Whew,.. I got home from Denver late last night and for a tape lovin' fellow, it was just about heaven.
To begin with, almost all the folks who have a hand in making our favorite media a reality with the Tape Project were there. I did my best to pester each and every one of them to the point that they were probably ready to slap me!
Doc and Eileen, Paul and Piper who we all know were there but also Paul Birkland who builds all the Bottlehead Tube Repros was toiling away at the Front Panel Express display. Bob Hodas who tunes the mastering room at 1340 Mission also had an exhibit and his contribution to everything that comes out of there should never be overlooked.
In fact, aside from Romo's absence, I can think of only a couple of guys from the "extended" Tape Project family who weren't there. Shawn (who does the engraving on our reel flanges) and Paul Joppa who had a hand in the design of the Repro, Seduction, and Eros tape amps.
The list of subscribers and members of this forum who I was able to do a little face time with is a long one but here's a few that stuck out in my mind.
Ki Choi who I'd never met doesn't appear to be insane but his collection of studio machines says otherwise.
Myles Aster who looks like he spends his spare time tearing phone books in half.
As far as I know, both of these guys were relatively new to serious reel to reel but wow, they really know their stuff now.
Rich Brown (U47). I finally got to meet the guy after numerous attempts to hook up. Very nice talking with you.
There were a number of rooms who were using tape as a medium to display their gear. Here's a list off the top of my head.
Bottlehead (obviously). Dan and Eileen had the Nagra running series 3 tunes in the CanJam room through a extensive variety of their headphone amp offerings. Many of my headphone buddies couldn't get over how good the sound was on these.
VTL/TAD The big TAD speakers and Luke Manley's huge amps were sounding excellent especially on Sunday. Piper was operating the Otari MTR-20 1/2 inch and doing an excellent job of explaining what the Tape Project is all about to the general audiophile population. It may seem odd to anyone who's a member of this forum that most folks still don't know anything about it, but that's reality folks. Piper does one hell of a job of explaining what it's all about and that's important to the health of the Project.
Paul spun reels in the VTL room too and anyone whose heard him talk about audio and music knows what an elegant speaker he can be.
The Magico room was using their smaller monitor speakers and spinning tape with a Nagra/Repro (gee, I wonder who set that up for them?).
On a Higher Note was running Arian Jensen's ATR10 which was sounding excellent and gets my vote for the best sounding single box/small footprint reel to reel solution.
Greg Beron of United Audio was using one of their modified Tascams (level (9?).
Blue Light Audio Mike Spitz had a beautiful ATR102 using the Aria ss electronics and the smaller Evolution Acoustics speakers.
Doshi Audio was using a Technics RS1506 via a very nice sounding NAB only, head amp.
GOTO USA was spinning tapes through their horn speakers (hopefully Myles or Neal who were actually making notes can let us know the gear being used).
Kara Chaffee was playing 7" reels (some nice vintage tapes) on her Ampex 350 via her hybrid head amp.
Charles King had his modified Levenison LNP-2 on static display but I believe he found a spot to hook it into a system on Saturday night (any info on how that went?).
I'm probably leaving someone out on this. I kinda decided to just enjoy this show so, as noted above, I didn't take a single note or struggle to find out exactly what was playing (if I could figure it out from my listening seat, cool, if not,..).
And enjoy I did!
Thanks for the "private listening session". My pal Al (who joined us a little late) has been on the fence about the TP and hopefully that will put him over the edge. He's actually considering those big ass TADs too!