What days is it going to be on?

I'm definitely in this year for sure. Not sure I'll be able to talk friends into coming down here though, but I'm in for sure!

I think you meant Sunday, October 8th.  ;)

I have a real good vibe about this year... and no plan whatsoever. Considering the sub theme of UFO's which we all thought were real... this year it could be alien pods... sorry meaningless babble for those not in the know. Check the DECWARE UFO video at the top of the forum and watch all the videos to the end which was last years fest. Please consider attending.

-Steve

The new Omegas with 2 watts per channel will be one of the "NEW" attractions at this years fest that will no doubt get a lot of attention. The last gentleman who heard the combo during a listening session was a caught a little off guard by their performance.  I recall he wanted to know if I had a sub hidden somewhere, which I didn't.

So Fresh in the mind!!!!!   I can't wait till October.  Dang I hope to have my listening room organized by then.  I had the fantastic fortune of purchasing 10 pair of P1324s.  I always leave Steve's listening room wishing to have a situation similar to that.  Now I just have to research, organize, and construct.  At any rate, I can't wait to see everyone again.  I do love it so

I made my reservations yesterday. Always a great time

I am improving the listening room acoustics again as I have tried to do every year.  Last year was very noticeable and this year will be impossible to miss.  It's going to be nice to hear what happens this year!

I have the entire room and all the gear emptied out at the moment so you know something serious is going on.

See you all on the 6th, 7th or 8th or ideally all three days!

Steve

Well, it sounds like I picked a great year to come for my maiden Decfest voyage.  Flight and hotel booked!  All day/night Friday and Saturday I will be.  

I am really looking forward to this....

I'll be in a van down by the river...

Peoria, Illinois (pretty close).  Bloomington, Il (~1 hour) and Chicago O'Hare or Midway (~2 hours).

It is kind of funny, several of my hobbies are on the same weekend at the same place! It will be kind of a overdose of fun in the Peoria area on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of October. Funhogging!
I will be able to spend my mornings and early afternoons at the Peoria Motorcycle Club at a Moto Trial and the evenings at the 'Fest!
I'm semi-thinking about maybe dragging my OB's up to see how they sound in Steve's "Room of Doom".
Looking forward to having too much fun.

Yes, we plan to have a live feed this year just as before : )

https://www.decware.com/newsite/zenfestcam.html

Steve

I'm coming to DECFEST this year for the first time in 4 years.

The clock is ticking down!
I have a room reserved for Friday night and have been working extra hours this week just so that I can have the day off.
So it looks like a early Friday afternoon arrival, with rain gear, in my car(boring). I have a reservation with friends for dinner at a real nice steakhouse Friday night and a motorcycle race Saturday(in the mud). Too much of a good thing this weekend! Funhogging!
I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Decware intergalactic headquarters.

I'm leaving home in about a hour or two.

I am not getting the side/chat arrow on my feed?
Anyone experiencing the same who can amend the problem?
thx, Ace

Is it too early to ask for a report of the festival?

Thanks again to Steve and Devon for all the prep work and hosting again this year.  It’s a bit of an undertaking to host this kind of event and I appreciate it.

I was able to spend only a short time at Decfest this year but still got to touch base with a number of people and hear most of what I wanted to hear.  Most of my comments are based on the time I spent alone in the room early Saturday morning when I was alone or with just a couple of other people.

Room – Steve had the best soundstaging I have heard in my 5 or so years attending the fest.  Great depth and seamless front-to-back soundstaging on the vinyl end of the room.  He’s done a number of tweaks to the room, but I think he said he attributed the soundstaging to the addition of the carpet which helped with the floor reflections.  I left wondering how I could introduce that seamlessness to my room.

Amps – this year I had the most difficulty determining which amp was playing.  Usually, I am able to at least tell which “class” of amp is playing like Zen/Rachael or Torii/ZMA.  Not this year.  I attribute this to the transformers Steve has in the DACs.   A couple of times I walked into the room and had to do a double take to realize that a Zen amp was filling the room.  This was Wow moment #1 for me.  If you have a DAC with XLR outputs, a Zbit will rock your world, especially if you have a lower watt Decware amp.

Speakers – I enjoyed them all, but a few comments about each that I spent quality time with:

Omegas – clear, crisp, articulate.  Great quality sound about them.  I did not find them too unforgiving to detract from the music, which was my fear going in.  Compared to other speakers I heard just before and after, I did find them a little bass shy, but very adequate in this department.

Eggs – Spooky good soundstaging.  The best I have heard.  Instruments float in the 3D space.  Wow moment #2.  I can see why Steve is going down this road.  Good bass on these speakers.  Steve said he was using the bass cabinet from the old ERR which is a little bigger.  I did find on some songs that they sounded a bit like if you cupped your hands around your mouth when you are singing.  A little tunnel effect.  Steve pointed out that I may not have had them positioned correctly.  He said you need to be able to see through the slot that surrounds most of the egg from front to back to get the full effect.  When I returned home and watched the live feed, I heard none of this tunnel effect.  The mic’s are positioned above so maybe that has something to do with it.

HR-1s – Like last year, I liked these speakers.  They introduced none of the box sound I hear since going down the OB path.

Betsy’s – I am an OB guy, so I always look forward to hearing these speakers.  So much for so little is the best way to describe them.  This year Randy brought a few new flavors – all in his traditional tombstone baffle:

Flavor 1: 8” Betsy whizzer driver over 8” Betsy whizzerless driver.  I didn’t know they made a whizzerless Besty, but they do.  Randy had this crossed at 100hz via a coil.  Delightful sound on the music that Randy played.  Big, big soundstage.  Articulate and fast.  Bass shy, but that can be remedied in a few low cost ways.

Flavor 2: 8” Betsy whizzer driver over 10” eminence driver, crossed via an inductor (?).   A different sound, but this did add some of the bass back to the mix.  Same soundstage, very good articulation, but not quite as fast.  A pretty good tradeoff to me.

Flavor 3:  AMT tweeter (parts express) over a 8” Betsy whizzerless crossed at 12K.  Randy also had jumpers to introduce the 10” Emminence to the mix.  A 3 way in two different baffles.  Definitely Wow moment #3 for me.  Made a big soundstage bigger and introduced some very smooth air to every song.  I definitely left the room thinking I had to figure out how to incorporate that tweeter to one of my builds.

In general, if you are “broke but sincere” as Randy says, these speakers are stupid good for the money.  Even if you aren’t broke…  If I had to do it all over again, a Zbit, a UFO Zen and some of Randy’s OBs would be the route I’d go.  

So less than 24 hours but at least 3 wow moments which Steve and crew seem to pull out of their hats each year.  Oh and honorable mention to Jeff’s coffee.  Great taste and very smooth.  PM me your your web site!

I had to leave before I heard any tape and Steve’s prototype mono blocks.  I am on the tape tour so I will hear some tape and maybe next year Steve will have the monos in full production.  

Ok, I'll chime in.
As always the entire Decware crew was more than accommodating, food and drink was flowing freely!
I am happy that everyone there put up with some of my stranger choices in music, Ry Cooder movie scores and a 12 + minute Wilco song comes mostly to mind.
As always it is so nice to see friendly familiar and new faces.
I listened to several different combos of speakers and amplification.
The Omega's were so fast, but just slightly edgy for my ears.
HR-1's sound so good to me, I have no idea of why I haven't bought a pair beyond that I am so happy with my Ob's. I need to rectify the fact that there are none in my house.
The Monoliths also sound so good, the HiVi tweeters are so special.
I just want to say thanks to everyone and that if the creek don't rise or the cattle don't get out I'll see ya all next year.

Another great Decfest!  I've made 4 in a row now I think! Thanks so much for hosting Steve and Devon!  It was great seeing everyone again, and the days just flew by! I got there early Friday and Saturday and I was blown away by how it was suddenly dark. No wonder I was so tired.

The carpet really changed the sound of the room - which is also proof to me that it's complete BS that we forget how something sounds so quickly. I think those studies are a bit off. I could hear the difference in the room before I even realized the *why*.  Each year Steve seems to get the room a little mo-betta.

This year I liked the flip-side again (the side with the Imperial SO) - though I didn't like the preamp driving the little monoblocks so hard. I didn't realize that was the issue till after Bob started tweaking knobs and everyone in the room had this look like Oh Crap, what happened! Sudden big changes is quality (for good or bad) certainly sends a ripple through the room. LOL.  Seriously though, I love the room filling bass a 2 watt amp can get with those Imperial SO - again, I'm tempted to build a set.

I missed out on hearing Randy's Betsy with the AMT drivers - I should have pushed my way into the room and given them a try, but other people were doing their thing, and they don't get to Decware as often as I do, so I try not to take over the room much.

I also enjoyed playing DJ again this year, but I really had trouble reading the room, knowing if people wanted to just sample tunes or hear whole songs. Besides that, I really need to come up with new demo tunes. LOL

I'm already looking forward to next Decfest, development of the new monoblocks, eggs, and the 25th anniversary Zen amp (whenever that will be).

Oh, and here is my *Duh Moment* - realizing that Jeff who brought that awesome coffee screen name is "Jeff of Arabica". I can be so slow sometimes. Dude, hook a brother up! I need to put in an order! My Aeropress ran empty this weekend!

I have pondered building the Imperials myself. I even have room in my listening room for two. It is such a crazy plan that it might just work.

Can anyone weigh in on the new monos?  When I tuned into the live feed I am pretty sure I saw them in operation.  

I wanted to hear them but ran out of time and had to take off.

Hi again!

While I saved a couple hours of video from the feed, in putting it together I realized that the audio was more or less ruined for some unknown reason... laden with fake reverb and reduced bit rates. Just another side effect of the age of digital adolescence that we all live in. I know the feed didn't sound that way, and the pre-fest video I did of the egg speakers did not sound that way either.

I decided not to complete the video as it just isn't representative of the fest and would be more misleading than informative since it sounded like crap and only ever showed about 10 people at any one time despite the some 70 that attended. So I will try to describe the event instead.

I think it was Saturday that I held out until 7:30 P.M. to have a beer. Remarkably I was the last man out the door as Randy and I closed it down around 3:00 A.M. or so. Without realizing it I drank beer for 8 hours. It became painfully realized the following morning however : )

As result of being extra happy, I broke out the "top secret" stuff starting with the 6C33C mono's that I look forward to putting into production this Spring. After that I brought out the 6C33C OTL amp that few have ever heard and it easily handled the late night hours into a variety of speakers.

Over the three days we flipped the room many times as we listened to the Omega's, the ZOB's, the Imperial SO's, all of Randy's open baffle speakers, the HR-1's, DNA's and ERRx's. Additionally the DM947's aka Monoliths were played quite a bit.

The only speakers that I don't believe were played were the HDT's and I blame myself for that. I should have hooked them up to remind everyone how good they still are after 15 years of trying to be dethroned by all the other single driver designs!

Both Friday and Saturday saw a fair amount of rain which had no effect on the listening room or the activities in general. The only thing that didn't happen as a result is the well loved annual bond fire that we like to have.

Dan cooked a simply amazing dinner on Saturday for everyone and we are eternally grateful for that!  Also Dave, a local audiophile, brought some very good chili, excellent wine, and 5 CD's of audiophile test tracks that were immensely enjoyed!

The new ZDAC2 aka Decware modified Teac DSD DAC fed the ZTPRE which in turn drove all the various amplifiers on the main end of the room, while the ZCD240 handled the other end with no preamp involved.  

The ZROCK2 was used periodically at both ends of the room all three days but on bypass most of the time so as to not make everything sound better than it really is.

We also listened to Ed Pong's (UltraAnalogue Recordings) reel to reel tapes and spun a fair amount of vinyl this year which was nice.

In the build room, was a classic SE84UFO driving a double stack of Sansui speakers... that's 4 - 15 inch woofers, 8 midranges, and 8 tweeters total which comes in at over 100dB efficiency.

In the office area we set up our headphone rigs, using the CSP3 and the TABOO MK4 to drive a variety of great headphones including the ZMF Ori, Eikon, and Atticus.

Everything worked perfectly and sounded great, which is my main technical concern each year. This year I created a scalar wave generator to confuse Father Murphy into visiting the wrong address.  It worked perfectly.




So until next year, happy listening and remember, we do listening appointments all year long so you don't need to wait until next October to visit!  In fact during the winter months I even book appointments on the weekends.

Thanks to everyone!

Steve

I forgot to mention that someone left a high capacity Li-ion battery with a universal charger here next to the front door.  If it happened to be someone reading this, please let us know and we'll send it to you!

Thanks,

Steve