Cool Gales Bath Audio Fest 2016

[User211]

Well it was cool, but not much in the way of a gale.

I've never been to this, so I thought since I live close by, I should make the effort. I've missed it for years.

The show was decidedly empty, which must be a bit heartbreaking for the organisers. Bearing in mind Scalford is a long way from Bath, I doubt it'd have much affect on attendance here. But maybe not.

Anyway, a few photos and a few thoughts coming up. No serious review and these are only my opinions, to be taken with a pinch of salt, as usual, based on what I heard at the time I was in the room.

[User211]

The venue. Actually in two buildings within about 500 yards of each other.



The best SQ - the street busker?



Actually probably not. Using a very small PA I could sense more than a few % distortion to say the least. Pretty OK though and he could certainly play & sing.

[User211]

The Thomas Meyer room. I looked at the chap, and thought I recognised him from Munich 2014. I asked him if he was there and yup, he said he was.

It was Thomas Meyer - I'd spoken to him about ELROG 211s at Munich 2014 as I was considering buying a quad.

I asked him about ELROG 300B reliability. He reckons he told the man himself to make 300Bs after the 211 and 845 came out. He also reckons the thoriated tungsten filament is very thin and subject to breakage in enviroments where switch on is particularly harsh on the valves. He also cited the thinness of the filament as being responsible for the sound quality.

He had spoken to Richard (awkwardbydesign) the day before about his preamp, as Richard is attempting to build one.

The phono stage, preamp and power amp you see in the pics are all between 9-10K, so we're not talking cheap here. It does look very nicely made, though.

[User211]

The preamp uses GE 10Y - which is nice and unusual. Can blame Richard for wanting to build one, really.



The sound in the room was pretty good. In contrast to the Sonus Faber system I'll talk about later, it was highly resolved and quite upfront. The Wolf von Langa field coil speakers employ a ribbon treble unit, and, being an Apogee user myself, returned decent levels of treble resolution that I'm fairly comfortable with.

Good room. Maybe the best in the sense that it was probably the one that would appeal to enthusiasts the most. However, the only room in the show with a decent level of visitors was the German Physik based one.

[User211]

Somus Faber Amanti, Clearaudio, DS Audio, Aesthetix.

Overall a very warm sounding system. Quite a "thick" mid-band with good bass weight. Didn't really dig deep enough for my tastes, but I can imagine some really liking the easy going nature of this system, which can only be described as very pleasant.

The Clearaudio kit looks killer as usual. Overall I found the system a little hazy, but this level of mid-range warmth can't really provide high levels of clarity. This warm attribute has to be down to both the Aesthetix and Sonus Faber kit, IMHO.



The DS Audio optical cart HAS to be used with their phono stage, which is part of the £6K price.

[awkwardbydesign]

Actually I'm building a type 26 preamp. It's what I heard when a friend brought his round to my house, and what I have read up on. All 381 pages on DIY Audio, and I'm getting help from the guy who improved it. It looked like this, but my wife and I are "in discussions" about the appearance.

[User211]

Closeish... More tomorrow on the show but there isn't much more to cover.

[awkwardbydesign]

You could do a critique of the coffee and sandwiches.
I was very taken with the sound of the Mayer room, but when he put on Dark Side Of The Moon, I thought it really showed up the age of the recording. A comment that shocked his lady, it seemed. But I spoke as I found; it's probably her favourite LP! The amps seemed really transparent to me, but the speakers were so vivid that multi-tracked studio recordings probably get harshly treated.
Unfortunately I don't have the level of knowledge needed to have a serious conversation with Thomas, or Frank Schroder who was also there. But that phono amp is making me twitch; maybe I should see if I can actually make the line stage first?
I tried all the other rooms (all 5 of them!), and the best I can say is that the coffee was welcome! The Eclipse speakers sounded like shouty little boxes, the Sonus Fabers were thick sounding, and they all seemed to be trying too hard with little result. But hey, we all listen differently, and like Justin I like ribbons, in fact I just hate boxes! That's why my boxes are so heavily damped. I would do without them if I could, but in my room that would be hard to do.
The atmosphere was really friendly, I think it was quite a family affair, so if I was local I would go again, but a five hour round trip was too much! For one room I actually enjoyed.

[Macca]

Justin I think I speak for everyone if I say that we all really enjoy your show reports and excellent pictures.

Many thanks for taking the time to post these and your commentary.

What sort of music where they playing? As in, were they playing it safe or taking requests?

[Marco]

Justin I think I speak for everyone if I say that we all really enjoy your show reports and excellent pictures.

Many thanks for taking the time to post these and your commentary.

+100 (with ding-dongs on). Top man!

Marco.