Simon C's Birthday Bash

Sunday 1st March 2009

Not sure what happened the day before as I wasn't there... (Photo © Dave the Bass)

Down to the day proper. Starting in the front room with Colin's 6EM7 amp with D3a linestage and Fostex 167 MLTLs; Nick's new 5687-KR300BXLS monoblocks also in residence.

Close up of Colin's amp: AE iron and Silk TVCs

Left monoblock. KR300BXLS driven by 5687, the two halves direct coupled, anode choke on the second triode, Audio Note copper coupling cap to the KRs. Series regulated power supply - 6080 as pass valve and cascoded ECC83 as the error valve. Partridge OPT left bare "for better sound"...

And the right handed monoblock. Note groovy blue LED.

In to the back room. Dave's Scott designed Saburos with massive 4" Fostex drivers. Nick's unity gain linestage buffer, Simon's Squeezebox, Ali's AudioNote DAC and Mo's Bugle using Emission Labs 45s.

Closer view of Mo's Bugle

Better view of an Emission Lab 45

What a pair!

Dave photographing me photographing him. Arse!

Changing amps meant much activity (Photo © Dave the Bass)

Couple of dodgy looking characters (Photo © Dave the Bass)

The birthday boy himself serving up lunch. Veggie chick pea and vegetable curry and veggie pizza. Nearly half of us were veggie, who would've thought?

Very important things being discussed (Photo © Dave the Bass)

Me enjoying a quiet moment as my piles of madness warmed up. Everyone was enjoying lunch but I was a bit reluctant to leave the amps on by themselves as they're still burning in. I had a slightly concerning moment when I thought I saw smoke coming from the left channel power supply. But then I realised it was steam coming from my bowl of curry. Ahem.

Into the back room again. Mo's Bugle now driven by a SS Rotel preamp (Music Angel chassis on top of it). Ali's Musical Fidelity A370 1970s monster on the floor.

Closer view

And of the Saburos. The scale of sound created by the 4" driver is something to behold, quite remarkable. Very fast too with the small driver.

Close up of the Music Angel donor chassis. I didn't hear this amp - think it might be one of Andrew's?

I can at least talk about this lot with some confidence, cos it's mine. At front right is the series regulated power supply for the preamp - 6080 as pass valve, the pentode section of an ECL82 as the error valve and an OC3 VR valve for voltage reference. In the middle foreground is the 26 preamp. Behind is the 45-KR300BXLS amp with choke input LC power supplies to both sides. Nick's rather more compact KR300BXLS monoblock behind and Colin's 6EM7 amp on the table. 3 stages DHT amps are madness!

Nick's 6SN7-EL something or other (I forget)-211 amp. Very nice.

Nick's "party" GE 211s

A beauty from Dave (Photo © Dave the Bass)

General shot of the floor filling with SET amplifiers. Lovely.

Back room again, and a triptich of Ali's MF A370. 100,000uF a channel in the Power Supply. It was easier to take 3 photos from different angles than move it...

Ali's Audioromy 813 amp. Usually driving Ali's 'stats.

Dave's 2A3 amp. C3g pentode driver with VR tube on the screen.

And the power supply

Then everything was brought in to the front room as Simon's family returned, once I'd moved my breadboards... We'd been looking forward to trying the Saburos in the front room.

Closer view of the Squeezebox and AudioNote DAC

And then Dave's amp was warmed up. Lovely glow from the 2A3 TJ meshplates.

Shot with the power supply

And a sharper shot of the amp. Free with all silver wound AE amorphous OPTs - a sprinkling of magic dust.

And another general shot to finish. Top day out. Happy Birthday Simon.