Bah, the fault was your own -- in the instant between my getting the camera focused and hitting the button, you decided to turn. Had you waited 1/60th of a second longer, it wouldn't have been a problem ... for the rest of us.

Thanks for the good picture of the Yamaha/Infinity system and Mary. It's clear to see which amp she prefers. For some reason, my camera always makes oiled walnut veneer look dark and red no matter what I try.

I'm just hoping that noone got a picture of me waddle carrying the Infinities into the foyer.

- JP

I think what all need to take away from this event is that with a little more work (meaning getting Mark M some assistance) we could have a VERY nice annual event here in the NW. We drew people down from the Seattle area as far east as Spokane and as far South as San Fransisco!

If we get our heads together do some long range planning and work together I think next year could be something to see.

I know Mark and Affordable Audio are the reason this happened without the huge exposure of the magazine and the cross forum advertising this wouldn't have been the event it was.

SO I for one have sent Mark a message offering him any help I can towards planning next years event.

man I want to go already LOL.

Great pictures, guys, and so glad you all had such a great time!

looks like a great time fellas!!

Thanks for putting up the pics.

Now that I have some experience as a reference point I think we can improve in all sorts of areas:
1. Dedicated times for each display, I say 15 min. each time around
2. Recruit another manufacturer or two
3. A small room or two for small monitors
4. A system w/headphones for listening to records that are being sold.

looks good Mark. personally i wouldnt mind if a good system went longer than 15 minutes. oh and name tags are a must, the "guess who's who" wasnt nearly as much fun as i thought it would be.

Looks like you all had a great day.

I wish I could have been there.

I had a great time. Thanks Mark!
There were several things that had only been terms to me, with no associated experience or sound. Now I have experienced:
Tannoys
Watkins Woofer
Tube amplification
DIY speakers -other than my own
Acoustic Research
Aperion
Emerson Lake and Palmer

To all those who helped me broaden my experience, cheers and thanks.

This was my first audio gathering of any kind, concerts aside. I had some thoughts (oh no).

I was thinking about small venues, and ways of getting together to listen to just a few items of broad interest that most folks don't have at home, in a space that might hold more folks than most living rooms.

The high school in Beaverton where I work as Activities Director has a medium large room that has carpet and decent acoustics. It would be fun to find someone with something esoteric and interesting, and somehow finnagle them into carting their stuff in. One system at a time playing would make for pleasant listening.

How about a set up to listen to tubes vs. solid on a system that will tolerate both? Or another A/B that folks have probably all wanted to try- nice vinyl and nice CD. The idea would NOT be to pick a winner, but I know that I and others have heard about the differences, but not heard the differences themselves. Listening to a couple of well set up systems would allow us to hear to our ears content.

There were some things that I just never got a chance to hear properly last Saturday. My fault for showing late, I know, but also a function of too much of a good thing in one room. (The headphone nuts don't have this problem, but they all walk around going "What? HUH?")

With a smaller number of systems we could get the set up just right, and we all have had that moment when our nice speakers were finally tilted/toed/lifted/scooted and SHAZAAM! They came alive. I sat down to be on a level with the Tannoys, and let me tell you the imaging and balance went from "Hey, that's nice" to "Oh, now I get why people collect these and become Tannoy loyalists." We could mix up the free-for-all and the kick back and listen for a spell demo periods
Maybe we could find someone with big electrostatics that is suceptible to peer pressure?

We could play Muzack over the schools PA system between demos. It would make everything sound great!

Thanks again y'all, especially Affordable Mark.
dennymack

This boy been thinking !

I like the Record selling system. Put me down to bring that next year I can whip up a nice setup for that that can travel.

Bring your own wetones for the headphones LOL

Name tags with Screen name, Forum affliation, and a real name would be awesome

Have those kids I mentioned to you taking money at the door work those up that would be easy.

It is obvious from the feedback coming in that Mark M got something started here now we just need to adjust what we learned to make next year a step forward.

Great pictures. I'm glad you guys had such a good time. Wish I could have been there.

cubdog

Mark which Sansui is that? Did you swap/sell it?

cubdog

Cubdog it's the little AU-3900 30 watter Author from Kelso traded me a pair of really nice CS-66A Pioneer speakers for it and a used ZeroStat gun I had. The amp I got from GW for around $20.00 I think

I guess I have a somewhat different opinion about these get togethers. I've heard Aperion Speakers before, know where to go if I want to hear them, and know others who have these speakers. But I have never heard the JP's Tannoys or Infinities, so I'd prefer focussing on vintage speakers, and let all of us have equal time playing our speakers/system. I felt the folks from Aperion dominate the event from the beginning by playing their system at a loud volume that drowned out other people's systems.
Perhaps we can work on this so no one person or group so dominates the audio space.

Ron:
A fair comment, especially earlier in the day. But, once they were done with their presentation, I think they backed down and let other systems run.

It all goes back to giving every display an alloting time to be "on stage".

Dennymack:
If you could pull that off at your school that would be terrific. Originally, I had thought my school would work, but I ran into a brick wall on getting an ok. Then I tried the parish center, but they don't rent it out, only used for receptions and parish direct meetings.

Everyone:
Keep bouncing your ideas and thoughts, the only way we can go is up with this event.

Well, just a thought from someone far, far away.

If you manage to get a few separate small rooms next year, have the manufacturers in there. They can blast away all day, and I´m sure the rest of you folks will work out a way of dividing the time among your own systems.