Jan 2013 Delhi/Gurgaon NCR Audiophile Meet

[bhagwan]

This I read & liked - so I am posting the link here :-

I am sure you would have had a good sleep after the tiring day Rahul ( @coreelement ) but its always well worth the effort to have friends around, some old & few new.

I had been out of the circuit since quite a while, it was good to catch up with some old friends from hifivision & apney puraaney yaar dost, alongwith the elite seniors such as our ever humble Viren sir (Lyrita Audio) & was a pleasure to see more of industry's well respected friends (distributors) who have represented India at various shows via their presence, at the same time enabling us have the much reviewed products, on the Indian Grounds namely - Mr. Jignesh Khatiwala (Absolute Sound), Mr. Khushrau Jilla (Nexus), Mr. Siddharth Chibber aka Sunny (Acoustic Arts), Mr. Jasdeep Brar & Mr. Gunbir Singh (BBW Distributors) and also our dear friend who at the request of Subho & Rahul flew in specially with his very pleasing DAC - Mr. Siva (Acoustic Arts) plus Delhi/NCR's humble dealer - Denny Jose (Bass 'n Treble) and last but not the least the meetups sponsor Lakozy, Delhi led by Mr. Ashish Kesarwani.

Among my many friend at the meetup, I at a personal level felt that Manav Malvais absence yesterday was a disaster of a situation for me to cope up with, I REALLY needed him or someone of his likes to be there (I repeat, he is a friend and I can well be biased to opine with that in here). Secondly missed out on Ajay from Chandigarh.

Now why Manav & Ajays absence came across as a disaster, was cause of the simple reason of their understanding of products that were available at the audition wrt their substantive exposure to the typical High-end segment & to be able to understand the product despite their personal expectations & signature preferences. Most importantly to be able to conclude if it is apt to expect, with the given environment in which the gear is being deliberated towards an optimal-accurate setup, a performace
par la excellance?

Coming to the room, while this was one of the best and cheapest venues one could have for a meetup like we music buffs had, It was still a disaster of a room to play music via components that have the world proven might to create a enormously powerful & deep presentation of sound. So such products are not there to be reviewed, their reviews are for to read about (google?), for some of product in that league at the first breath question & scream with authority for an environment to be optimal for its marriage, before anyone starts raising questions about the offspring.

Now what I would have possibly bought out of yesterdays meetup was well ..nothing.
Yesterdays meetup left bad impression about the venue/room in question, for it quite marred the experience to an extent that during some of the times, I choose to play Table Tennis with the bright little kids in the room next. That room was only limited only to take around mellow sounds and some bass/distortion, we did see during some gear-plays what a full bodied pristine LF wave brought about flutter flutter. So for that room, something from the likes of Omega or other full rangers under 10inch would done well for me.

The room had full 20 x 30 feet of resonating 1-1.5ft deep hollow pop ceiling , Pillars that were resonating like my speaker cabinets ..dont, glass windows contributed their bit. I heard some friends point out that some - Speakers are booming , while it was mainly the room playing foul, speakers were just fine barring few bass heavy ones that had their own cabinet resonance/sound conflicting with their optimal performance.

Good that we didnt have a session on flaws there with respect to room acoustics first, most of us would have walked away for a sumptuous lunch instead. BUT lets face it, its not an AV room, so while I heard almost everyone speak about the attributes and restraints wrt the room, so to expect something that we hold way beyond from the likes of B.OSE etc wrt qualitative reproduction was outrageously mad of us to do so. Some of us who had seen the room were cautious about reflections and yet once the room was entered and when I heard some of the first system play ..there was not much left to be hoped from an honest audition where in I could be sitting like a critical lad with all my feathers earned from my experience in listening between my speakers & from forums

I shall only speak about speakers, cause amplifiers sadly didnt get a chance to be paired with other speakers to assess their best pairing. Exposure, Bell Canto, Nad were at hand and I liked them all for their own versions of sonic representation.

- Viren Jis speakers
I could not spend time with Viren jis speakers for a long while, jazz track I heard for few mins was from various positions to assess the sound dispersion & spots, frankly for a horn speaker I would need more time and my own music and place. It was better than the others put up before it due to the slight lushness the tubes brought in.

- Harbeth
While I was not satisfied with the positioning due to obvious issues at hand that most of us music lovers faced, it still came across as very sweet speaker, both its owner Rahul & myself have almost the liking for a colored sound of sorts and we dont run away from that aspect of us as a music lover. It would be lovely to hear that speaker with amplification Tannoys are known to suit best with. But any larger the Harbeth I guess could have faced the same problem.

- PMC
Mr. KJ, had brought in the PMCs ibi variant from Mumbai which was an quite a challenge for this room, as the room interfered in this speakers performance at every aspect, be it reflections or resonance. Hands down, while the room was bad for other speakers it was the worst choice to audition this speaker, which being a studio monitor clearly expects acoustics to be correct by most means. Our room was no where close.

I guess KJ should have brought in the TB2i speaker - http://www.homecinema-bg.com/userfil...roduct_465.jpg , as they had brought in the last time and we had auditioned the speaker in nearly dead listening room. That speaker was still discussed among many audiophiles from that last meet held 2 yrs back. BUT one could still fear that this room would have again marred the experience of the product yet again, for it was a whole bodied sound with enuf bass to use that speaker for HT fronts for a room of about 22x12ft.

- Pranavs DIY speaker
Have to give it to the new enthusiast I met for the neatness and a job quite well done for the first attempt. I was pretty pleased hearing this diy tower and Pranav came across as a lovely fine young gentleman that he is. I did not do any critical listening for any of the speakers but all observations were made wrt either room viz-a-viz gears threshold to perform in that room and my personal preference of songs. Since there were music genres being played I dont get by with, so I have not made any opinion about any of the products there in. Heres wishing best of luck to Pranv.


- Sivas DAC
I had left before the dac shoot out, so Subho / Core shall be having more at hand to pitch in for that. But as much little I heard of the dac, it made the music warm & less edgy for a prolonged listening session than otherwise listening without it. There was still something better than Sivas DAC was the man himself, was an immense pleasure to have met the very humble Indian manufacturer.

I have limited and mentioned only what I personally liked to my personal tastes and limited understanding & exposure to music, since everyone comes from some understanding of listening contributed by musical preferences both relating to choice of music and the gear/signature our ears get attuned to , hence making that signature that we like as a performance benchmark for all the other at the face of it, thats not appropriate. But its okay cause, that remains the driving force for the market. What I like you wont but I bought this and you would buy something else.

Was good to have interacted with a few new friend Aashish from the hifivision forum. Should bee catching up with him over a listening session sometime in future. Having taking leave from the first, the second meet that followed after that was got more interesting with a pack of friends moving out to dine together & some of us stopped by at Shubos to listen to his new Tannoy while calling the day off finally.

Was a pleasure meeting friends yet again as the excuse of the usual audiophile jingle and on the closing note a pat on the back for our young musical friend Rahul to have coordinated it all without a frown. Makes for a promising future with young friends pulling the boat


Heres to good music & good times.
Stay well.

Sid Trehan

Interesting write up

 

[aashish351]

aptly summarized... way to go!

Sid, pleasure meeting you... looking forward to more interaction in future!

 

[ranjeetrain]

Report: Jan 2013 NCR Audiophile Meet

Sorry about the delayed report, my Internet is not activated yet. I will have to keep this short because of lack of convenience.

Yesterday's event was a grand success, not only in terms of number of participants but also in terms of quality of attendance, the way gear were presented, the way attendees participated and everyone enjoyed the time. Thanks to all the participants and attendees, the people who contributed with gear, and the people who lent a disciplined ear. Barring some occasional murmur on the sidelines the event almost had a quite background. A special thanks to Rahul for the effort put in by him and Aashish Kesarwani of Lakozy for sponsoring the event.

Session 1: Lyrita Audio Horn Grande

The show began at 11 with our very own Viren Bakhshi's creations Lyrita Audio Horn Grande playing through Lyrita Audio tube amps, source being a NAD CDP. Horn Grande promised a lot of sound, good sound. However, the first impressions were disappointing due to the room. Room had a large floor area but a very low ceiling, one side was completely a reflective glass wall. In short the room was very inappropriate for a speaker of this type and size. Besides they were played as soon as they were powered on. I have a feeling those amps needed to be turned on for 10-15 minutes before they were asked to play the first note. And those speakers need big room, not only floor area-wise but also ceiling height wise. Their sound characteristic was bold, big sound, with great details and sense of space. The amp had no trouble driving them. It was clear that in rooms where they will fit, they will make great music.

One off-topic observation - I feel the Lyrita amps should be powered on atleast 15 minutes ahead of any serious demo. Before that the tubes are not fully ready to deliver. Just my personal opinion.

Session 2: Quad 11 L2 vs Jamo Concert D830

This was not an ideal comparison given the difference between the price of the speakers. However, the A/B was conducted nonetheless. The Quad had a cold relaxed sound, with good justice to vocals. They had good frequency extension and sounded detailed enough for their price. However, they sounded dark and somewhat veiled. They would benefit from a forward sounding amp/source. Another weakness was the boxy-ness in their sound, which colored their mid-bass, added a muddiness to their mid-range and made drums sounds a bit unnatural.

The Jamo in the contrast was open sounding and slightly on the brighter side of the neutral. They went louder with much ease and didn't sound compressed. Their long throw mid-woofer made for a good visual while playing low notes at loud volumes. However, their top end was less refined than will be expected from a speaker costing that much. With many tracks they sounded bright and sound stage narrowed. Overall, they were enjoyable speaker if their price was not taken into account. For a speaker costing that much, they lacked mid-range refinement and sound-stage. These things apart and they were very good speaker in their own right.

Session 3: Harbeth Compct 7ES3 with Exposure

There was a lot anticipation for this combo as both these components are reputed components and some FMs are dotting on the impressions to make their decision. The short review is - The combo played well. The Harbeth impressed. The Exposure did its job in a cynical manner, driving the Harbeth the way it liked. The synergy was good.

Long review: Harbeth is an extremely reputed brand and the speaker lived up to their reputation. The sound coming out of the combo was slightly on the colder side of the neutral, but not dark, not vieled. Details were intact and there was no sight of coloration. My worst fear about the Harbeth was the mid-range coloration that many people speak of (due their cabinet construction), however, I didn't hear it. The sound was uncolored, with a very-very slight boxy-ness in the mid-bass region.

While reviewing gear at this level, matching becomes very important. Here, I want to remind that the Harbeth might sound very different mated with different amplifiers. The slightly cold signature that I heard may be due to lack of drive from the amp, or might be the signature of the amp itself. I will appreciate inputs from the Exposure owner Aashish on this.

My conclusion was that as it is the combo made for a very relaxed sounding setup, which can provide good sound enjoyment over long listening sessions. However, the people who won't listen to music more than 2-3 hours a day, they might want to look at a slightly open sounding amp. Odyssey Khartago, Krell KAV-300i come to mind instantly.

This was followed by the lunch break. Here I will take a writing break, continuing to the rest of the day. Pictures will be up may be tomorrow (sorry I am very badly organized at the moment).

Lyrita Audio Horn Grande

Lyrita Audio Horn Grande

Quad L11 vs Jamo D830 shootout in progress

Various amps and sources

Harbeth Compact 7ES

A very promising "boombox" from NAD.
The sound was suprisingly good for the size and the details, textures were to die for.
Will have to check it's details further. Very impressive product.

​

 

[heliumflight]

Congratulations to cor and all the guys who worked and co-ordinated this meet to make it a grand success.. Sorry couldn't make it as could not get a ride.

 

[srinisundar]

Sorry to tell this ... Is this is quote is necessary now to cut and paste which is posted in another forum by another member before here somebody put their review ????

Does this going to make justice for any of the reviews which were going to pour in later >>>:sad:

If an comment was posted here from an member who has visited the venue it should be fine.. Not cut and paste of other forum member is needed before first in hand report of attended members

I think you want to spoil the after party effect.

This I read & liked - so I am posting the link here :-


Coming to the room, while this was one of the best and cheapest venues one could have for a meetup like we music buffs had, It was still a disaster of a room to play music via components that have the world proven might to create a enormously powerful & deep presentation of sound. So such products are not there to be reviewed, their reviews are for to read about (google?), for some of product in that league at the first breath question & scream with authority for an environment to be optimal for its marriage, before anyone starts raising questions about the offspring.

Now what I would have possibly bought out of yesterdays meetup was well ..nothing.
Yesterdays meetup left bad impression about the venue/room in question, for it quite marred the experience to an extent that during some of the times, I choose to play Table Tennis with the bright little kids in the room next. That room was only limited only to take around mellow sounds and some bass/distortion, we did see during some gear-plays what a full bodied pristine LF wave brought about flutter flutter. So for that room, something from the likes of Omega or other full rangers under 10inch would done well for me.

The room had full 20 x 30 feet of resonating 1-1.5ft deep hollow pop ceiling , Pillars that were resonating like my speaker cabinets ..dont, glass windows contributed their bit. I heard some friends point out that some - Speakers are booming , while it was mainly the room playing foul, speakers were just fine barring few bass heavy ones that had their own cabinet resonance/sound conflicting with their optimal performance.

Good that we didnt have a session on flaws there with respect to room acoustics first, most of us would have walked away for a sumptuous lunch instead. BUT lets face it, its not an AV room, so while I heard almost everyone speak about the attributes and restraints wrt the room, so to expect something that we hold way beyond from the likes of B.OSE etc wrt qualitative reproduction was outrageously mad of us to do so. Some of us who had seen the room were cautious about reflections and yet once the room was entered and when I heard some of the first system play ..there was not much left to be hoped from an honest audition where in I could be sitting like a critical lad with all my feathers earned from my experience in listening between my speakers & from forums


Sid Trehan

Interesting write up

 

[malvai]

Re: Report: Jan 2013 NCR Audiophile Meet

[/B][/CENTER]

That's a superb dock... have heard it at Lakozy delhi and am seriously considering it as a gift to my wife! it sounds open and nice.... one can live with it in the bedroom or on trips!

 

[corElement]

Re: Report: Jan 2013 NCR Audiophile Meet

The Jamo in the contrast was open sounding and slightly on the brighter side of the neutral. They went louder with much ease and didn't sound compressed. Their long throw mid-woofer made for a good visual while playing low notes at loud volumes. However, their top end was less refined than will be expected from a speaker costing that much. With many tracks they sounded bright and sound stage narrowed. Overall, they were enjoyable speaker if their price was not taken into account. For a speaker costing that much, they lacked mid-range refinement and sound-stage. These things apart and they were very good speaker in their own right.

Top end less refined - Agreed, I've often wondered if it was because of the tweeter or the crossover. I feel that that 10% more quality they needed to put into perfecting the absolute high end was instead put into the build and finish of the speaker.

Does not sound compressed - Completely agreed

Original price point of 1.5 Lakhs being too high - Also agreed, good thing I got them cheap hyeah: since they're an older model now, these days one can find them on the internet for 700-1000 USD which is what I got mine for and for 45,000 INR, it's a keeper!

Sound stage - We had them spread out flat 180' at meet and this might explain why, because at home I was not pleased with the 180' spread either. At home I use them with about 10' toe in.

There's a cult around the concert 8 where DIY'ers have taken to modding the crossover or replacing the t25 tweeter with the seas millennium to correct the top end rather than get any other bookshelf speaker. But only the tweeter, as the t25 was a stock t25 used by jamo, while the woofer was a custom seas excel woofer specified by Lynn Olson (the designer of the concert 8), and changing that woofer would completely defeat the point of owning a concert 8.

Here's a couple of such modded concert 8's that people from search engines looking at this thread may find interesting, The modder's who replaced the t25 with the millenium adjusted the crossover with R2 = 1.0ohm, R3 = 1.5ohm:

 

[ajay124]

More than the hifi I was looking forward to meeting hifi enthusiasts from both the forums. As far as auditions are concerned I agree with Sid that serious thought has to be given to the room and placement of the equipment, before we can even begin to audition anything. Manav and I have spent literally hundreds of hours getting our system to sound good. Would our systems have performed at the peak of their power if they had been transported to the NCR meet? I doubt it. It takes many months of listening before you can begin understanding what the acoustics of a room do to your precious hifi system. It would take several hours to set up one good system even if you have someone as knowledgable as Bhagwan to do the job. It would be a hopeless enterprise to set up several different systems in the limited amount of time available during a hifi meet. It would be better to go for quality rather than quantity. Perhaps a solid state v/s tube shootout or a comparison between a digital and a vinyl source. But it would be essential that all the component share a synergy and work well together. Mixing too many badly matched components with various genres of music would (in most cases) lead to a chaotic and pointless scenario from which no one learns anything.

CorElement did a fantastic job of single handedly setting up the meet. But I believe that to really make things work, we need a team of 4 enthusiastic volunteers. Two to handle the logistics, economics and communication. And two to handle the selection of the venue, the products to be demoed and the setting up of the system. For the latter we definitely need folks with experience like Bhagwan, Dr.Bass, Asit, Manav, Sid, Dinyaar, Arj, Square_Wave, Sidvee and others to take charge. I have briefly met Viren/Lyrita, Prithvi/Absolute Sound, Sridhar/ARN and Denny/Bass &Treble. I have tele-conversed with Grattan and exchanged mails with Aroop. I have found all of them to be extremely knowledgeable about hifi. We need a few audiophiles like these to give the meet some kind of focus. We need to split the meet into two sessions. A session for auditions and a session for socializing.

And last but not the least we need to select a limited amount of well recorded, high quality music for the audition. We need to be more adventurous and experimental with the selection of music for the audition. We need to look beyond the obvious suspects like Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Eagles, Michael Jackson. They are not bad, but the universe of music is large and mysterious and there are hundreds of fantastic musicians who never made it to the top of the charts.

 

[corElement]

Yes, I agree ,this needs atleast 4 people to arrange everything who are in constant communication. It's way too much for just 1 person who's not hosting it at their own home. And I agree Ajay, it's more about meeting people when that many people come, because everyone starts talking no matter how much you to tell them to not talk while auditions are on. And it's even MORE chaotic when people come with friends and family pushing the numbers way beyond the amount a venue can handle. The number of people should be fixed and no more should be allowed.

Since I'm leaving in nz next month and I wasn't seeing any meet being put together for 2 years in Delhi now, I said what the heck, let me just do it by hook or by crook and got on with it, it was great fun, I loved hearing the harbeths and even the nerve wrecking with the pmc was an educational experience. we also got to hear what nad's highest m2 sounds like. Quite interesting!

 

[ranjeetrain]

(1) I don't understand why do people become knowledgeable after something is done. This thread was started some long time ago and everyone had their opportunity to suggest what they had in their mind.

May be the people who are thoroughly disappointed should have been vocal about what they thought should have been done. I was the first one to state clearly the venue was not good. No one read that earlier? How come people became so knowledgeable after a thoroughly negative report from a banned member? They need a negative report to form their views? What's with this cynicism?

I raised a concern about the venue but fell silent because no one else seemed to bother and I was not really in a position to offer a better venue. One should either lead by example or keep quite. It is easy to find fault in others' leadership, but is much harder to provide better leadership. People who are finding faults in this event should have taken charge when it was being put together rather than opting out citing all sort of reasons.

This event was not perfect, but what is? This was better than some other I have read about here. Could it be the case of grapes turned sour?

Any way, this event was put together by and large by a young chap. And I will forgive the lack of insight and encourage him to do better rather than tell him he is an idiot and doesn't know how to do such things.

(2) I really feel pity for the people who think without Mahler and Mozart a hifi meet shouldn't be done. It seems like life is meaningless without imported salted butter. Desi chhach simply doesn't cut the cake. Somewhere on another forum I read someone poking fun at the number Adele sold. I just feel pity for the guy and hope he doesn't use the same yardstick for measuring people in his day-to-day life. Because such people may be able to gain some browny point with some, but for the rest (and the majority) they come across as clowns who have no ability to accept others for what they are and what they like.

(3) I have seen this tendency of citing some people's names in order to create an impression of knowledge. May be it works for some people, but I am not among the people who subscribe to that school of thought. I don't think the real knowledge comes in talking to people alone. For real knowledge one needs to dig much deeper. Real knowledge comes from first hand experience. In any case, I don't see the point in seeking approval by citing other big people. It just means the person is not big enough by himself/herself.

I have spoken in person/telephonically with some of the billionaires, entrepreneurs/designers/manufacturers both within the hifi community and outside, both inside and outside India. But I don't see the need of mentioning that every month in one thread or the other in order throw the weight around.

(4) There is no cure for negativity. There is no cure for chauvinism. Unfortunatly, many people consider these traits as inseparable part of audiophilia.

I hope here in India a true audiophile cult is born, which is free from usual audiophile chauvinism.

 

[srinisundar]

Ranjeet ,

I agree with you all your points and most of the people try to pour in views about the venue only after meeting was held or not attending the same. I don't think so anybody has visited the venue before the day of meet. Core has done everything perfect by posting the picture of all sides and that time somebody so called audiophiles can put their views.

Spoiler of every meet will be there, they will spoil the meet in Mumbai too and also by sitting in mumbai and spoil the meet in Delhi & chennai too:lol:

There are high end re sellers in the name of members who have rack of high end items lined up in their room which can suit only low end bookshelves and cheapo integrated amplifier and talk high-end and attain their " bliss " by behaving cheaply.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Ha ha. Well written.

 

[ravi_d]

The PMC IB1S is the ULTIMATE example how the "bigger" or "more expensive" model of a series, is not better than their smaller models.

I thought the professional/ studio series PMC was the only speaker in the entire meet which did not perform to it's expectations.

Being a TL fanboy/ PMC owner for a moment I thought my hard earned money which I put on obtaining their TB2i stand mounts went down the drain as I bought the speakers blindly after using their smaller DB1i's for sometime.

No offense meant but after reading bhagwan's copy/paste post and the posts there after I took solace as it sounded like a reassuring insurance protecting my investment as the room issue hasn't been mentioned earlier.

 

[technobhatt]

I am no audiophile.
I have just started the journey of being in HiFi-world and building my taste as well as learning a lot.

As a newbie, I found this HFV meet as an opportunity to audition HiFi DAC, Amplifiers and Speakers. I must say, it was a great day I spent at HFV meet on Sunday.

I reached the venue with 'ranjeetrain' well before 11 AM. Prior to reaching there, I had a great time talking with 'ranjeetrain' during our Metro journey. almost 1.5 hours of Metro journey passed so early because of a great company. Ranjeetrain...an amazing fellow and knowledgeable guy he is ! We talked a lot on Music, Movies, technologies, Amps, DACs etc.

The meet started around 11 am with comparison of NAD-Jamo/Nad-Quad setup.And it was very first time I got to learn, how 2 speakers sound differently with the same source and amplification.
Further, I interacted with few more members and tried to give my full concentration on auditioning each set-up.

Off-course I had very little to speak and share with fellow members due to my limited knowledge, but I was driving my ears with more than 100% efforts to listen and learn each aspect of the meet. I was never out of the room except the nature-calls.

I would like to thank CorElement for organizing the meet and giving me this opportunity to audition these many set-ups. And off-course our meet sponsor Ashish Kesarwani for making this happen. I am also very tempted with the NAD boombox's sound quality.

Also, I found Shiva's demonstration on Accoustic Portrait-Jamo setup very interesting. This is where I got to learn the idea behind sound quality difference due to sampling rate in various input sources. I was thrilled with Shiva's detailed technical answers on my queries.

When the meet was over... CyberVinay provided an opportunity to me, Ranjeet and Kooldeep to visit his house. we had a look on his great AV room. Thanks Vinay ji again, the Vinyl set-up and Tennoy speakers sound great!
During our return journey in Metro, Ranjeet, myself and Kooldeep spent great time discussing the post meeting analysis on various Amp-Dac-Speakers combination.

All in all, it was a memorable and great day for me.

 

[mpw]

(1) I don't understand why do people become knowledgeable after something is done. This thread was started some long time ago and everyone had their opportunity to suggest what they had in their mind.

May be the people who are thoroughly disappointed should have been vocal about what they thought should have been done. I was the first one to state clearly the venue was not good. No one read that earlier? How come people became so knowledgeable after a thoroughly negative report from a banned member? They need a negative report to form their views? What's with this cynicism?

I raised a concern about the venue but fell silent because no one else seemed to bother and I was not really in a position to offer a better venue. One should either lead by example or keep quite. It is easy to find fault in others' leadership, but is much harder to provide better leadership. People who are finding faults in this event should have taken charge when it was being put together rather than opting out citing all sort of reasons.

This event was not perfect, but what is? This was better than some other I have read about here. Could it be the case of grapes turned sour?

Any way, this event was put together by and large by a young chap. And I will forgive the lack of insight and encourage him to do better rather than tell him he is an idiot and doesn't know how to do such things.

(2) I really feel pity for the people who think without Mahler and Mozart a hifi meet shouldn't be done. It seems like life is meaningless without imported salted butter. Desi chhach simply doesn't cut the cake. Somewhere on another forum I read someone poking fun at the number Adele sold. I just feel pity for the guy and hope he doesn't use the same yardstick for measuring people in his day-to-day life. Because such people may be able to gain some browny point with some, but for the rest (and the majority) they come across as clowns who have no ability to accept others for what they are and what they like.

(3) I have seen this tendency of citing some people's names in order to create an impression of knowledge. May be it works for some people, but I am not among the people who subscribe to that school of thought. I don't think the real knowledge comes in talking to people alone. For real knowledge one needs to dig much deeper. Real knowledge comes from first hand experience. In any case, I don't see the point in seeking approval by citing other big people. It just means the person is not big enough by himself/herself.

I have spoken in person/telephonically with some of the billionaires, entrepreneurs/designers/manufacturers both within the hifi community and outside, both inside and outside India. But I don't see the need of mentioning that every month in one thread or the other in order throw the weight around.

(4) There is no cure for negativity. There is no cure for chauvinism. Unfortunatly, many people consider these traits as inseparable part of audiophilia.

I hope here in India a true audiophile cult is born, which is free from usual audiophile chauvinism.

==================================================

I think we need to possibly understand that there will never be a perfect venue and even at many dealers placed a damped and airconditioned setting is many times not suitable for music because it may not be close to what we are exposed to our home atmosphere.

Future meets incl the planned Mumbai or Chennai one take the following cues from the previous Mumbai meet where i was part of and my observations on this forum on other meets, the good points and the cribs that follow after the event.

1. Instead of having 1 meet a year.. and taking the pain of location, finances etc.. would it not be possible to have 2 or 3 meets per year are 2 or 3 different dealer locations.

2. This way there will be active participation from the dealer too..

3. We can pre-select the brand and the gear we want to hear

4. The dealer is saved the expense of lugging his gear around. last Mumbai meet Designer audio and the PMC gentleman had brought their gear all the way to Navi Mumbai to expose their brand to a more knowledgable audience in the hope for more sales. Maybe let the dealer select the venue ( maybe his showroom ) and maybe say 20 or 25 of us can participate for a few hours ( not the whole day )

There were un-charitable remarks made about the PMC setup without mentioning the possible reasons and this is unfortunate. The dealer may have gone thru a lot to get the gear over and possible we need to understand that the setup the dealer got may be better suited for a different ambience. The dealer too should be encouraged to bring resources which are compatible with the meet and not get something over the top.

Possibly one lesson for the organizers for future meets.

5. FM's who want to demo their gear can get it along too and with the consent of the dealer do the demos too..

6. Possibly the dealer can sponsor the event for us for a couple of hours of brief but fun listening.

For folks who want to listen to particular setups.. it may be better to form friendships with FM's and go to their homes to listen. I have had now i think thrice that FM's have come home and it was good fun.

7. Regarding the ambience and the room.. it will be upto the dealer to make the event informative by having a good demo room..distributing literature etc..

Most of the dealers like Lakozy etc.. can accomodate a limited crowd too..

8. Other dealers who may want to demo gear can similarly be introduced. I suspect most of them know each other and even share a beer sometimes though there may be bit of professional rivalry and stuff.

9. Let the reviews be written be 1 or 2 more experienced members ( which is happening in most cases ) to get a fair perspective.

just a few things from my end..

rgds,
mpw

 

[panditji]

Right Said Ranjeet.....

I would like to thank Rahul Mukherjee (CorElement) for organising the meet... I thought it was planned and organised very well....

Got to meet a number of people and I hope to catch up with them soon.....

Many thanks to Ashish Kesarwani (Lakozy,Delhi) for sponsoring the event as without him it would not have been possible.....

 

[Asit]

Guys, let me first congratulate the main organizer CorElement and all the participants.

Good room, bad room or whatever - I think the meet was a success because so many people gathered for a common cause and interacted.

The other cities are having these meets, but in Kolkata despite the presence of many audiophiles (not many of them members here, some are passive members), we do NOT have any thing. It's only myself, Pratim, Vasu (myriad) and whenever Sangram is in town - just a few of us meeting very occasionally. But to tell you frankly, I enjoy those interactions tremendously. Before these mini-meets, I practically count the remaining days, and am always in a good mood afterwards. I do not worry so much about speaker positioning etc, room interaction and other nittigritties in these meets. I am just happy to meet like-minded people, exchange a few ideas, listen to some music I love, and come back an enriched person because of the interaction.

It is impossible to make large meets like these perfect. Speaker positioning is the hardest thing - every speaker has a different philosophy, and it would take some experimentation and numerous tries to make things perfect -even if the room is good.

It is also not true that, unless the room and placements are perfect, one cannot learn anything from the meet - I think one can still learn quite a lot if one is willing.

I agree with quite few points made by Ranjeet - especially the one on snobbery and elitism. In my view, one just needs love for music and a passion for the reproduced sound - in my view all experiences are helpful. But these days I often see people recommending or commenting on stuff when they probably have not heard it. So is it not better to listen to some equipments in whatever conditions? The other thing is: one cannot really learn from half an hour of auditioning - one can get only a very rough idea which can even be wrong.

Hence, I think rather than thinking in a negative way, one should meet, socialize, listen to music (perhaps not in a perfect set-up, but so be it), and come home an enriched and happy folk. I have made long term friendships from similar interactions.

In big scientific conferences, do you think people have the scope of getting into the details? It is usually not possible. But one should still soak in all the atmosphere, start a discussion with other folks during lunch and dinner, and later perhaps develop that into a fruitful scientific collaboration. Similarly in audio, one should carry on with the friendship started from these meets and have more serious and focussed small meets later on.

I am very happy these meets are taking place. Thanks to the Delhi-area folks, and please write in detail the areas not covered and if possible put up more pictures. Although I cannot be an active participant most of the times, I wait eagerly for the reports and the pictures. After the last Delhi report, I remember I bugged the hell out of somebody (can't remember now) for report on the TB2i.

Oh I forgot to mention one thing. I think, these meets also make one a humbler person, because one finds out the positive qualities and the experiences the other folks have. Whenever I have met any other forum member - I had this positive effect on me. Some are very knowledgable, some are great diy-ers, some may be even a novice, but otherwise very brilliant in his career or extremely refined or cultured as a person.

Has anybody written about the food? There cannot be good music without good food .

Regards.

 

[prem]

Very well said, Asit. I completely echo your thoughts and sentiments.

 

[captrajesh]

There were un-charitable remarks made about the PMC setup without mentioning the possible reasons and this is unfortunate.

+1. It could've been worded subtler, more so because the culprit as I understand is the venue.

 

[corElement]

I really appreciate all the thanks guys It's was not nearly as bad in real life as it sounds on text here. I had a lot of fun

And honestly, Sid Trehan had already heard most of the stuff before, and he came 2 hours late, I don't know why he thought he'd expect to hear something that he'd like to buy.

I would just like to take a moment to remind everyone something about the Mumbai slot.

I was handpicking equipment suitable for the venue for the most part and it's the reason why you saw mostly small and medium bookshelves in the spreadsheet. However the PMC IB1S was NOT on the spreadsheet and I had no CLUE it was coming.

If I did I would have stopped it because I know it would have been too much to bring, too much to set up, and too much for the venue and it would not have been an issue. Not to mention poor Ashish from Lakozy who was the sponsor himself didn't get to show some of his equipment due to the time wasted in setting up and dismantling of the PMC IB1S

This is the information I had

Dear All,

I will be bringing the speakers for this.

1) Amphion Helium 410
2) PMC DB1S+

Jignesh please add the necessary electronics,cables and subwoofer to
this.

Regards,
KJ

However as we all saw, the guys from Mumbai turned up with a PMC IB1S instead, without informing me.

In the future I'd like to request those of you who attend any meet, in Delhi or any other city, please don't get gear without first informing the organizers. If you do, your effort can and will most likely backfire like the pmc IB1S did.