the meeting was great fun. but.....as i sat way over on the right side attending to the Studer the whole night i thought that the first impressions of the night should be from a friend of mine who is (as a result of what he heard during the meeting) planning on jumping into RTR in a big way. so with his permission i am posting his comments below here (he will be joining this forum presently).
this is from my system page thread on Audiogon.
here is a link to my thread if you are interested in the context of this post;
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vaslt&1036349020&openflup&1427&4#1427"Hi Mike
Thanks, first of all, for having all of us at your home to enjoy listening to music, and for a very entertaining evening ,,,,,,, and for allowing me to crash in your "Barn". Also, thank St. Pam for putting up with all of us.
For those that missed the event , you missed a BIG ONE !!
The evening was a huge eye/ear opener for me and I am quite sure for several others as well.
To be in a room, meeting with so many music lovers and aficionados, was a great
experience. This is something that we do not do in Vancouver..... Hello Vancouver BC.
I arrived early at Mike's place, the border line up being ONLY one hour at that early hour.
For those of us that were there early, music was played on a request basis and if you brought your own it was also played.
The first album that Steve Dobbins cued was Roger Waters "Amused to Death" on LP.
This album on Mike's system made it sound like there were speakers all around the room.
Never have I heard it played back with such resolution, energy, and ambiance. J. Tinn did work his magic on the placement of the EMM 3.
Once all of the members showed up at the meeting the business part of the meeting was conducted, concluded, and then onto the music.
The evening unfolded with music listening, first through Mike's Rockport and Garrard 301 as sources played through the Allnic phono stage. First time that I saw this phono stage in person......... stunning sound quality, versatile and build Q is first rate.
"
We got into playing "Jazz at the Pawn Shop" on vinyl. Gary, one of the members, had first and second pressings of this album. To listen to these two pressings was very enlightening. The differences were so profound that you could tell the second pressing was missing dynamics.
One person asked to hear this on SACD, which Mike had of course.........lasted all of 20 seconds.
Now for the highlight of the evening...
One of the other members brought a R to R tape of "Jazz at the Pawn Shop". We then played the the first pressing of "Jazz at the Pawnshop" on the Rockport again and then switched to the tape copy on Mike's Studer 820 R to R. Holy sh!!. Nothing but oohh's and aahhh's!
It became so obvious that the tape just "had it all over the vinyl".
It makes me wonder, why did reel to reel disappear as a source - convenience ?
We did this comparison with a number of different artists for many hours. The R to R won every time except for one cut, cannot remember which one it was.
The evening played on with music and laughter that was brought on by the clear superiority that the tape demo's had.
Steve Dobbins needs to be thanked as well for the excellent turntable set-ups and
for being the DJ on a very entertaining evening. Mike kept him hopping all night long.
The Garrard 301 that Steve builds is shockingly good, remember the other table is the Rockport that we were doing the comparisons.
IMHO some of us came away discovering how superior R to R is a source.
The evening ended for with us listening to more of Roger Waters until the time hit 1:30 am and it was time for me to hit the sack upstairs in the Barn.
Until next time.
Thanks again Mike & Pam!
Mike R"