Terry
Seasoned Member
  

Listen with your Heart, not with your ears!!
Posts: 792
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Well I arrived around 11:00am Friday, and left about 2:30pm Saturday, I wish I could have stayed longer.
Anyway the verdict on the mono's is that they are a wonderfull success, the same basic sonic signature of the Select but more punch and detail. Evidently the regulator helps with transients in that it can help deliver instantaneous voltage and current, kind of like a smart capacitor. So it was my favorite Decware amplifier of the fest.
We used a CDP that Steve added a tube buffer stage to, I believe it was a Tascam. I found it to sound very nice as good as any CDP I have heard, but the most expensive CDP I have auditioned was only $5K, so I haven't experienced high end digital like Randy. But it sounded very good to me, I didn't detect any harshness, and when it did finally play one of my CD-R's (It didn't want to the first two I tried) then it sounded really nice playing one of my CD-R's from an LP.
My favorite speaker was this new speaker using two fostex ( I think they were the FE167 drivers). The drivers were arranged in line vertically, the top one had its whizzer modified, and a foam phase plug, the bottom one had its whizzer removed and a new black dust cap installed. The cabinet was about 3' tall, 8" wide by about 14" deep. On Saturday they disappeared so I don't think I have a pic of them, perhaps someone else does. The cabinet is a transmission line, ending in a passive radiator.
The sound is very smooth fairly efficient and a what I liked best has a very lively sound with excellent imaging. Had I the money and the means these guys would be in my rent-a-car's trunk right now! These are destined to become a legendary Decware speaker. Oh I forgot to mention the bass, they have very nice strong clean tight bass, typical of a transmission line. Steve said that if he recalled correctly the bass goes down to about 28Hz (that is if I recall correctly what he said), and I don't doubt that in the least. And the imaging, I almost forgot about the imaging, they basically disappear, with good depth and focus, not overly focused to seem unnatural, but the toe in and toe out can help dial in much of the imaging.
I didn't get a chance to hear the Zpod, like I would have liked. I fell in love with Steve's new ZTpre chassis, it is not only extremely functional it is very cool looking. He is using the same style chassis for his new home theater amp prototype, five channels using EL34's. I have pics that I will post when I get back to California after Monday, I also took some video I will eventually post on youtube if it turned out OK.
The People:
I enjoyed ever so much meeting so many fellow Decware enthusiast. In all everyone was very friendly and made my wife, son, and I feel so very comfortable and welcome. The food was awesome!! Thanks Devon!! Like many other fests I have attended and hosted I found I had a great deal in common with so many people, but this one more than any other I have ever attended.
I want to personally thank Steve, and Devon for their hospitality. I didn't expect for us to basically to have the run of Steve's shop, it was really cools looking over the assembly benches. Oh and I didn't touch anything, although it was tempting. I got a lot of good ideas on what I could do to better organize my bench, and to make some generic PCB's for test tube circuits.
I will report more later but this hopefully will be a little fix for you all that are anxious to hear about the event. I know in the past after three days had passed I wondered why no one was reporting. Now I know, everyone must crash from lack of sleep, they were up until 4:00am Saturday morning listening to stuff.
TG
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