New Year Bake - Sat 13th Jan

No.

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:rofl: The curry was probably the overriding factor :mask:

Super day yesterday. Good to see people, chat, drink tea and eat food. As others have said Jim’s system sounds wonderful. I somehow managed to miss hearing the 7.5ips tape, if it trolled the Kronos then it must be very special indees.

Special thanks to Ann and family. I spent a significant amount of time standing in the hall eating and talking, I could see the none stop work that was going on in the kitchen. (My offer of help was rejected)

Ffiw…this is also worth checking out, even more laid back.

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Must be sounding good :+1:, the Preda is having the same effect here, so much so that I’m choosing to play it

Finally got to sit down, sigh. As ever Jim’s is great fun. Great to see old friends and new. And Wayne.

Jim’s system is always better than anyone else’s, but it’s totally on another level now, with changes throughout the amp line. It’s simply exquisite. There are no flaws or weaknesses, it’s even across the range, with astonishing resolution and imaging. Fucking epic.

The back room system was great while Chris was here, but once his Shenanigans and new amps left we had the Leben and Rehdeko, which could only be described as fucking awful. Wayne leaving was a double bonus, as the little AI was a great match for the speakers, which I ended up rather enjoying. Pete reckoned that the Rehdekos need a high output impedance amp like the AI (or an OTL).

As far as I can tell I was the only person not to fall in love with the reel to reel. I thought it sounded great, although not astonishing (there was some compression even on the 7.5ips tape, I thought). Reason kicked in for me - there is little to nothing that is available on tape that interests me. It’s a bit like having a racist model girlfriend half your age - fun for a while, brings a big smile to your face, but ruinously expensive and embarrassing if your friends have to listen to it say the same things over and over again.

Meanwhile I’ve just had a veggie dinner to try to balance out my meat intake for the weekend. The food was utterly epic.

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Jealousy is such an ugly emotion :kissing:

Youre not wrong though, it did sound fucking awful :confounded:

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Much as I would like to blame your amp, it could only have been an impedance mismatch, possibly combined with two components being on the forward side

You can adjust the impedance output on the Leben from 4-16 ohms, but I’m not convinced that would have made a massive difference. Good thing it’s a match for my Ta’us

Can you adjust the knobage :thinking:

:laughing:

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Yep, tone it down the pair of you

You invited them :joy:

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I was referring to the Leben, not Adam n Wayne! Ffs!

Be clearer in your posting my old fart. sorry meant old chap. :grinning:

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Thanks for hosting this again Jim & thanks to Ann and the girls for their contribution. Some delicious & plentiful food served up. an enjoyable day on Saturday particularly with the Shahinians & the Pass amps. It was also interesting to hear the Rabco arm in action which worked extremely well. Jim’s system was sounding as refined as ever with the new phono sounding very good.

Some splendid shortbread served up too. Fine work.

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Massive thanks to Jim, Ann and their daughters for their incredible hospitality.
As usual we were all utterly spoilt with superb food and drink all day.
Jim’s system in the living room gets better every time I hear it. Comfortably the finest sounding rig I’ve heard in a domestic location. The new Coco-San phono has raised the game by no small margin - incredible resolution.

In the back room the R2R/SP10/M7/Pass Aleph/Shahinian system worked rather splendidly.
I didn’t enjoy the synergy of the Rehdeko and Leben - it seemed all a bit too shouty and brash to my ears.
Once the AI Series 300 amp was swapped in things improved noticeably.

As always it was a terrific way to spend a Saturday - fellow music enthusiasts, awesome kit, superb music and top notch grub. What’s not to like?

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As you all know, I love bake offs too and whilst all of your thanks for hosting are very much appreciated, it’s Ann, Alice and Florence who must take the credit - they did all the work. I was merely an attendee, just like you :grinning:

I would like to thank everyone who came, especially those who brought along shortbread, cake, biscuits, chocolates, wine and, of course, kit. :+1:

I only heard the back room system from the door - every time I ventured in, all of the seats were full. :slightly_frowning_face: This speaks volumes really! It’s great that the room heaters gelled well with the Shahinians - I was obvs hoping that would be the case :grin:

Final thanks to all who’ve said nice things about my set-up. I think it’s safe to say that I’m over the moon with the BTJ 9000S and the way it has made my system sound - yay!

Cheers again everyone :heart_eyes:

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I suspect more people should have Shahinians, on the basis that there are lots of people with compromised room placement and for that reason alone they pretty compelling.

That’s not the only good thing about them, btw.

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I wasn’t sure I’d like them, but in the end they were good fun. The soundstage even well off centre was really cool - not pin-point but simply huge.

They can sound absolute shite with the wrong amp, something that happens all too often given their simplistic reputation for being hard to drive. Sounded mint with the Alephs tho.

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I thought them strange at first but after a while just forgot about them and enjoyed the music. :+1:

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