Pune HFV Meet 2010

[sonosphere]

Dear fellow participants,
- Contact details of Biyer, Jaggervm, Sridhar-v rcvd.
- Waiting for remaining participants...
- My contact details will be fwd in a single email by tomorrow 1.30pm.

Lot more contact details recvd. Wating for some more. Will send email of contact details by late evening.

BTW the venue in Wanawri is witin Pune limits so Octroi-precautions are not reqiured.

Regds

 

[Sachin]

Hi Sachin,
I see your entry of KEF and Wharfe CR in datasheet. What is the series no. of KEF, Wharfe and the Luxman amp?

Hi sonosphere, the Wharfy is Crystal Series, KEF BS is an old series (i can get it for the meet instead of Wharfy BS if required) and amp is L series. Regards.

 

[sonosphere]

Hi Hubballi,
Based on sms, I have confirmed your entry in datasheet for 12-Dec. BTW don't forget to get the classic Alpha B1.
Regds,

 

[sonosphere]

Hi sonosphere, the Wharfy is Crystal Series, KEF BS is an old series (i can get it for the meet instead of Wharfy BS if required) and amp is L series. Regards.

Sachin, we leave it to you.
Whichever speaker (KEF or Wharfe) sounds good with your Luxman amp, get it.
Regds

 

[sonosphere]

Dear All,
....
Looking fwd to it guys - bring your gear & your music - jagger, would love to see your tuntable, and LP's. Sridhar, don't worry about sources - we can use my Marantz CDP, or any DVD/BDP. Everyone - PM me for any questions you have regarding availability of anything at the venue.
Viki

Dear participants,
While a Viki's Marantz cdp can definately serve as "common source" for fair-comparisons, I suggest do get your sources too!

We need to experience how xrtreamer, DAC, DVDP, CDP, and yes the TT, sound comparatively. The same extends to your amps and spkrs too.

So please take the trouble of getting the whole combo of source + amp + speaker along as far as possible. Boy I am already feeling dizzy, imagining room full of gear :licklips:

*(don't forget to get power-supplies, if you need anything other than 230v)

 

[sonosphere]

Dear Participants,
Contact details emailed to:
1 Viki;
2 Vivekam;
3 hubballi;
4 sarvesh.sharma
5 sachin
6 askii2
7 ontherocks62
8 mailalok
9 sups
10 sridhar-v
11 jaggervm
12 biyer

Let me know, if anyone didn't recieve the email.

Regds,
Sonosphere

Lot more contact details recvd. Wating for some more. Will send email of contact details by late evening.

BTW the venue in Wanawri is witin Pune limits so Octroi-precautions are not reqiured.

Regds

Dear fellow participants,
- Contact details of Biyer, Jaggervm, Sridhar-v rcvd.
- Waiting for remaining participants...
- My contact details will be fwd in a single email by tomorrow 1.30pm.

 

[Viki]

For those trying to find my place, just search for :

Neubauplan, Wanawadi, Pune

on Google Earth.

My place is in the adjacent building.

Viki

 

[multifaced]

I just put my entry in the sheet.. i will try to join tomorrow. hope it is fine. Should i bring my WDTV and HD rips ?

 

[sonosphere]

I just put my entry in the sheet.. i will try to join tomorrow. hope it is fine. Should i bring my WDTV and HD rips ?

Hi multifaced,
Join the party! You came just in time.
Pls PM me your email ID, cell-no and Full name details asap. Do get your WDTV and HD rips along. Hope Sachin's beresford ends up decoding your HD rips. I would be interesting to hear the results.

I can imagine, Viki's room becoming almost full. So guys, pls allow me to close the entries now, (except for those already in the data-sheet but couldn't join)

Can't wait till tomorrow ...

Regds,
Sonosphere

 

[sups]

Hi multifaced,
Join the party! You came just in time.
Can't wait till tomorrow ...
Regds,
Sonosphere

It was indeed a party. I am still dreaming. I had the "evenning of my year" yesterday at viki's place. So much of learning for newcomers like me in the field of HFV.

My sincere thanks to sonosphere to take the initiative to hold this meet, and to all my HFV friends to took so much pain to bring their gears for the meet. Special thanks to viki for being such a wonderful host, those "samosa"-s where fabulous. I just loved his rubber wood furnitures, not to mention his beautiful setup.

We will all wait for sonoshpere's compilation of results and comments from all the experts about what we heard yesterday. I am no expert, so refraining from such comments to start with.

Thanks again you guys, you made my day yesterday.

 

[vivekam]

Yesterday once more!
HFVians, I don't know know whether you would believe it or not, we listened to systems till 1:30 AM.
A myriad of equipments were listened and enjoyed by all, without any fatigue.

I would like to convey my thanks to Sonosphere, Viki and his family.
Viki's is an excellent host. A special mention for his family too. They heard same 4 tracks n-number of times .
Also, fellow HFVians without you folks this meet would not be possible.

 

[mailalok]

Oh no I missed it. I reached Pune very late about 5:30PM yesterday I thought the party will over in another hour. Any way waiting to hear more details about this.

Regards,
/Alok Kumar

 

[askii2]

Thanks to a wonderful hospitality by Viki and his family, we had a great time. Our fearless leader Sono ensured that we also did a thorough review of all the equipment besides enjoying.

A quick recap of unexpected or unbelievable observations -
1. TP-20 amplifier is just too good for a class D amplifier and too powerful for an amplifier that can be held in palm.
2. Speaker cable quality does make a world of difference so does the quality of other interconnects.

 

[sonosphere]

Dear HFVians,
What a evening we had! When I came back home in the dead of night, I was dead-tired, yet felt a sense of elation that is difficult to describe.
- Never before I had auditioned so much gear, across all price-ranges, in a single day.
- Never before I discusssed audio for such a long time and exchanged experiences face to face with fellow audioholics. It felt so good to bond with audio-buddies, in a single day.
- Never before I had so many pleasant surprises regarding audio gear and audio facts.
- Never before I met a host like Viki who literally had us believe that the place was ours... for audition till eternity. I think if we would have had another 10 setups, we would have continued till dawnhyeah:

A BIG THANKS TO YOU VIKI FOR THIS MEMORABLE EVENING AND TO ALL PARTICIPANTS FOR COMING TOGETHER!!!

Oh boy! I am still so euophoric that just feel like lying down somewhere, staring above, dreaming and re-living the evening gone by.... but that would be too selfish, so I am pulling myself together to compile nearly 70 feedback forms into some kind of summary that would help fellow HFVians.

The summary compilation will take a couple of days... but meanwhile I will post a few photos to substitute a few thousand words regarding this wonderful evening. Pls pardon me for the grainy pictures... forgot to bring camera, so made use of phone-camera...(actually camera was the last thing on my mind)

Hardly had any sleep yesterday... had a hectic monday today... need some sleep now... will post more pics tomorrow with IDs.

Regds,
Sonosphere

 

[sups]

Please take your time sonosphere for the compilation. It deserves some time, as it would benefit a lot of people to choose their gears across the price range.

Its a pity that I had to leave at 8.30pm that day, so I missed the other half of it.

Amit from AVXcellence, Pune needs a special thanks for demonstrating an "out-of-the-world" stereo setup and for helping us in setting up different gears throughout. As I said, it was my evenning of this year.

 

[Sachin]

Hi Folks,

Indeed, it was a geat evening and my sincere thanks to Viki and his family for being such a wonderful host, making everybody comfortable and it won't have been better than this. Viki, thanks for this flawless arrangement backed not only by your lovely set up but as well for arranging snacks, drinks and not to forget the gajar halva.:signthankspin:

Special thanks to sonosphere for leading the meet and taking all the pain in getting it organised. Very well organised and planning was spot on, never imagined this kind of perfection for the very first meet. We await further more photos and your compilation of feedback forms on various gear that we experienced. It was good to have Amit from AV Excellence and thanks to him for his immense help and for throwing some quick surprises at us.

All in all a good start and a great evening, thanks :clapping: once again to all the hfvians and it was indeed a pleasure to see and meet you all in person hyeah:

Regards,
Sachin

 

[sonosphere]

Ok everybody,
This is how things went on 12th Dec 10....

We planned to start the meet on 2:30pm, and while almost everybody (I think the total member-count was 12...) was there by 3pm, the "meet-initiator" himself arrived almost by 4pm . (Well I had 140 feedback forms to photocopy, picking up Vivekam on the way... my dog ate the car keys blah blah ... the usual ones...).

At the last count on data-sheet we had 9 setups for demo. My wishes for a "really" high level setup came true when I got Mr. Anand's (Proprietor: AV Xellence) confirmation for demo of the venerable B&W 804s (with Arcam CD7 CDP and Cyrus pre-power combo). So ultimately we had 9+1=10 demos! well not actually... we eventually had 9 demos only. more on that as the story unfolds.

Background:
As a preface to starting the demo-rounds, I described my past audio-journey to the HFV gathering and my proposal that this meet should preferably have various grades of audio-setups. For one it would give a fair idea to the participants (in a single day!) regarding how increase in grade improves the sound + it would give a picture of upgrade-path to participants as well as HFV members who read the HFV meet audition-observations. Going on this line, we unianimously agreed that demos should start with entry-level setups. And the first demo happened to be... Vivekam's Norge-2060 + Wharfedale 9.2 supported by Viki's Marantz CDP5001.

But wait, there were other things to be put in action before the demo could start. A couple of day's before the meet, in email-discussions I proposed and solicited suggestion on how observations should be noted during auditions. The final result was a form titled "Observations" that would be used for giving feedback by members (see the link here for details >> https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0...EyOTItYWFiY2ZiNTZlYTRi&hl=en&authkey=CI2L5P8H). During same period the concept of song selection was also floated, that was discussed again based on the CD's everyone brought to the meet. We finally decided to have 4 "common songs" for all demos and 2 songs from the presenter's choice. The four "common" songs were:
1. Hey you (Album: The Wall by Pink Floyd)
2. Symphony (Tchaickowsky 1812 overture, last 3-4 minutes of crescendo passage)
3. Yeh reshmi zulfon ka andhera (Hindi Song composed by O.P Nayyar, circa 1950's)
4. Yeh Haseen waadiyaan (Hindi song composed by A.R Rahman from movie "Roja")

Getting on with demos:
Done with the pre-requisites of feeback form and song selection... we told Vivekam to hit the play button on Viki's Marantz CDP. The demo started with Vivekam's personal choice of two mesmerising Indian Fusion instrumental tracks. These were followed by the aforementioned common songs. I think some other tracks were also played (Vivekam, please chip in with details, if I am correct). As the songs progressed some members took notes on the feedback forms, whereas some waited till the end. How did the WD 9.2 sound? I'll let the feedback form results convey the same.

See the summary of Demo# 1 observations in the next post below
(For explaination of criterias used in audition, please refer to the Observation feedback form here >> https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0...EyOTItYWFiY2ZiNTZlYTRi&hl=en&authkey=CI2L5P8H)

 

[sonosphere]

DEMO# 1
Aaaaarggghhhh....
I am trying to load the image showing summary... but the imageshack is giving me problems...

So for now uploading the same here >> https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0...I0YWUtYTFjMWUwNDQ5MGY2&hl=en&authkey=CIbvlO4F

Update 17-Dec-10:
Got successful in putting the summary image on image on imageshack today. See below:

- Since the most of the observation feedback forms were submitted as anonymous, the actual HFV IDs were substituted with Sample ID from A to H.
- The "1" numeral you see in the form indicates the tickmark that was made under that criteria. So all tickmarks get added at the bottom to compare which criteria got max tickmarks

This is how the Demo# 1 setup looked like:

- The Wharfedale 9.2's are sitting on top of askii2's Yamaha 7390 FS (unfortunately BS stands couldn't be arranged... though the FS 7390 served the purpose quite ok)
- The Norge-2060 is sitting on top of the rack between the 9.2's, while the Marantz cdp is below it.

Conclusion:
The observations are there for all to see. As it happens often, some of them are conflicting... So you may focus on the summary in blue text and make your own conclusions. As far as I am concerned, this setup is one helluva good sounding setup* at entry level.

*Tip to existing /future Norge-9.2 combo owners:
In case you have a DVDP as source, for your combo, you are hearing only 50% of the combo's musical capacity when compared to what it delivered from this Marantz 5001 CDP. This combo can do justice to a CDP that costs more than the combo cost! Don't upgrade to better spearkers or amp (for improving SQ) unless you upgrade your DVDP to minimum Marantz 5001 CDP class of source.

My 1st revealation of the day:
Despite upgrading to NAD 320 + Usher V-601, from my earlier Norge-9.2 combo, it doesn't sound half as good as it the demo!# 1 setup sounded today... just because the my present setup still has DVDP as source:sad:. A case of wrong upgrade sequence. Others can learn from my experience

Demo# 2 details will come up in a couple of days... meanwhile, guys. let me know if you need further information /clarifications to above.

 

[vivekam]

The 2 tracks of my choice were:
1. Zinc from Rhythmscape (By Bikram Ghosh)
2. Gypsy Rain from Rhythmscape (By Bikram Ghosh)

 

[Hiten]

(see the link here for details >> https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B07...thkey=CI2L5P8H).

Wow ! this is neat and methodical. Will be very helpful to members.
Thanks sonosphere and everyone for the effort.