Here are four photos from the CAS Show this weekend at the Oakland Airport Hilton.
One is the room - Tim Marutani Consulting. The speakers are Martin Logan CLX electrostatics, with a pair of Martin-Logan Balanced Force 212 powered subs. The electronics are all from Nick Doshi, monoblock amps, preamp and tape preamp. Digital (which we played about 10% of the time) is the new Berkeley Audio Reference 3 DAC and the Analog, for which I served as TJ (tape jockey), is Tim's Ampex ATR-102 using his 1/2" headblock (electronics all bypassed to the Doshi tape prepro. 512 Engineering/Marutani Consulting provided the Symmetric Power Units and interconnects, speaker cables and power cords.
Paul Stubblebine, cofounder and mastering engineer for the Tape Project prepared some mixed tapes from the Tape Project copied from the one-inch running masters (made from the original master tapes). Paul was there to help spin tapes Friday and Sunday and give us some insights into the master process he used for the tapes. I spun tapes, including the tape projects, a mix tape I made from Jonathan Horwich's (International Phonograph Inc) and Ed Pong's (Ultra Analogue) and some mix tapes I made of my master tapes and other 15ips 2 track tapes. All the tapes we played were 1/2" 15ips 2 track.
We had SRO crowds on Saturday (averaging 100% occupancy through the day - averaging the standing room folks with the occasional empty seats). Friday and Sunday were less busy, but we still has full houses a good part of each day. Many people came back 4 or 5 times and many stayed for 30-45 minutes. Tim said it was unusual for people to applaud and come up to thank us for the presentations - so that was a very nice feeling.
Second Picture: I am playing TJ (Tape Jockey) for the show.
One funny incident: One of the attendees came up to me and pointed to the Doshi mono blocks. See the top picture on the floor. He asked in all seriousness - are those solid state or tube amps?
Third Picture: Keith Johnson is giving his seminar.
Fourth picture is Keith Johnson from Reference Recordings and me at dinner after his 5-7PM SRO presentation in the room. He talked about the listening experience, speaker design and illustrated his talk with excerpts from his recordings.
Nick Doshi also joined us on Saturday, coming in from Virginia. You can barely see his elbow in the far left of the picture.
Larry
