January 2015 SAC Meeting
For our January meetings we usually have a system comprised of club member components. This is largely due to the difficulty of getting a dealer or distributor to present so early in the year. This January meeting was no different. We had a most interesting system complete with two ReVox reel-to-reel decks courtesy of member John Way. John also brought in several reels of music and presented select pieces, mostly classical and pop/classical music. The remaining gear was mostly provided by Steven Polley with the additional transport and muscle help of Marc Dargent and Gerry Martin. Thanks guys.
Our system was comprised of:
Revox A77 Mark IV reel-to-reel deck (with Dolby B). Refer to http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A77DolbyE1.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revox.
Revox G36 reel-to-reel deck with outboard Dolby B Teac processor. Refer to http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/G36.htm
Oppo BDP-95 – we used the Oppo primarily as a transport in our BYO session. We connected it to the preamp via Analysis Plus digital coax. We also had a pair of Nordost Frey XLRs connected to the preamp in case someone wished to hear the SACD layer, or wished to compare the SACD layer to the CD layer. Having the Oppo also meant we could play from flash drives.
Classe CP800 pre – connected to the power amp via Vertere XLR. Refer to http://www.classeaudio.com/products/cp-800.php and http://www.stereophile.com/content/class233-cp-800-da-preamplifier.
Plinius SA250 Mk4 amp – connected to speakers with Nordost Frey. Refer to http://www.pliniusaudio.com/Plinius_Range/Power_Amplifiers/SA_Reference.html and http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/506plinius/index.html.
B&W 801 S2 speakers – refer to http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506/index.html.
Overall, the system was very musical. As one person said… “It was great to be reminded of how good "old" sound was. It made me rethink if modern equipment really is superior…”. Of course not all of the system was old and therefore we shouldn’t necessarily expect “old” sound. However, the person that said that was no doubt implying that the source is critical to the overall sound – if you get it wrong there, there is no gear in existence that can reconstruct the intent further downstream.
And yet there was good resolution, timbral control and good bass control, provided the tapes themselves allowed it. Some of the tapes were either past their prime or perhaps badly recorded. The Arthur Fiedler Boston Pops was strident and harsh at times. And the Mozart “Great Mass” in C Minor was congealed – there was little delineation within the voices and instruments. The Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall and the Nat King Cole were much better, but there was obvious tape drag/wow in places which tended to draw your attention. The Rossini String Sonata tape was quite nice. The best sounding tape, in my estimation, was the Dukes of Dixieland – the music had real life and bounce in it.
Some systems have incredible resolution, excellent transient attack and decay and incredible dynamic range and control – all without making your ears bleed. However, some would perceive such systems to be too “HiFi” sounding and not the sound of real music. This system was not a “HiFi” sounding system. But it was a musical system, and by saying that I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise! It was just an enjoyable system to listen to.
Admittedly I’ve spent more hours reading about R2R decks and their sound quality than I have actually listening to them. (The opportunity doesn’t arise very often unfortunately.) And all I’ve read about R2R has been invariably very favourable. And many in the U.S. think so as well – companies like United Home Audio (UHA) at http://www.unitedhomeproducts.com, in the U.S. have been building and selling R2R decks for quite some time. Their decks start life as TASCAM Pro decks but are highly modified by UHA.
In fact, Jonathan Valin (one of the few TAS reviewers I tend to trust) went as far as to say that he thought R2R provided the best sound of any source medium. I’m certainly not qualified to comment on that! But I agree there is certainly merit in it.
This month we didn’t really have a member’s music segment – this was because John wanted at least an hour of play time to present music on both of the R2R decks.
Vince had a very long day on our Sunday. He woke up early and consequently got on the road early. It was one of those rare times when the presenter beat me to the Dence Park hall (and by a substantial margin at that!). But regardless of a lack of sleep, multiple sausages and at least one beer (things that make you sleepy), Vince got the show on the way promptly at 2:00.
Thanks Vince! Much appreciated.
Tom Waters
Summary of member feedback:
Our system was comprised of:
Revox A77 Mark IV reel-to-reel deck (with Dolby B). Refer to http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A77DolbyE1.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revox.
Revox G36 reel-to-reel deck with outboard Dolby B Teac processor. Refer to http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/G36.htm
Oppo BDP-95 – we used the Oppo primarily as a transport in our BYO session. We connected it to the preamp via Analysis Plus digital coax. We also had a pair of Nordost Frey XLRs connected to the preamp in case someone wished to hear the SACD layer, or wished to compare the SACD layer to the CD layer. Having the Oppo also meant we could play from flash drives.
Classe CP800 pre – connected to the power amp via Vertere XLR. Refer to http://www.classeaudio.com/products/cp-800.php and http://www.stereophile.com/content/class233-cp-800-da-preamplifier.
Plinius SA250 Mk4 amp – connected to speakers with Nordost Frey. Refer to http://www.pliniusaudio.com/Plinius_Range/Power_Amplifiers/SA_Reference.html and http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/506plinius/index.html.
B&W 801 S2 speakers – refer to http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506/index.html.
Overall, the system was very musical. As one person said… “It was great to be reminded of how good "old" sound was. It made me rethink if modern equipment really is superior…”. Of course not all of the system was old and therefore we shouldn’t necessarily expect “old” sound. However, the person that said that was no doubt implying that the source is critical to the overall sound – if you get it wrong there, there is no gear in existence that can reconstruct the intent further downstream.
And yet there was good resolution, timbral control and good bass control, provided the tapes themselves allowed it. Some of the tapes were either past their prime or perhaps badly recorded. The Arthur Fiedler Boston Pops was strident and harsh at times. And the Mozart “Great Mass” in C Minor was congealed – there was little delineation within the voices and instruments. The Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall and the Nat King Cole were much better, but there was obvious tape drag/wow in places which tended to draw your attention. The Rossini String Sonata tape was quite nice. The best sounding tape, in my estimation, was the Dukes of Dixieland – the music had real life and bounce in it.
Some systems have incredible resolution, excellent transient attack and decay and incredible dynamic range and control – all without making your ears bleed. However, some would perceive such systems to be too “HiFi” sounding and not the sound of real music. This system was not a “HiFi” sounding system. But it was a musical system, and by saying that I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise! It was just an enjoyable system to listen to.
Admittedly I’ve spent more hours reading about R2R decks and their sound quality than I have actually listening to them. (The opportunity doesn’t arise very often unfortunately.) And all I’ve read about R2R has been invariably very favourable. And many in the U.S. think so as well – companies like United Home Audio (UHA) at http://www.unitedhomeproducts.com, in the U.S. have been building and selling R2R decks for quite some time. Their decks start life as TASCAM Pro decks but are highly modified by UHA.
In fact, Jonathan Valin (one of the few TAS reviewers I tend to trust) went as far as to say that he thought R2R provided the best sound of any source medium. I’m certainly not qualified to comment on that! But I agree there is certainly merit in it.
This month we didn’t really have a member’s music segment – this was because John wanted at least an hour of play time to present music on both of the R2R decks.
Vince had a very long day on our Sunday. He woke up early and consequently got on the road early. It was one of those rare times when the presenter beat me to the Dence Park hall (and by a substantial margin at that!). But regardless of a lack of sleep, multiple sausages and at least one beer (things that make you sleepy), Vince got the show on the way promptly at 2:00.
Thanks Vince! Much appreciated.
Tom Waters
Summary of member feedback:
- Enjoyment of the Meeting: 4.4
- Enjoyment of the Equipment: 4.3
- Enjoyment of the Music: 3.8
- Interesting with Revox
- Happy New Year! A great and intimate start to 2015
- 5 points to R2R
- All good. Very good presentation on R2R from John
- I was quite impressed with the R2R performance although some of the recordings were poorly made
- Harry Belafonte
- Rossini
- Nat King Cole
- All on R2R tapes