Huge thanks to you, Ian, for organising a great day yesterday. Sorting out all the logistics for a bake-off is not the work of a moment, and I'm grateful for the effort you put into it.
As has been mentioned already, it's a shame it wasn't better-attended. It meant we were a bit thin on the ground for both bodies and kit to play with, but we made the most of it and it was great as always to hear some different things. Harv's V-FET Sony was very interesting, and I felt the "playroom" system worked better when used as a power stage with the Krell acting as pre-, than using the Krell as an integrated. Bit of a "Frankenstein" system but sounded alright!
Ian's system was working well as usual, the NS-1000s doing the business and delivering an insightful and powerful but not in-yer-face sound on the front of either his own Yamaha amp combo, or Harv's Frankenstein setup. The almost non-existent gap between edge-of-speaker and edge-of-room-door still makes me wince every time someone walked in or out! And I'd have kittens at leaving a cartridge exposed to the mercy of so much free space, but then I'm a bit of a Marvin like that....
Great to catch up with everyone again and have a good chat. Part of the reason for coming along to these bake-offs is the social side of it, the opportunity to "shoot the sh*t" with people who actually understand what on earth you're going on about! (well, as much as anyone ever understands what I'm going on about)
Thanks to Steve for the company on the drive from the south coast up to Beckenham too