The Almost Official 2004 Austin GTG Announcement & Invitation (1 Viewer)

[Nhan_H]

Thanks for the offer, Steve. I might have to give you a shout for the airport help. I just got home at 1:00AM after hosting a friend from out of town. Have not even had a chance to pack up any clothes for the trip. I was planning to leave around 10AM tomorrow, but that may get delayed a bit. I've copied down your cell phone #, so you might want to edit your post and delete the info ;-)

 

[David McNett]

I can do airport shuttle service for anyone who packed light. My number is in the information pack.

 

[Victor.Y]

Nhan, I just read your post now.. heh.. a little late. Chris Q even told me about it this afternoon. Sorry about all that.

If you could, give me a ring when you leave Dallas and keep me in the loop. I've got a list of locals that have eagerly volunteered to pick up Curtis from the airport if you cannot.

Thanks,

V

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Hi, I'm Hank, and a local active member of HTF (see the big Austin threads in the National and Local Meets section). IF you guys run out of time/space, I have a fairly big living room that's almost empty that will be available until about 5:00 PM tomorrow. You could bring gear over for demoing. My gear is in the smaller family room and it could be used for speaker demoing. I live close to Nils, who has the Panny 700 projector that's all the buzz nowdays.
I hope you guys have a good time and memorable visit to Austin!

 

[CurtisSC]

Off to the airport!

 

[Craig Chase]

When you guys sober up, it would be nice to get an update...

 

[JackRI]

GEEZ! Here it is 10:30 in the AM (OK, 9:30 in Austin) And no news yet. Did we have a good time last night, did we? Did we stay out past our bed time did we? Do we have a widdle headache dis morning, do we?

OK! OK! you're right. I'm just jealous. Can't think of anything more fun that getting together with a bunch of other folks who are as bonkers about this hobby as I am. I hope you all had as much fun as I'm imagining you did.

If I were you, I'd just wait until the weekend is over before trying to post anything. Too much good stuff going on. BUT! I do look forward to everybody's thoughts about the gear that impressed them, and that which didn't. And maybe some good stories about the people involved too.

Enjoy!

 

[CurtisSC]

I'm sitting in the hotel lobby with Nhan at the moment.

Last night we had a great dinner....12 of us.

Then Jimmy and Victor had a late night.....we'll see how they are doing this morning.

 

[David McNett]

I just wanted post a thanks to Victor, Curtis, Mark, and everyone else who pitched in to make the Austing GTG a great event. I had a great time on Saturday afternoon (sorry I missed the Salt Lick) listening to some great speakers and some even greater people.

I left with a lot greater understanding of and appreciation for speaker design than I had going in and even discovered some great new music to boot. (I just ordered a pile of Ray Montford CDs).

The event absolutely sealed my decision to go with Rockets for my new home theater. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the 1000s.

 

[Seth_L]

Trust me, they're worth the wait

 

[Chris Quinn]

Great time!

A big thanks to Victor for his excellent job hosting. Scott Oliver and his wife also deserve kudos for hosting a brunch this morning and letting us play a his very nice system.

If you ever get a chance to attend on of these get togethers DO IT!

Lots of greats speakers from ACI, Ascend, Axiom, Hsu, HTD, Onix, Rockets, and Rutledge Audio Design. Not a bad speaker in the group.

It was great to meet all these folks that we communicate with on this board.

 

[Victor.Y]

Glad you made it back in one piece -- thank you for bringing so many goodies to the meet. It wouldn't have been the same without all the gear!

 

[Jimmy Harmon]

Just got home. Had a great time. Big thanks to Victor for making this thing the event that it was. Of course, having Mark there was an absolute treat for everyone.

Lots of good speakers, but more importantly, lots of good folks. Thanks everyone for coming and being a part of our (first annual?) Almost Official Austin GTG. To those who couldn't make it, we wish you could have. The only thing we lacked was enough time to experience everything.

 

[CurtisSC]

Thank Yous

I wanted to take the time to let everyone know that I had a great time on my visit to Austin. It was great meeting all of you, listening to all the gear, and hearing some great music.

Jimmy - Thanks for pushing to get this to happen.

Victor - Thanks for hosting. I think your two rooms were perfect for the event.

Chris - Thanks for hauling all of that equipment over and driving me around.

Scott - Thanks for the Sunday brunch and the wonderful session with your equipment.

Mark - Thanks for your legendary generousity and insight.

Thanks to all the manufacturers that supported us.

And everyone else....it was a pleasure meeting all of you.

I learned a lot this past weekend. It was great to hear of the speakers and their characteristics, but more so how each individual person interprets those characteristics. I always thought that front ends made a difference, it was more evident after this weekend.

BTW, I had Salt Lick again at the airport on Sunday. BBQ brisket sandwich and potato salad.

 

[Craig Chase]

It sounds like all you fellas had a blast... very cool !

 

[Jimmy Harmon]

Yeah, we did. Several of us mentioned that we sure wished you could have made it, but we understood that your priorities were in the right place. Mark also had some very nice things to say about you. Of course, I attribute that to the Tito's vodka.

 

[Nhan_H]

I posted the following at AV123:

I'll post more later, but wanted to briefly state the following (copied from another thread):

Wow. What can I say. I got home a few hours ago (made it in less than 3 hours

Seeing Mark again was a GREAT treat. It was as if I just saw and spoke to him yesterday (no time lost in between). He is a true gentleman and enthusiast. I'll give a brief but big THANK YOU for everything (about to have dinner with the parents).

Victor was a gracious host and a huge partier. Thank you, Victor!

I really enjoyed meeting and partying with Victor, Jimmy, Curtis, Paul, David, Chris, Steve, etc. Paul & Steve, next time I'm in town, I owe you guys a visit at your respective houses.

Art, you did eat quite a bit. As I recall, it's your and half of your wife's share...even though it's all you can eat

Scott, thank you and your lovely wife for having us over at your house to enjoy your high-end gears. I really had a great time and learned a great deal about your equipment (and enjoyed the great food).

Dan & Karen, as well as Odysseas, David (Nugget), and PMF, it was a pleasure to meet you guys.

Hope we can all do another GTG like this next year.

 

[Nhan_H]

OK...Here are the pics. This is the first time that I've used webshots, so please let me know if the link don't work for you.

http://community.webshots.com/album/205879664kaSkLf

 

[Jimmy Harmon]

I second all of Curtis's Thank You's and add one of my own. Thank you, Curtis, for this event never would have occurred if you hadn't agreed to come halfway across the country to hang out and listen to some music.

OK, this is partially a repost of what I wrote over at AV123, but my focus in that post was mostly about AV123 speakers so here I have deleted most of my impressions of the Ref 1's, Sig 750's, and 550MkII's and added some on other speakers. If anyone cares to read my thoughts on the Ref's and Rockets please see my post at AV123.com. As a disclaimer I own Rocket 550's so please take everything with a grain of salt. It's just my opinion and is probably worth exactly what it is costing you:

I hesitate to even talk about the speakers since people take this stuff so personally, but since my impressions were so overwhelmingly positive, I'll give it a shot . . .

Ascend CMB-170's - The 170's sounded very good in the smaller listening area. Very detailed sound. They held their own against all the other bookshelfs I heard with the exception of the Ref 1's which are about 4X the price. They are definitely brighter than Rockets (including the 550's/250's). Depending upon your taste that could be a positive or a negative. The 170's are also such an efficient speaker that I don't think you would have to worry much if you don't have a lot of watts to throw at them.

In the large listening area (Victor's living room), I thought they still sounded good although they understandably didn't have the fullness or fill the room as well as some of the larger speakers did. To be fair, I'm pretty sure we didn't have a sub connected to them, and I bet that would have made a big difference. We were comparing them to Ref 1's, Rocket 750's & 550's. They weren't my favorite speaker in the mix, but they competed well even against those speakers which cost much more and are themselves excellent values. After this comparision, Mark mentioned what a remarkable value the 170's are and I agree. At their price point I doubt there is a better sounding speaker available and you could do much worse at 2-3 times the price. I would suggest pairing them with a sub especially if you're putting them in a medium to large room.

Ascend 340m's - I really liked the 170's . . . until I heard the 340m's. The 170's are good, but the 340's are that much better. After a little emergency surgery driver swap by Victor, the 340m's really sang. You could really crank these more than you could the 170's. I think one of our esteemed attendees summed it up best when he blurted out "These are damned good speakers." They really are. Some of you know how much I like my 550's. They aren't going anywhere, but I think that I could be very happy and not feel as though I were missing a thing (other than the rosewood cabinets) with the 340m's. Both have a lot of similarities including being able to be cranked to unhealthy volumes and still sound good. If people are considering these two speakers, other than the 550's playing a little lower, I would say it primarily comes down to cosmetics and price. They both sounded excellent.

The 250's souded very good too. They are basically a bookshelf version of the 550's so they are similar sounding.

I listened briefly to the Axiom M60's. They presented a very nice full sound but listening to them back-to-back with the 550's, the M60's bass didn't seem to be as tight (more just there instead of an attack and decay), and there didn't seem to be as much seperation of different instruments and sounds as compared to the 550's. I know this sounds negative, but overall they were very nice sounding speakers.

The ELT Cse's are also very good sounding speakers and looked good in glossy black, but I didn't spend enough time with them to fairly compare them to the other speakers other than to say that they compared very favorable to all the other bookshelfs with the possible exception of the Ref 1's.

I don't believe I got the chance to listen to the HTD Level IV bookshelf's but the cabinets are beautiful enough that they are probably worth the price even if they didn't play music. The Mini-Pods looked cool. Didn't get a chance to listen to these either. Oh, what about Scott's setup that he graciously allowed us to experience on Sunday? That was so impressive it probably deserves its own thread.

Well, that's about it. Thanks again to Victor and everyone who made this GTG possible.

 

[CurtisSC]

Hey Jimmy....I would do it all over again!

Only one change.....Salt Lick on Friday night instead.