It's In The Bag - Semi Portable Music System

Strangely, although I've been using this system for probably 6 or 7 years, I've never written about it here.

When away for 1 night and travelling light, I use a FiiO X3 and a pair of Beyer Dynamic IEMs. Sometimes I'll add the Chord Mojo DAC to improve the sound.  If its a couple of nights or more and I'm on the train or flying I'll add Audioquest Nighthawk headphones for a particular good sounding travel system.

But if I have the car and I'm away for a couple of nights or more then I'll take the semi portable system.

When I first set this up I had a Trends TA10.1 T-Amp to boost the sound from the FiiO X3, which still features as the source.  Later the Trends was replaced by the amazingly versatile Project MaiA DAC / integrated amp.  The Trends was a little more dynamic, but the MaiA is a little more refined and suits the use case better, particularly as it has a weightier bass and less strident top end - perfect to complement a very small pair of speakers. I managed to pick up the MaiA in a sale for £225, a considerable saving on its usual £380-400 price mark.  Its quite a solid bit of kit, so adds weight over and above the Trends, but that was a very simple device with only analogue inputs.

The MaiA allows connection of any standard analogue component using RCA phono sockets - the FiiO DAP, a phone, a TV or whatever.  It also allows a digital source to be connected to its internal DAC by coaxial, optical or USB cable plus I use it to connect my phone over Bluetooth for Tidal or Internet radio listening, particularly late at night so I can control music and volume from the bed - too lazy to get out of bed to switch it off! Carry a 3.5mm to dual phono cable and some hotel rooms will allow connection to the room TV too. A feature that I don't use but that adds to the value is a moving magnet turntable input! Other cables are very standard 42 strand speaker cables fitted with 4mm banana plus, a USB charger and cable and a USB cable in case I want to set up the laptop for some TV catch up or YouTube videos.

Is the FiiO DAC and analogue output superior to using the DAC in the MaiA? I would say that they are on a par, but different.  The MaiA is a little clearer but lacking solidity, the FiiO a bit better with timing and rythmn. Horses for courses.  For sure, adding the Chord Mojo between the FiiO and the MaiA is the best result, but that's more to carry and more time to cable up.  Talking of which, it takes about 5 minutes to set up and about 10 minutes to tear down and pack into the carry bag. Ideal.

Speakers are a pair of Tangent EVO.  I don't know much about the brand but they were about £80 from Richer Sounds around 2010, probably no longer available.

Complete system, a great size for many hotel room desks

The multi-input MaiA amplifier. The Tangent EVOs are fitted with soft foam feet to reduce transmission of energy into the surface - typically a hotel desk.

 

 

 

 

A UK pound coin gives you a good idea of just how compact this system is

The final component of the system is perhaps its most important attribute.  OK, its a very large camera bag, but the whole thing slots perfectly into a padded Lowepro so it can be slung over a shoulder and carried out to the car very easily.

What about how it sounds?  Well, its not a miracle from that point of view, but keep your expectations within reason and its very capable.  Bass goes a little deeper than you might expect and the system goes far louder than I ever need whilst not annoying other guests. There is no doubt the Chord Mojo /  Audioquest Nighthawk is a far superior listen, but the freedom to move around the room and lie in bed without the restrictions of headphones compensates nicely.

Travel? Still Great Music

After hearing some decent headphone systems as the recent National Audio Show at Whittlebury, I revisited the idea of using them more for music in hotels - as a step up from in-ear buds (I use BeyerDynamic 101 with the iPod and occasionally the FiiO player).

Having a good source (FiiO X3 which plays FLAC files up to 24bit/96kHz) and a reasonable mid-range pair of Sennheiser Momentum headphones, the biggest improvement I could make would be to insert a dedicated headphone amp into the mix.

At Whittlebury, I really enjoyed the sounds being played by the Trilogy 931 amp but its price puts it out of range for experimenting with deciding if this was a sensible solution for the longer term - ie will I enjoy headphones enough to cart the kit around with me?

So ebay to the rescue and I picked up a Mk1 version of the very well regarded Schiit Magni - a product of the USA and very good value for money, even when new.  The used one I have is in mint condition and functions very well.  First foray with the kit away from home this week proved a sonic success - still not sure about the comfort of wearing headphones in bed just before going off to sleep.  The iPod into a small portable speaker is still better for this part of the day - no headphones and set it to 30 minute sleep setting and I hardly ever hear the end of the music.  With phones you have to take them off and switch off the kit which means not exactly nodding off to sleep.  Still, it does sound much better than the portable speaker.

FiiO X3 FLAC player, Linn Silver interconnect, Schiit Magni (v1) and Sennheiser Momentum

ProJect MaiA Review – the shrunken integrated amp / DAC

I like to listen to music most of the time, sometimes its in the background, sometimes it makes a car journey more tolerable, sometimes I’m in the audience and sometimes I sit in front of the main hifi and just focus on listening.  Listening to the artists’ works, sometimes carried away, sometimes confused, sometimes just enjoying the flow, sometimes trying to “get” the message in the lyrics.

And sometimes, I’m away from home (quite frequently, actually).  When travelling by train or plane, I use an iPod or FiiO X3 and earbuds or phones and occasionally I have room in my suitcase for a Logitech Purefi Anywhere 2 for the hotel room.

But when travelling by car, I can take something a little more substantial to the hotel room, and have a large camera case that currently contains a pair of tiny but well made Tangent Evo speakers (no relationship to Evolution Audio, the dealer mentioned in this thread), a Trends TA 10.1 integrated t-amp and the necessary speaker and interconnects to fit to an old-style 30-pin 160GB iPod Classic or anything with a 3.5mm output (such as the FiiO or a phone).  I also carry a work laptop, sometimes used for iPlayer / other catch up services, but not currently for music.  It’s a decent listen and I prefer to listen to music through speakers rather than being tied to a device or location by a device and headphone cables.  Last thing at night, some chill tunes on a 30 minute timer on the iPod often help me get off to sleep in a strange location / room – speakers are far better for this than the need to take off headphones as I drop off to sleep.

Now that the laptop and the phone are part of the entertainment package, something with better connectivity would be useful.  In steps a HiFi Wigwam post from Evolution Audio announcing the Pro-Ject MaiA integrated amp, with analogue, digital (up to 24bit/192kHz), Bluetooth and phono (turntable) inputs.  It probably makes the toast too.  Given that Evo Audio offer a 10 day sale or return service, I thought I’d give it a go.

Now the Trends TA10.1 amp has done very well for me in this system for probably around 5 or 6 years.  Its small, runs cool, its light and has been very robust.  In the camera bag it nestles quite well wrapped in a soft wool scarf, nicely wedged between the speakers – keeping everything tightly packed but not scratching each other.  It does a decent enough job too – way better than most high street “midi” or “mini” systems.  Limitations?  Well, power, but that doesn’t matter in an hotel room when volume is necessarily limited.  Inputs? Yep – there’s only one pair of line level RCA sockets.  Remote control?  Nope.

Unboxing

Evo Audio had shipped the Pro-Ject box, wrapped in a couple of layers of bubble wrap, inside another cardboard box, along with the receipt and an Evo Audio branded pen.  Delivered in reasonable time, it even managed to survive the Hermes courier system undamaged.  Opening the Pro-Ject box revealed the amp, in a plastic bag, contained by “waffle” sponge padding on all 6 sides.  The mains cable, PSU with captive DC output lead and remote control were in a separate sub-box, with no padding around these components.  There is an 8 page instruction leaflet that’s low on content and quality, but is sufficient to get you up and running.  Clearly, the budget needed some corners to be cut, but this is a good place to do so.  The amp itself is very slim (only about 35mm high), around 200mm deep and 210mm wide,  It feels substantial though – the folded steel case and flat alu front panel are decent quality and its very well screwed together.  It gives a good first impression.  Four small rubber feet protect surfaces and help to keep the amp steady on that surface.

Around the back, there are a pair of phono sockets and a binding post for a turntable (yep, there’s and RIAA phono stage crammed in there), 2x pairs of phono sockets for line level inputs, 1x 3.5mm line level input, 1x coax RCA digital input, 2x optical digital inputs and a USB socket (for a PC, rather than an iPod or similar).  Outputs are volume controlled line level 3.5mm, and a pair of small combined binding posts and 4mm banana sockets (which are crammed close together at one end of the panel).  There’s an input for connecting the PSU’s DC cable too.  A lot going on, but clearly labelled, straight forward etc.  I used plastic shrouded 4mm bananas for speaker connections – it’s what I had already, but Paul from Evo advised this type of connection as metal bananas and bare wires are a bit risky with such closely packed connectors.  Generally, those who hoped to use in-your-face mega chunky interconnects / RCAs will be a bit disappointed, and needing to shell out for something more practical.  Bluetooth pairing was straightforward with my Android Samsung phone (Lollipop OS version).

image from ProJect Audio

image from custom-cable.co.uk

Control

Across the front there is a soft touch power on/off (tiny blue LED indicator), headphone socket, rotary volume control and a row of tiny blue LEDs indicating which source is selected – these are flanked left and right by cursor keys that move the source selection across the row of options.  Clear, simple.  The credit card sized remote gives volume control, source selection, power on/off and the ability to activate Bluetooth pairing.  Its responsive enough, but is necessarily light in weight and functional rather than a pleasure to use.  The main rotary volume control on the amp itself is a little stiff (maybe it will loosen slightly with use – hopefully not too much), but is very smooth and not so stiff that it causes the box to move on a desk.

System

For my first try with the amp (it was on 10 days sale or return remember), I used the following equipment which seems appropriate to the type of use I will put the amp to, and perhaps others will too:

• FiiO X3 (internal DAC line out and digital coax output)
• £8 3.5mm to 2x phono interconnect from Amazon (decent build quality, nice tight gold plated connections)
• 99.99 OFC copper pretty standard speaker cables from Maplin – roughly 42 strand and fitted with soldered on “Shark” 4mm gold plated banana plugs
• Tangent Evo bookshelf speakers (the ones I would intend to use the amp with) and Mission 773e floorstanders (to better expose differences between line and digital inputs)
• Music included “Tears Run Dry” by Malia and Boris Blank; “Gaia” by James Taylor; “King” by Tuung; “Rise” by Samantha James; “Doors Unlocked and Open” by Death Cab For Cutie

Listening

I left the amp playing to itself at low volume for about 2 hours – using the FiiO line out and the Evos, just to make sure it was at least warmed through, if not exactly “burnt in”, if that’s necessary at all – its not something I’ve tested so far and won’t be bothering as it seems a bit of an overkill for this kind of product.

Kicking off with the TA10.1 amp, I reminded myself of its capabilities.  Its fast, a touch on the bright side (but not excessively so), and its best listened to at medium volumes – it gets harsh quite quickly as the volume is cranked up, but is a rather dull affair at the lower volume levels.  So about right for the job really, and good value at £110 about 5 years ago.  It has been reviewed in some quarters as a “giant killer” and paired with very exotic speakers on some web sites.  It is astonishingly good for its size and price, but that’s all.  A healthy NAD 3120 from the 1980s shows it a clean pair of heels in terms of musical enjoyment and information extraction, if not exactly neutrality.  Lets just say the TA is great for what it is and is very neutral (with the exception of that slight uplift in the higher frequencies).  But its also rather “grey” to listen to – it doesn’t have much verve or life to it.

Swapping over to the MaiA and it was initially difficult to try and get a perceptually similar volume level.  And that’s because it has a greater perceived (or real, who knows?) dynamic range – the quieter bits are that much quieter than the Trends, but equally, the louder bits are that much louder too.  It better shows through the subtleties the artist has put into the emphasis or de-emphasis of a phrase.  Nice.  So a quick switch back and forth helps to work out where to position each volume control to get as close as I could to something like equality.  Next thing to notice is what appears to be a flatter response – its easy to note that it has less emphasis at the top end, but it is still a touch bright.  Its showing the splashy nature of the FiiO’s DAC well too – this is something I noted when working out which system to go with at Scalford this year – the FiiO’s top end is pretty unruly on the internal DAC.

The MaiA manages somewhat better separation of instruments too – its not epically etching them out, but they are easier to distinguish, as is the location in the image and the stability of that image.  A welcome improvement over the TA.  What of the bass – well, there seems to be a little more of that with the Pro-Ject, and its worth having with the tiny little Tangent speakers.  Music bounces along with a reasonable sense of pace and rhythm.  Its not the last word in refinement, but you can tell the intention is to provide a bit of fun with the music.

DAC

What of the internal DAC?  Well, in this appraisal, I only had the FiiO to hand to compare, but that’s OK, because that’s what I’ll be mostly listening to.  Comparing the FiiO’s internal DAC and line out to the MaiA’s internal DAC again gave some volume control setting challenges.  I didn’t use any equipment to sort this, just a number of back to back comparisons to get a feel for where the control needed to be set.  This comparison did reveal one thing very quickly indeed – the MaiA has a much better controlled and smoother sounding DAC in comparison with the X3.  But it doesn’t image or separate the instruments any better, and has a tendency to suppress female vocals a touch.  Rhythm and pace are still good, with bass perhaps a touch more fulsome than with the X3.  I think it’s a bit swings and roundabouts really, but with the Tangent Evos being a lightweight sounding speaker, the better controlled top end and weightier bottom notes won out for me.  You might come to a different conclusion, so it’s a preferences thing rather than anything clear cut.

Proper Speakers

And what of the performance with the Mission 773e?  These were used at Scalford to reasonably good effect in 2014 and whilst not the last word in lower end speaker technology, they’re effective and enjoyable to listen to.  Normally they are fed by an SBT / MF V-DAC1 / MF V-PSU2 and a Cyrus 6 integrated amp when they’re pretty fast, boogie well and deliver a good performance.  On the MaiA, however, it was quickly noted that all wasn’t what it could be.  That fuller lower end, which worked so well when working with the little Tangents, became somewhat unruly, fat and a bit woolly.  Not great.  The effect was the same with the FiiO’s DAC back in action – slightly less noticeable, but still not really something I’d want to spend a long time listening to.  And the splashiness was back too.

£400

So all this tech and connectivity, squeezed into a small box comes at a very reasonable price.  It would be good to compare this amp with a NAD D3020, and that might be on the agenda at some point in the future.  It fits my use case for it very well, brings a useful increase in sound quality and a massive step up in connectivity and usability.  When the 10 day trial is over, it won’t be going back to the helpful team at Evolution Audio – it already has its place in the camera bag.

So to use this in a kitchen / bedroom / study or as a semi-portable system with a small set of (not too good at lots of bass) budget bookshelf speakers, I would say this amp is a success.  For me, that’s where it does a great job, just don’t expect it to cope as a main system centre piece with a pair of full range speakers.

One final thought – if all that modern connectivity, compact size and sensible pricing gets it into a good number of student bedsits, perhaps a TT connected to some of them, it might well be the way to generate a new set of audio enthusiasts.  Lets just hope they don’t get underwhelmed and miss out on the capabilities of this amp by feeding it a load of compressed MP3 junk data!

"Portable" Project Part Four - Up And Running

Part One is here

Part Two is here

Part Three here

Now to focus on the speaker chambers.

Another bit of online shopping snagged some self-adhesive sheets of sound deadening for £8 to help with damping the panels - I used these on all the speaker chamber surfaces that had room for them.  I also used a set of 4x 40mm Polipod feet underneath to both raise the box up to allow airflow, and to try and stop energy going into the surface on which the box is going to stand - typically this will be a table and they're horrible when they start vibrating along with music.  The Polipods were drilled and screwed to the underside.

The mid-bass drivers are fitted on the front and the rear with rubber sealing rings, the tweeters aren't. So the drivers were installed into the cabinet (pilot holes being drilled first for the screws), then sealed with clear silicon sealant from inside the cabinet.  Speaker cables from the crossovers are soldered onto the drivers.  The anti-vibration sheets were then cut to size and stuck onto the relevant panels.  Cables were then p-clipped into position and sealant applied to where the cables enter the speaker chamber.

Speaker chamber completed, damping panels in place.  Note the hinged lid

The plan was for the hinged top lid to create a seal to ensure that the speaker chambers were properly sealed to ensure they acted as infinite baffle enclosures. There's a clamp on the box lid, but the wood just isn't flat enough to provide a seal.  A quick search around the garage and an old 700C cycle inner tube was pressed into action.  Halved lengthways, cut to length and stapled onto the box, they provided an excellent seal - the natural curve of the halved inner tube spreading under pressure and completing the seal.  Now, with the box lid closed, pushing gently on one of the mid-bass drivers forces the other mid-bass driver to move in the opposite direction - a sign of a good seal.

Playing some tunes from the FiiO portable FLAC player produced a fairly light, boomy kind of sound - pretty much as you might expect when just looking at the completed box. Another quick Google search reveals that most infinite baffle speakers use polyester as a filling material - just like many a low cost pillow, of which there were a few old ones lying around in the garage - good protective packing when moving stuff around in the boot of the car. One was opened up and the polyester filling teased out (wearing a breathing mask and rubber gloves for this) and each speaker chamber filled with half of the content of one pillow.

FiiO X3 FLAC player used as a source during testing

Well, this was not a small nor subtle change - more bass, more control, but still boxy.  Another pillow was sacrificed and another improvement noted. A third pillow was pressed into service, and it took a bit of compressing to get this material into the chambers.  But this was very successful - providing much deeper and more controlled bass, with much much less boxiness. So the less than scientific approach of trying different options gave a good final position.

Each speaker chamber stuffed with the content of 1.5 polyester pillows

And that was that. One ex-Austrian army ammo box pressed into a new lease of life.  One extremely solid (read very heavy), sort of portable, sort of Linn, sort of Mission, sort of dock.  Which pays music. Very much better than expected.

A very pleasing result, and one that has a nod to its Linn heritage through the use of the "Krate" die-cut stickers (another £5) and the XL label as it's pretty big!

Constructed from an ex-Austrian Army ammo box.  Very solid pine and ply panels, heavy duty rope handles, robust hinges - you get the picture

Shiny volume knob is the only concession to any kind of quality look

Playing tunes on the dining table.  It sounds better than it looks!  Linn silver interconnects in use at this point.

Scalford System 2015 - Feeback From Around the Forums

Here are the comments from around the forums (I've listed them all, where I've found them - both positive and negative):

LINN:

Dasher: I think that you surprised quite a few people yesterday! Congratulations - it worked really well

PINK FISH MEDIA:

Ginger: A digital set up of Fiio/MF VDAC, tisbury passive and Linn Katans (all for under a grand according to it's owner) sounding lovely, especially at this money. I've heard none of this stuff before but the speakers disappearing, imaging nicely, again unforced, out of the boxes, I could live with that no problem. 

Muzzer: Ginger I agree about some of those big money systems being amongst the poorer sounding systems, also was not really impressed by the much hyped Event Opals and did not rate the Linn Katan active setup much.

Joolzdee: My first, but won't be my last Scalford show.
Favourites for me were...in no particular order....
Room 200 with the Mac mini/ Grimm active speakers
Room 201 with the Royd Sapphires. What a big sound!
Room 202... Activ Katans
and Room 22... High spec LP12, Gato, Art Alnico speakers (stunning!!)
Well done to all exhibitors though.....plenty of good sounds and lots of hard work too!!
Thanks everyone.

TonyL: I enjoyed a couple of systems mentioned rather negatively upthread, the active Katans & Events both sounded good to me, I've certainly never heard passive Katans sound anything like that good before, but in both cases I managed to bag a good front and centre seat.

Foot Tapper: I made a point of popping in for a listen yesterday and was really pleasantly surprised. For such compact speakers, I thought that the sound was punchy, fast, tuneful and went surprisingly deep. The very small source components were also digging far more of the music out than I had expected. Not being a fan of Linn's current electronics, I really wasn't expecting much, but the system far, far exceeded my expectations. In fact it was great! Thanks for making the effort to set it up so well.   (also, from the same contributor on the Naim Forum: Your room sounded amazingly good this year, especially for such a compact system.  
It must have been the active amplification for the speakers.
Either that, or the carefully selected grade of goose down in your bass traps

jhud1952: Couldn't agree more - truly excellent sound from such a compact system.

CYRUSUNOFFICIAL:

hifinutt: so good to catch up with quite a few from cu and the rooms sounded good with the opals and I must say sunbeams room was absolutely brilliant as usual. those katans with the linn and flac source was very holographic. well whatever you did it was magic !!!!  As you know sunbeam was using his (Tisbury) in his marvellous set up at the wam show and it sounded pretty fine

mickbald: Sunbeams set up. How can you possibly get so much sound for £1000? Tiny speakers delivering the impossible, and where was the subwoofer hidden? Sunbeam never stood up while I was there so I have my suspicions

maro73: Some systems to point out
1. Sunbeam .. World beater system
2. The mingda system was really good
3. There were some high high end systems , good to listen to but in a house impossible , unless you wife is blind or likes hifi

abozo: sunbeamgls: very impressive sound/pound. Your system was making a lot us think!

Dan1502: Having been meaning to find your room all weekend Edun telling me how good it was gave me a nudge to go and find it on Sunday afternoon. It ended up being a much needed break and I sat there relaxing for half an hour or so up until the point I noticed nobody else could get in the room so I moved on for their sakes.

Callen24: Sunbeam system was one of the few able to create a soundstage, I only heard 13 rooms, but most of them sounded like the sound was in the speakers, not around them....The two packed duvets, in the corner, and the closed curtains suggest to me that sunbeam spent a lot of time thinking about what he was doing. He has obviously had an affect because the price of katan speakers has gone up a few notches, on the bay, since scaffold.

CrimsonDonkey: Loads of cred for sunbeams room he did a great job

HIFI WIGWAM:

Petrat: ... and Sunbeamgls ... those little Aktiv Katans will stay long in my memory.

syep2001: Sunbeamgls - Probably them most relaxed room i went in all day, smooth low volume, and the female vocal that came out of the Katans sounded very nice.

JamPal (nee hifiwigwam at the time): However, it was some of the smaller rooms which really got me thinking. SunbeamGLS's little Linn Katans fed from a FIO was absolutely stunning, I stayed a long while in there.

Steve H: The speakers I enjoyed listening to most today was the Linn Katan in room 202 followed by the little Harbeths P3. The produce to my ears, a sound that is fast and clear. I could have stayed much longer to enjoy the music and conversation.

NAIM FORUM:

naim_nymph: This system was top draw imho, the small speakers didn't challenge the acoustics of the room, no colourisation, just easy on the ear music. If there was a prize for giant killing this system would have got 1st place.

Wanted to stay longer but much to go see and hear : )

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HiFi Wigwam Scalford Show Report 2015 - As An Exhibitor

After working through the check list and packing the car in 2 short stints in between the rain, on the way just after 1pm, arriving just before 4pm.  Checked in then my brother arrived just in time to unload the car.  We had a small ground floor room in the new block which had the expected twin beds set up, so not much room for boxes and kit.

Once the car was unpacked we headed for the bar, chatted with a few wammers but it was fairly quiet there.  Then we got the kit out of boxes and up and running, just so we could be sure everything was working, which it did straight away - I guess it took about 90 mins elapsed time once all the unwanted boxes and spares were back in the car.  We listened for a bit, decided it sounded OK, but there's no point in going for a result when the beds are in the room.  Got the bits n pieces off to the room to contribute to the charity bring and buy hifi stuff stall.

So a brief wander around a couple of rooms on the same floor, then off to the bar for a drink to join the curry.  A bit after 7pm the curry was available and the dining room filled up quickly.  Beef, chicken and veg curry plus rice, naan and bhajis etc., on a help yourself basis (so that'll be 2 platefuls thanks!) went well with the very well presented hand pulled Doom Bar ale.  More natter over the curry.

Then for the very relaxed wander around the rooms that were up and running to try and get as many done over the quieter hours of the evening - Sunday is always too busy to get around everything, particularly when there's a room to look after - even when there are 2 too share the work.  See separate report (to come) about the rooms I really enjoyed at the show.

Can we not have the show over the clock change weekend next year please?  :-)  Losing an hour doesn't help - not a biggie, but a preference!

We were up at 7:30am (BST), showered etc., then down to the decent breakfast where we learnt a good deal about reel to reel professional tape machines, tape mastering, the carelessness of the industry when it comes to preserving masters, how to unstick gummed up tape reels etc. etc from Lodgesound.  Didn't realise it was so complex!

Back to the room and we started with furniture moving (its about 8:45 now with visitors due around 10:00) to clear out the beds and bring in the chairs.  With there being 2 of us, we didn't wait or call for hotel staff, just got on with it.  The bed bases went into the en-suite, one mattress stayed in the room and one went out of the room.  The small bedside tables came in handy - I was thinking for putting small lamps on them, but it turned out they were great for creating bass traps in the front corners of the room.

We messed about for some time moving the speakers too and fro to try and get the bass boom in the room to a minimum - being in a very square room is only exceeded by a completely cubic room.  We did at least have a concrete floor to spike the speakers down onto though, so that helped.  The best place for the speakers was a long way out into the room and would've left only one row of seats - never going to be enough for visitors.  We pushed the speakers back closer to the wall again (about 45 cms from the wall) and stuffed socks into the rear ports on the Katans.  The bass boom was gone, but so was the music - the life was sucked out of it.

So the bedside table went into the front corners and were stacked with bean bags underneath and duvets on top.  This was a vast improvement, but still not enough, so the bean bags went on top of the tables and the spaces underneath were packed with pillows, with one of the mattresses propped up against the back wall of the room.  Believe me, if you want a good sound, make sure the house you buy doesn't have a square room!  At this point we were happy enough to say we'd done enough for a reasonable result - and enough room for 2 x 3 rows of seats for visitors.  I noticed that the room sounded at its best with 4 to 6 people in the room.  Curtains closed and some low level lighting to help the atmosphere :-)

First arrivals at around 9:50am (show opens at 10!) and we have 2 or 3 folks in the room at a time until around 10:15 when it starts to get busy, then we have a steady stream throughout the day through to 4-30pm.  Sometime there are 2 or 3 people, sometimes we have 12 in (game of sardines!) and sometimes folk try and open the door and give up trying to get in - maybe some of them came back later.  We did have a few that opened the door when there was room to get in, but decided they didn't like what they heard (which is, as I've said a good few times before at other shows, not a good way to make any evaluation, particularly when you consider how much effort goes into getting the speakers to just the right place in the room).

Throughout the day we are lucky enough to get several re-visits and some come back for a third session, with lots of really encouraging comments about the system.  Also, I noted that pretty much every visitor made the effort to smile, nod or say thank you as they leave the room - I think that was a massive improvement on previous years when many folks never bothered.

The FiiO was on shuffle going through the playlist here, but during the quieter times a few people asked for particular tracks to be played - very happy to do this!  Brother John and I took turns to look after the room and tour around the other systems.  The day whizzed by (it always surprises me this, the 7 hours of showtime seem to stretch out in front, but then it all disappears so quickly) and we enjoyed the music (mostly, I guess John wasn't that happy with some of the dance tracks on the playlist, but he knows how to move it on...).  Having technology that just gets on with playing the music makes the day quite easy (and give time to answer visitors' questions) and takes the heat out of deciding what to play next as the machine just gets on with shuffling through what I've already decided would be suitable.  It does take a bit more time in advance of course, so adds a bit of pressure in advance, but removes so much of it on the day. We did get some feedback on the music choice - particularly that it was "real" music choices rather than simple well recorded jazz-lite which is what seems to be always on offer at the commercial shows.

We had an empty room at 4:30 but then at 4:40 we had a couple of returnees who requested a few tracks and shared their thoughts on the day (they'd managed to visit every room - that's quite an impressive feat and bit of organisation, particularly as several rooms were impossible to squeeze into for a good part of the day, being so popular).  We were very happy for the re-visit, but with a 2.5 hour drive to look forward to unfortunately had to politely ask them to leave at 5pm so we could pack away.

Amazingly the packing was done in an hour and everything was back into the car.

Must say a huge thanks as follows:

James and the organising team at Hifi Wigwam
Those that organised the raffle and/or supplied prizes
Those that worked on the other charity efforts
The hotel (they're so tolerant, AND they now serve hand pulled Doom Bar)
Visitors to the room (who were happy to come through the door despite the brands listed on the door)
The kind comments from visitors about what they heard in the room
All the exhibitors who put in so much effort and are happy to help each other out
JVS for the pies and the excellent Wam-taxi services
And anyone else I should be thanking, but have forgotten

But most of all, thanks to my brother John who supported the room with box shifting, many hours of room sitting and assisting with the beer drinking and to my fantastic family for giving us the time to go out and do something a bit daft with the weekend  :-)

Here's a picture of Room 202 at the show:

DETAILS OF THE SYSTEM:

On the bench, from left to right:

First (on the perspex stand): FiiO X3 portable hi-res player, loaded with FLAC files, most of which are 16 bit CD rips, but a handful of 24 bit files too. Music chosen on the basis of music I enjoy first, but then narrowed down based on production . SQ qualities. This was being used purely as a digital transport. Using the coax digital output the signal was fed down a Chord ProDAC Pro Gold digital coax cable to the DAC.

Second (small silver box): a Musical Fidelity PSU-2 which is a linear power supply for the DAC

Third (small black box): a Musical Fidelity V-DAC 1 which feeds its output down a pair of Linn Silver interconnects (silver is the model name based on the colour of the sleeve, there's no actual silver involved) to the pre-amp

Fourth (wooden front with silver knobs): Tisbury passive pre-amp - basically a source selection switch and a potentiometer in a box. This was connected by Linn Silver interconnects to the power amp

Fifth (large blue box): Linn AV5125 multi-channel power amp (125W per channel). In here there are active crossover cards. For each channel the signal from the pre-amp is split into treble and bass frequencies before the amplifiers, then the treble signals go to one channel of the amplification, bass to another. The signal is then sent down one pair of speaker cables (each Linn K400 speaker cable has 2 pairs of conductors) directly to the appropriate driver in each speaker (there are no crossovers in circuit in the speakers). So 4 channels of the power amp are in use - 2 power amps for each speaker, 1 power amp per driver.

The electronics are all on Mission Isoplats and a single shelf and legs of Quadraspire QAV (with a home made brace halfway down the legs)

Speaker cables are Linn K400, which, at 5m each are too long for the room, but we laid them in S shapes rather than coiling.

Speakers are Linn Katans with the back panel connections set up for active operation. They are on the original Linn stands which are spiked, adjusted to be level and no rocking movement. Katans blu-tacked to the stands.

Corners of the room heavily damped with bedding and bean bags (we ended up with more than shown in the photo) and a mattrass against the rear wall. Being a perfectly square room is a real pain! Took us about an hour to get the sound to the best we could with the room we had and the materials available. We even tried socks in the Katan's rear ports for a couple of minutes, but that killed the sound. We also had the system playing quietly the evening before and from about 7:30 on Sunday morning.

Power cables were all standard issue stuff, including a normal extension lead. The Linn amp has been refinished in MG Trophy Blue - one of the reasons the system has been so cost effective as the amp was very scruffy when I bought it, so it cost me about 55% of what they normally sell for.

I mention all the details, which you might think is very long winded, as I think all the little bits add up to a better total.

Hope that helps.

Link here to pictures of setting up the Katans and installing the active cards in the amp: http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co...th-av5125.html

And another picture by Phil Morgan, with the full bass trap treatment (and a decent camera by the look of it!)