A$$A Gathering Follow-Ups, Post Gathering Posts

[Affordable$$Audio]

Thanks to all 31 attendees, Saturday was great fun. i want to personally thank each and everyone of you for coming out and sharing your equipment and/or passion. the opportunity to connect faces with names and handles, though a bit confusing, was great anyway. For all those who took pics, get them uploaded and copied to me. I have something in mind.
Mark

[itlldue]

Looking foreward to the pics.

Now, just need to find a few in California....................

[dingus]

many thanks to Mark for holding the event, i really enjoyed it. it was nice to be able to put some faces on some names and meeting a bunch of new people as well. i hope there will be more of these in the near future.

there were several highlights but i have to say that Mark B. may have stolen the show with his Yamaha MX 10000.

[Charivari]

Indeed, Markfest 2007 was great and definitely a good start. It was quite nice to see such a good representation of multiple forums and non-forums and not one dominating.

I think a new thread should probably be started about our experiences there and such. I'll post when I've actually managed some sleep, but that won't happen until I get the other speaker unloaded -- bulky beasts.

- JP

[Mark B]

I thought that the A$$A get together would be an enjoyable event and it exceeded my expectations. I met a bunch of good guys, including ST's own Danger Boy who made the long trip from Spokane WA. I neglected to take any pictures, but fortunately others made up for that lack. I'm sure that Mark W will share some of the pictures that he took at the event.

[Danger Boy]

I made it home late Sunday night... hope everyone else did as well.

I had a great time... I knew I would.. ha ha.


Enjoyed meeting you all.. I may have missed meeting a few of you there...

The event went off very well.. great turnout. Thanks to everyone who brought gear.. i know it's not always easy loading up your vehicle, then unpacking, setting everything up.. then tearing it down and loading it all up. Such dedication.

It would be great if this was a yearly event.. I don't think my butt could sit driving for 6 hours again. ha ha. Seriously, it was worth every painful mile.

I took some pictures.. not as many as I thought though.. next time we'll have to take a group picture.

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[Charivari]

Posts separated.

I'd like to make my thanks for Markfest 2007.

Thanks Mark M (Affordable$$Audio) for putting all the effort into organizing this event, inviting us at several forums to attend, and managing to pull it off quite well. (Despite your thinking my Massive Attack was a test tone track. ) Also thanks for the Onix system, for what I was able to barely hear past the Fleetwood Mac incessantly blasting from Sony/AR setup nearby, I was mighty impressed.

Thanks to Mark W for hosting a post-gathering get-together at his place and feeding us. You have an impressive array of DIY projects and an even more impressive attention to detail. Quality is definitely the result of getting all the little things right.

Thanks to Mark B for letting me crash at his place and the evening enjoying good music and scotch. I just wish I was a bit less fatigued so I could come up with more coherent responses to your conversation. Very impressive collection of TOTL Yamaha rarities and I still think it's likely the best collection in the region. Thanks for bringing the MX-10000.

Thanks to Ron (bozak_ron) for helping unload the Infinities and letting me know that there's at least one other out there who has good enough taste to enjoy Toureg music.

Thanks to Scott (dingus) for catching me in a distracted moment and talking me out of my truck keys before I realized you had no business with them. I mightily appreciate the Bundaberg you snuck in there and see that you played with my Korean alarm clock some. Thanks also for bringing the Tannoys along despite the inconvenience of it.

Thanks to Greg (no forum affiliation) for putting all that time into tweaking the Infinities. That room was kind of bad for them and you managed to get them sounding good with patient adjustment. I learned a fair bit about how to fine tune the sound from watching you do it.

Thanks to the Aperion guys for bringing some new gear over and taking the time to let us know that there is good audio being made locally.

Thanks to the rest for bringing the different gear along to listen to and the enjoyable conversations.

- JP

[Charivari]

Here's the closest thing to a group shot of the early attendees that I was able to manage. It was right after Mark B's Yamaha MX-10000 was hooked up to the Infinities and everyone had to hear that cool looking amp. Unfortunately, I was a bit too slow grabbing my camera and the first track was some Nine Inch Nails, so a couple of guys were already running out the door by the time I was able to grab this picture.

- JP

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[Charivari]

At least four of us brought some gear along for the purpose of swapping.

Table #1

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[Charivari]

Mark W's swap table.

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[Charivari]

Even I brought stuff along. So did Ron, but I sadly can't find the pictures I thought I took of his gear and system. You can see those behind the crowd in Al's (Danger Boy) group picture.

- JP

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[Charivari]

Aperion's demonstration system. Their CD player quit working early on, so we had to rely on the material on one of their iPods.

- JP

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[Charivari]

Mark W's system. That's Mark in back traveling ~70% the speed of light.

- JP

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[Charivari]

Mark M's (Affordable$$Audio) system. I would've liked to have heard more of this, but the volume demons possessed the nearby system and kept cranking it up nearly immediately after it was turned down.

- JP

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[Charivari]

The villain of the loudness war. It sounded decent enough, but unfortunately it was constantly maxed on volume whenever the rest of us wanted to listen to other systems. The day was reduced to just listening to the macrodynamic capabilities of systems as this setup was never brought down in volume enough to listen to quieter passages and for delicacy of the other systems without interference.

I should say that I do not believe it was intended to be malicious. We were all having fun with a large room and no neighbors to crank all the systems a bit

- JP

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