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Went to an event today in San Francisco hosted by Elite Audio in San Francisco and co-sponsored by the SF Audiophile Society. The main attraction that drew me to the event was Michael Fremer giving his turntable set up seminar, which is always entertaining. Even though I've set up my fair share of turntables, it was good to get a refresher and hear Mike explain how he does things. He came with a bag full of Wallytractor tools, which unfortunately aren't available any more, and step by step explained how he does it. He recommended doing setup when calm and relaxed so don't drink too much coffee before you start. He also advised against too much alchohol although admitted to having setup turntables when he'd had more than a few. He went through setting overhang, zenith, VTF, antiskating, and azimuth and shared that his preferred alignment is Loefgrens A. All this was done in a nice conversational manner and Mike always kept it interesting. Highly recommended if you get a chance to see him in person. He was also hawking his setup DVD at a very reasonable price, so I picked one up. Attached are a few pictures showing Mikey in action.
In addition to the turntable seminar, Elite Audio also invited a number of manufacturers to mingle with the crowd and give short talks about their equipment. There were reps from Audi talking about their high end B&O car systems, George and Carolyn Counnas of Zesto, the local Meridian rep discussing their new DAC, Andreas Koch from Playback Designs discussing his Sonoma series Merlot DAC, Syrah Server, Oppo Mods, and the about to be released Pinot ADC which Andreas says is being released in the next 1-2 weeks. We also heard from the local Sony video / home theater rep discussing their very high end projectors. And Allen Perkins of Immedia/Spiral Groove was hanging out and glad to chat with anyone interested in talking to him.
I especially liked chatting with Andreas Koch who was very passionate about the design of his equipment and explaining exactly why they sound as good as they do. Playback Designs hadn't been on my radar screen but I now want to give them a more serious listen. The short listening session we had paired his equipment with amps from Viola Audio and speakers from Manger and the combination sounded very fine indeed. I'm impressed by the ability shown by Elite Audio to put together good sounding systems.
And to put the icing on the cake, Elite Audio was raffling off various pieces of equipment to attendees of the special event and I won a pair of Audeze EL-8 closed back headphones. A great way to wrap up the day!
---Gary
In addition to the turntable seminar, Elite Audio also invited a number of manufacturers to mingle with the crowd and give short talks about their equipment. There were reps from Audi talking about their high end B&O car systems, George and Carolyn Counnas of Zesto, the local Meridian rep discussing their new DAC, Andreas Koch from Playback Designs discussing his Sonoma series Merlot DAC, Syrah Server, Oppo Mods, and the about to be released Pinot ADC which Andreas says is being released in the next 1-2 weeks. We also heard from the local Sony video / home theater rep discussing their very high end projectors. And Allen Perkins of Immedia/Spiral Groove was hanging out and glad to chat with anyone interested in talking to him.
I especially liked chatting with Andreas Koch who was very passionate about the design of his equipment and explaining exactly why they sound as good as they do. Playback Designs hadn't been on my radar screen but I now want to give them a more serious listen. The short listening session we had paired his equipment with amps from Viola Audio and speakers from Manger and the combination sounded very fine indeed. I'm impressed by the ability shown by Elite Audio to put together good sounding systems.
And to put the icing on the cake, Elite Audio was raffling off various pieces of equipment to attendees of the special event and I won a pair of Audeze EL-8 closed back headphones. A great way to wrap up the day!
---Gary
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