Audio Aficionado to invade Monroe, LA this weekend (trip report)
 

So in our never ending quest to experience the country's finest audio systems, Steve (SL1800), Mike (GW1800), and I have traveled to the fine state of Louisiana to hang with Tim (Timobi) for the weekend, but with some work to do as well.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d6/bc...39c8b043fb.jpg

The plan is/was :tears: that Steve was going to mount a cartridge on Tim's new Clearaudio tonearm and "train" Mike and I at the same time so we knew what was involved in cartridge mounting. Well, unfortunately somewhere between Tuscaloosa, AL (enemy territory) and Jackson, MS, Steve informed me that the cleaning lady had broken the cantilever off the cartridge that very morning. :uzi: Unbelievable.

The second mission was to do a comparison between the Bricasti M21 DAC and the dCS Bartok generously loaned to us by Alan and David at Hifi Buys for the weekend. Thankfully that has gone off without a hitch since we are no go with analog for the weekend.

Here's a couple of pics crossing the Mississippi River. Pretty cool seeing the bluff where the confederates where firing on the Union ships with cannons (this is in Vicksburg).

https://i.imgur.com/RpKcjs2.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/W7griI7.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/KjJ2h8C.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/1pcl8o2.jpg

We all got to Monroe around 5:30 and headed to Tim's. We got the DACs in place and Tim gave us a tour of the casa. We did some quick listening before dinner. Here's Tim's impressive system of Martin Logan CLXs and stereo subwoofers, McIntosh amplification and Nordost cabling. Excellent.

https://i.imgur.com/QvaSumN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/dvKp923.jpg

After the preliminaries, we hooked up the Bricasti and dCS in place and headed out to grab some food.....I told Tim that my only request was to have some real Louisiana cajun seafood so we headed to a place called Catfish Charlie's of course. :thumbsup:

https://i.imgur.com/DgETufk.jpg



More pics and impressions to come later today!

- Buck


my crawfish bucket :drool:


https://i.imgur.com/Tt0nB9s.jpg

Buck, I'm excited to follow your posts this weekend as you, Steve, Mike, and Tim enjoy what looks like an awesome setup. It's terrible news about Steve's tone arm. I hope that he is able to make a full and complete recovery - perhaps even takes the opportunity to upgrade if possible.

I'll be very interested in your opinions of the Bricasti vs. the Bartok. I left a voicemail for Damon at Bricasti yesterday at Mike's recommendation. I'm hoping I might be able to get a demo unit of the Bricasti. But I would have to compare it to the Bartok I heard at HiFi Buys last year as I'm not sure I could get a Bartok to demo where I am.

I hope you guys have a great weekend!

Lurking...

:spy: :spy:

Cleaning ladies should be banned. :sigh:

My thoughts exactly!

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...1&d=1583612870

Tim, your room looks great! Wish I could have hosted y’all down in South Louisiana.

Are there any post-invasion reports?

Hey Dan, yeah, give me a bit, been busy at work the last couple of days. Got a few more pics to post as well.

- Buck

Hi guys sorry for the slow response to this thread. We all had a blast hanging out at Tim’s even without analog. Tim has a new cartridge on order.

We did a lot of comparisons with Tim’s Cary Audio dac and the loners we had, Dcs Bartok, Bricasti M1 and M21.

I was impressed enough with the Bricasti M21 I talked the dealer into letting me hijack it and take it home to Oklahoma to hear it against my PS Audio DirectStream in my own system. To say the least I bought the loner M21 which is actually a brand new unit just built a few weeks ago.

Mike also brought along some Nordost qPoints and QSource power supply for them. I have no idea how those things work but they do. Not sure Mike will ever try taking all that through airport security again!!!

All in all it was a great weekend even if Tim lost a cartridge to the cleaning lady.