Owston 2013

[Ali Tait]

Here's a link to some photos of the latest Owston DIY meet. A great time was had by all, we even had David Price in attendance, so there might be a magazine write up coming up.

http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5139&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=120

[brian2957]

Nice photos mate . The turntable's looking very nice , hope you're pleased with it . I'll have to get over to yours and have a gander :)

[Ali Tait]

Aye, I'll give you a shout when I've sorted a phono stage out. My pre picked the day I got the TT up and running to go down on one channel. Bloody typical..

[brian2957]

That'll be good mate.

[MCRU]

Yes another superb event and thoroughly enjoyable..

Techy rules of course...:lol:

I have to say even I was surprised how good the concrete speakers and the techie sounded

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7437192/Photos/Audio%20Meets/Owston%2013-11-09/08c.JPG

[MCRU]

The Scottish Mafiosa In The House :)

Dig the waistcoat

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7437192/Photos/Audio%20Meets/Owston%2013-11-09/10a.JPG

[Ali Tait]

I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse...

[Barry]

Is Dom (of NWA) going to release details of his cartridge?

[Ali Tait]

He will be, he already has some orders. Probably around January I think, though i'm sure that Dom will correct me if I'm wrong.

[Marco]

Great pics, Ali, as usual! So, the most important bit..... How did stuff sound - who's system/T/T/amp/speakers, or whatever blew you away the most?

How did Dom's cartridge sound? How did Brooky's pimped Techy perform against the various Garrards? What did Pricey make of it all?

Did anything blow up spectacularly - and who got electrocuted? :D

Dees are da fings we gots ta know!!

Marco.

[Dominic Harper]

The cart at the meet was the version 3. I have since modded again and at V4! Its all about the dampers. Those little buggers are a pain. I may still up it again, but its sounding lovely tracking at 2.5 gram.
I will off to the cnc shop today to drop off the files and get the first bodies made, so fingers crossed, may have the first batch available well before crimbo.

[Dominic Harper]

Some facts and figures about the cart if your intersted-
Yolkless mc, low output. 0.3mv, but can be wound to other outputs. Cantilever is my own secret recipie, tip is FG S. Connecting pins will be made of beryllium copper.
Flat response from 0htz to beyond 50k, dynamic range of 97db. Channel balance within 1db.

[Marco]

Sounds fascinating, Dom. I'd love to hear it! Which commercial cartridges, if any, inspired your design (I'm specifically thinking here in terms of 'voicing')? :)

Marco.

P.S Did you receive the email/PM I sent about your trade account? If so, a reply would be nice, mate! ;)

[Dominic Harper]

Sorry Marco, been so busy with the cart and other stuff. Will sort it pronto.
I,ve worked on and listened to quite a few carts as you know. The one cart to inspire me was the AN Io. It was so natural and fluid sounding. But I wanted more. Wanted balls, and ability to play any genre with ease, so thats the short story lol.

I am planning other variants with pure silver coils, and versions with non ferrous coil bobbins. They should be really interesting.

[Marco]

Lol - knowing the perfectionist that you are, I can just imagine how many hours of work has gone into fine-tuning the results! Yup, the Io is indeed a lovely sounding cartridge, and I know you were also pretty smitten with the SPU. Let me know if you're free sometime soon, and I'll pop round for a listen :)

Incidentally, have you settled on using a 3012 with it (an excellent choice of tonearm, IMO) or was that simply what you used for Owston?


Sorry Marco, been so busy with the cart and other stuff. Will sort it pronto.


Nice one - I'll drop you another email, with the relevant details on it, and if you could sort it by return, that would be great! :cool:

Marco.

[Dominic Harper]

That arm was a 3009. I convert them to 12" with my own handmade stainless and ebony wands. Counterweights are phosphor bronze. Its a fantastic arm if I say so myself. I feel no need to change. It works beautifully with every cart I can name. Have mode quite a few now for customers and is very popular.

[Dominic Harper]

Marco, if you want to visit just let us know. You and anyone else are always welcome. I warn you, your precious SPU may be on borrowed time :eek:

[Marco]

Lol - I certainly wouldn't rule it out! I don't think you've heard the Royal GM, though? Quite simply, it trounces any other SPU I've heard.

Marco.

[Dominic Harper]

As Harry Hill would say 'FIGHT'

[Marco]

Hehehehe... If my SPU is going to 'lose' to anything, then I'm happy for it to be to a bespoke-designed masterpiece! ;)

Marco.

[Dominic Harper]

All things are just different sometimes, sometimes they are better. Will be interesting to compare thats for sure.

[Marco]

Indeed... As you know, much will depend on which cartridge your arm 'prefers', and if you've designed your cartridge around your converted 3009, as well as 'voiced' it to perform optimally in the context of your phono stage and system, I won't be holding out too much hope for my SPU!

Btw, on a different matter, I presume that (like me) you don't feel that having an arm with a detachable headshell is too much of a drawback, sonically? ;)

Marco.

[Dominic Harper]

Not at all. Detachable headshells are a boon for me as Im trying so many carts. Its even less of an issue for a 12" arm it seems. Vinyl is a different beast to digital. Yes I have heard vinyl front ends with super rigid arms and very exacting carts, but to me they are trying to mimic digital replay. Analogue has other qualities. It can, with the right equipment do all the things digital does well, but digital does not give you that connection with the performance a top analogue setup can do really well.
Cost at this point becomes a major problem. Digital is far cheaper to get reasonable sound.

[Ali Tait]

Great pics, Ali, as usual! So, the most important bit..... How did stuff sound - who's system/T/T/amp/speakers, or whatever blew you away the most?

How did Dom's cartridge sound? How did Brooky's pimped Techy perform against the various Garrards? What did Pricey make of it all?

Did anything blow up spectacularly - and who got electrocuted? :D

Dees are da fings we gots ta know!!

Marco.

LOL, well no-one died, which is always a bonus! We don't really critically compare stuff much, it's very difficult to do that that in one big room with lots of people milling around and chatting. You can get an idea though, and I have to say there really wasn't a dud sound there, it was just personal degrees of goodness. It's amazing really when you think how far things have come since the start of these do's. Someone on AT commented that you'd struggle to get a fag paper between all of the systems, which sums it up really, I think we are approaching the top of the bell curve of what is possible.

The TT's all sounded great, as did Dom's cart - I know he already has several orders. One prospective recipient was there, and he said he was just blown away when he first heard it, and immediately ordered one.

Greg mentioned that David P had said that he's been to thousands of hi fi shows over the years, but he couldn't remember having so much fun at any of them, he was even talking about bringing his own kit along next time!

His other passion is classic cars, so we spent a fair bit of time talking about Alfas :D

A couple of noteworthy things for me - Steve Sheils brought along a little T amp on a board, bought from Ebay for the grand sum of £2.50, running it from a drill battery. No word of a lie, this got to 85% of what the valve amps were doing, quite an eye opener. The other was trying regulated AC versus DC regulated supplies on the heaters of a 300b amp. A very interesting comparison, and I think most were surprised by how much difference there was between them. The DC regs were designed by Andrew Lehane, a member of AT, and the AC ones were a commercial offering. All preferred the DC reg in the end, so well done to Andrew for that, he's spent a lot of time and effort on them.