Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2014

[Shannon Parks]

Virgin attendee here! If any one of you guys will be there, drop me an email and we'll catch up. I'll be wearing my Klipsch BS button and lugging a lime green pelican case around.

Crazy amount of hifi here:
https://www.audiofest.net/2014/

Shannon

[WA4SWJ]

Have a great time Shannon! Wish I could be there this weekend. Maybe next year. It was great to see you in Dayton though.

[Shannon Parks]

It was a great time! Got to meet Mr Van Alstine, Gordon Rankin, Kara Chaffee, David Dicks (Audio Nirvana speakers at CommonSense Audio), Jim Hagerman, Dan Wright (ModWright) et al.

Van Alstine - I like his integrated amp. Built like I would have built it, and sounded great. He stressed to me that the key is individual regulated power supplies on every tube.

Gordon Rankin - I always liked Gordon's Sound Practices articles, which really was a special magazine. He's quite into DAC designs right now, and appears to really know what he's doing.

Kara Chaffee - Kara was gracious to inquire if I had any questions, and I opted to quiz her about life in her home city of Vancouver, WA instead of her designs (which sounded fantastic, btw - great old school tube amps built by deHavilland). She's also amazed by the long popularity of her Dynaco MKIII mod article (AudioXpress March 2001).

David Dicks - I'm sold on his Audio Nirvana speakers. I admit the embossed lettering always turned me off, but I'm hep know. I like the accordion treated paper surrounds better than the Fostex (linen?) that have torn on my TQWT speakers. The whizzer high frequency response was much better, too. Finally, there's the cast aluminum frame vs stamped steel, so I'm impressed enough to replace my (damaged) Fostex with the Audio Nirvana ones shortly.

Dan Wright - Also quizzed Dan on the Portland/Vancouver area, as he's just a little north in Amboy, WA. Dan was so gracious answering my questions and giving tips for my own business, and it was quite an encouragement. He's built an impressive line of audio components at ModWright. They look as good as they sound, too. Meanwhile, the mod business is still an important part of what they do.

Shannon

[WA4SWJ]

Shannon,

Great overview. Sounds like you had a great time.

An overview written by me would have read like this:

I was there.
It was fun.
Awesome!

Wish I could have gone. Maybe next time.

[Auricle]

Welcome back Shannon. I hope the cash register rang every time you opened you green Pelican case.

Van Alstine... stressed to me that the key is individual regulated power supplies on every tube.

To perhaps add a bit of perspective, FVA's website says of his "Ultimate 70" Dynaco St-70 rebuild...

"...the Ultimate 70 incorporates five regulated power supplies, including an isolated regulated bias supply."

The five "regulated" power supplies, one for bias supply and one for each 6GH8 section, are merely Zener shunts. I have no doubt this is the case in FVA's celebrated Ultravalve amp as well - from pics on the AVA website, the PCB looks virtually identical to my Ultimate 70 PCB.

If such easy to implement regulators can make significant improvements, I'll be trying them in a few projects, including my future Budgie SE.

Speaking of my future Budgie SE, I will be using it primarily, likely exclusively as a headphone amp. Would I benefit from 5k-16ohm o/p transformers?

Regards,
Auricle

[Shannon Parks]

Speaking of my future Budgie SE, I will be using it primarily, likely exclusively as a headphone amp. Would I benefit from 5k-16ohm o/p transformers?

No. We don't need the extra voltage and actually going the *other* direction is what I might play around with in the future. Use the GXSE5-8-5.5K: https://www.edcorusa.com/gxse5-8-5_5k

The ones I have on loan from Ty Bower are working great. For hard to drive headphones (like the Audeze) use the 20-20 resistor divider values (stock). For sensitive headphones go for a 30-10 divider.

Shannon

[Auricle]

Use the GXSE5-8-5.5K:

Thanks Shannon.

Regards,
Auricle