The North East Bake Off

[RichB]

Hi Chaps,

There was a bake-off this evening in Hartlepool. Below are some pics taken with the rather poor camera on my fone (i need to get it looked at).

Anyway, it was well attended by a good cross section of the hifi fraternity and nice for members of the various fora to come together and do what we like to do.

Credit is due to Mr Steve Petch for organising this do. The venue and hosting was perfect and refreshments were provided.

































Apols again for the quality of the pics, I'm really gutted they turned out like this but pics are better than none right.

I'll explain what the gear is in the next post.

[Anti Meep]

We could make a bit of a competition out of guessing what's what!
I'd hazard a guess that the taller bits are loudspeakers...
The bit on top of the rack is most likely a phonograph!
In all silly seriousness though, thanks for the pics. The Rega Exon's have always held some intrigue for me. Never seen or heard them in the flesh.
Are the floorstanders Ruarks? Gorgeous things they are too.
Craig.

[RichB]

Yes, sorry for not describing the gear. I was knackered when I got home and never managed another post.

More by accident than design the bake off found itself organised into two areas, one took a valves and vinyl theme whilst the other focused on digital and solid state.

The first system comprised, a Rega P9, a Rega PSU, an Eastern Electric phono stage, a passive preamp whose make I can't recall, a lovely Radford valve power amp which I became absolutely smitten with and yes, the speakers you see are Ruarks. Cables were a mix of whatever the owners brought, chord, tellurium and maplin silver wire I think. Also in this system we had Steve's ming-da gear, an integrated, a PSU and a phono stage. These are the black boxes in the later pictures.

The second system was powered by a whole bunch of Rega gear a chap from the wigwam had brought with him, when I arrived they were using the Saturn CD player, a Cursa preamp, Exon 3 power amps, chord and vandamme cables with a pair of AE stand mounts. These were quickly relegated when I arrived with my RS3s and they stayed in the system for the rest of the evening.

In this system we went through a few DACs, the first was a DIY 24bit prototype brought along by its builder, clearly no expense had been spared in its construction and when combined with the modified Avondale preamp he brought we were given one of the most 'open' sounds I've heard. I believe he has a number of companies interested in his design and I can see why. For sources we used a powerbook and my laptop playing FLAC in 16 and 24 bit. Also in this system we heard an Audiolab M-dac which handled DAC/preamp duties very capably with the Exons. Finally for an orgy of Rega lovelyness sure set HFS ablaze, we plumbed in my Rega DAC. Mixture of cables used included Rega (natch), chord, DIY, some black rhodium.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Qwin]

Damnnnn...........

Wish I had known, I am 8 miles from Hartlepool. Looks like I missed out on an interesting session.

[RichB]

Damnnnn...........

Wish I had known, I am 8 miles from Hartlepool. Looks like I missed out on an interesting session.

Hi Ken, the organiser left this forum so you may not have seen his post. There is another thread about this over on the wigwam which is where many of the attendees hang out. Further events will be organised in the future and if you'd like to PM me your email address I'll keep you in the loop. As for the event itself, well I think it set a high standard for how these get together are organised and everyone who attended was as keen to hear other people's gear as their own so it was convivial rather than competitive.

[DSJR]

Loads of fun I'm sure. Maybe you could persuade Steve to do it again?

[RichB]

Loads of fun I'm sure. Maybe you could persuade Steve to do it again?

Yes, I think there will be another event in a few months. By the way did you notice how much Rega gear was there. People must like it eh?

[The Grand Wazoo]

It looks like you all had a good evening. It's always good to see a Radford standing shoulder to shoulder with modern amps and still being able to cut the mustard!
It's a shame though, that Steve doesn't feel as though he can share his thoughts about it with us.

[Marco]

Indeed, Chris. Looks like it wasn't cancelled, then!

Steve hasn't been banned (he's done nothing to deserve being banned for), although his little 'strop off' was silly, which I'm sure he now regrets. Anyway, he's more than welcome to return whenever he wishes. There are no hard feelings here

Rich, nice pics, and thanks for sharing them. Looks like you guys had a great time. Feel free to share further pictures in future from any similar events

Marco.

[Rare Bird]

Indeed, Chris. Looks like it wasn't cancelled, then!

Even i didnt fall for that one