew pub, and watched Peter stumble around and laugh. MikeyMad met us there, and then we retired back to Mayberry for some serious late night drinking and whisk(e)y tasting. Mikey and Grahame went home and the rest of us bunked down in Mayberry. 3. Friday morning. Pain. And general sluggishness. Luckily it was raining and the crew was up for a slow day at the house recovering and getting ready for the evening. It turned out to be a nice mellow day listening to music and bullshitting, as we always do. Recovered from hangover slowly but surely. FrankCooter showed up, Grahame returned and started talking head interviews for his short film on the meet, and we hung out more. 4. Friday evening. Realized that it was time to get going to SF to pick up gear delivered to my office and then to meet up with my wife to have dinner and see Joshua Redman. After getting the gear, we hustled over to City Beer for a quick pint (or two), but also bought some more beer to take back to the house. We met Claire and then had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant and managed another beer or two. Met up with Ric blessingx just in time for Joshua Redman at Grace Cathedral. The concert was fantastic, and he really explored the space -- playing while walking all around the entire cathedral space. Amazing acoustics and natural reverb, etc. Back to Mayberry with all but Claire and then we ended up staying up very late again but with far less alcohol consumption, much to Ric's chagrin. 5. Saturday morning/afternoon. Got up early and packed the cars and had some of the egg brick Matt baked up (not a souffle because that is not manly enough). Got on the road to the meet and made pretty good time getting to the meet. Unpacked, set up all kinds of gear. Marveled at the engineering genius and thought that goes into the Woo Audio WES shipping crates/foams/packing lists/instructions/etc. Class act, Woo is. Did the meet thing, had In-N-Out with much of the crew plus Justin, Dan C, atothex, and others. Went back for more meet, listened very little, got filmed more by Grahame, opened the adult beverage area by MikeyMad's rig (much to his chagrin but thankfully without any gear being fried) and then broke down the meet between 6 - 7. Grahame drove home, and we picked up MikeyMad, Filburt and Asr for the trip back to Mayberry. 6. Saturday night. Picked up 4 pies from the Pizza Nazi who fed the crown at MOA I and got moar beer for the masses. Drank, listened to music, watched Grahame's raw video at laughed at each other. Drank some more waiting for Steve to be drunk like he said he was going to be, argued about Mac vs. PC and had people mock my printer, and generally had tons more fun. Ric and Steve decided to leave and Filburt decided to stay, and Ric graciously drove Steve back to the hotel. Not as late a night as the last two but plenty of fun. 7. Sunday. Frank took off in the morning and the rest of us went for brunch to the sister Thai Buddhist temple to the one down Matt's street in Tampa. They have a Sunday brunch open to the public and we met Grahame and his wife there for some tasty Thai food and good Karma. Ken took off for home, and the rest of us went for a toursity drive through Berkeley and a walk on the campus. We had a beer at Blakes on Telegraph and watched some USA/Canada hockey. Filburt and Grahame & Joann went their separate ways, and we were down to Matt, Gene and Peter back at Mayberry. We cleaned up a bit, packed up the van again, and headed for SF. Claire made dinner, we hung out with my kids and then Peter drove off and I took Matt and Gene to the airport, the official end to the meet. Good times, and a nice warm-up for MOA II in the Fall. Be there or be an

Just tried the TWag balanced cable on the JH13 using my new luvdunhill JFET-tastic amp. Sweet combination. Much goodness may come of this setup.

Becky's Sweets ftw! And I have been a very good man/boy.

w00t! to Dan on ordering and Naaman on receiving! Damn, that sucks Jeff. Travel drama without the JH13s will be much more painful than if you had them. Sorry.

Make it final approval!

Happy birthday and why aren't you here with us in Mayberry? Cheers.

Congrats trial lawyer Dinny! I am about to head to Toronado where Gene, Matt, Ken and Peter are probably already bellying up to the bar. From there we head to Mayberry and all things debauched.

I'm so impressionable. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions -- Live at the BBC

Kronos Quartet -- Plays Sigur Ros