Trip Report! Buck going out to Seattle to hang with Marc and Ed.

[audioguy3107]

Here's a couple of pics of Marc, Ed and me on Monday night....it was a great time, we caught up a bit from last year's RMAF and did some listening. Marc's system was perfect since we were able to compare CD, SACD, vinyl, Tidal streaming and even vinyl rips on an Auralic Aries that I brought out to Seattle. It was one of the first times I've ever really been able to compare formats as close as possible in a controlled high end system and not at a hotel audio show or dealer. I guest it's no surprise that the analog rig won by quite a large margin to my ears. With Tidal it was hit and miss, we played some stuff that sounded pretty good, and some things that were not. One interesting comparison we did was a vinyl rip of a song by the Tedeschi Trucks Band compared to the Tidal stream. That was the biggest difference to me of the night, the Tidal version sounded like a low quality MP3 while the vinyl rip was spot on. Some of the classical stuff I brought sounded pretty good on both SACD, CD and Tidal, but there was no getting around it, physical media was the CLEAR winner (and Marc has a first class streaming setup too). One of the other lessons I learned is that I just need to turn my damn volume up when I'm at home.....the guys were almost at the point of making fun of me for how low I usually listen. It's amazing how the dynamics can some to life when you turn it up. No wonder my D'agostino meters don't move. I'll post some more pics of Ed's setup later on! Thanks to Marc for having me over, I'm trying to save him a @#$%load of money on property by convincing him to move to Atlanta.......imagine the audio room that would be!!!!!!

[Mikado463]

nice write up Buck, it's nice to hear that your young ears appreciated good old analog !

[SL1800]

Buck, Marc says I listen about 3 times louder than you do. I like to crank it!!!

[audioguy3107]

Originally Posted by SL1800

Buck, Marc says I listen about 3 times louder than you do. I like to crank it!!!

Holy crap Steve, he told me what number the ARC pre was at when you’d turn it up. I’m worried about your hearing! Don’t need you taking a trip to the audiologist at your young age! Earmuffs! Earmuffs!

- Buck

[audioguy3107]

Before I went to Ed's house, I went down to Pike's Place market and wandered around for awhile.....of course had to snap a pic of the original Starbucks location:





He met me downtown and we grabbed some lunch at a seafood place called Etta's...it was good. So next up was Ed's house on the coast for a listen to his Alexias and D'agostino setup. Had a beautiful view over the sound from his street, I took a couple of pics of the view and the sunset. Outstanding:

[audioguy3107]

Here's a view from the captain's seat in Ed's listening room. Love the guitars.





My wife showed up a bit later and we all had dinner, I'm a bit annoyed since she wouldn't pose for any pictures next to the Alexias....not much interest.


I really wanted her to pose for us since she's hot. Oh well, I'll try again somehow.

[audioguy3107]

Had a great time up here, we couldn't try any of the vinyl rips I brought since I spent too much time trying to sync up my Auralic Aries with Ed's wifi and it just wasn't happening for some reason. I hope the dang thing works when I get home. Anyway, everything sounded great, it was pretty interesting to compare the speakers in different rooms.....the biggest differences I heard was that Marc seemed to get a bit more air/ambiance/depth with his setup which makes since given his higher ceilings and more room behind his Alexias. Ed seemed to get deeper bass which again probably makes sense due to interactions closer to his walls and ceilings. We ganged up on Ed trying to convince him to go down the dark side of analog....don't know if we made any headway but we're trying.
Finished up with some pictures of us all with Ed's awesome Target lookalike dog Stella:




Notice wife missing from said picture.

[For The Love of Music]

No doubt a good time, glad opportunity presented itself to meet, including the wives and the Miniature Bull Terrier.

So far we have had Steve, Tony and Buck up here for visits in the Northwest and have met many others, this has become more than a forum.

[Weirdcuba]

Awesome stuff. Enjoy.

[Antonmb]

Awesome Buck, looks like you had as much fun as I did visiting Marc and Ed.