An evening invite........

[Sligolad]

Take a bow Ciaran as it definitely ranks as one of the best get togethers I have been to since I joined TirNaHiFi.
The wine, coffee, drinks and biscuits and savouries were a great touch.

Most notably for me the evening was a great success because we did actually listen to a lot of excellent music on the evening, a lot of times we get together we can drift off into a lot of discussions on HiFi and such without hearing too many tracks, gear, etc.

We packed a lot in that evening and it is testament to the quality of the speakers that we kept wanting to swap equipment and play music at every opportunity, but as the guys above pointed out once we hit on the star of the evening in the third and final set of speakers we stayed with them for the night and no one wanted to go back to the other pairs we listened to.

For the benefit of those who could not make it we listened to 3 sets of speakers on the evening with all built around SEAS Drivers and all sets are front ported. We listened initially to the base 2 way model I think which was a nice compact standmount which performed very well and these were priced by our resident valuation expert Panda2rom within 10% of cost so he obviously has a good pedigree in valuing speakers.
We listened to these on an FatMan iTube amp off a CD unit whose name escapes me now.

After several tracks including the excellent test track 1."Furia Taurina" at over 10 minutes provided off "An Evening with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess" by Panda2rom on CD we moved to the beautiful looking and largest speaker of the evening being a floor stander which was made from solid hardwood all round.
Again this was a 2 way and sounded as good as it looked and at that point I was thinking to myself I wanted a pair if the price was right, after several tracks we then engaged our resident valuation expert Panda2rom and this time he was within about 25% off cost price and at this point I was almost tempted to make an offer....glad I did not as the best was yet to come which I was not expecting!!

For the third and final set we moved down a little in size to the 2 and a half way design floor stander which had 2 smaller woofers and a top of the range tweeter.
This set only had the front panel in solid hardwood but Ciaran plans to supply these in the gorgeous full hardwood design which I look forward to seeing again when he has the first set ready.

When we got the third set of speakers in place which I have to admit I was thinking fell some way between the first and second set price wise based on size and looks we all immediately were won over by how amazing they sounded and that is when the serious challenges began.
The Rega Planar 3 was put in place, then the Croft Acoustics Micro 25 provided by Simonewings and we were listening to some serious sounds at that point.

The Leak 20 was then introduced and this was wonderful with these speakers, TT and Pre combination. The soundstage was huge with great separation, detail and control.
I believe an hour or two passed very quickly at that point in the evening with lots of vinyl being thrown at this combination trying to find limits but none were evident, instead we were all in stunned silence as we tapped our feet and exercised our necks in sympathy to the great sounds we were hearing. Several of us hit the wine at this point as it was an evening to be savoured.

We called on our resident valuation expert Panda2rom and this time he was spot on in price to some amazement by me as I was way off in my initial estimate thinking these were likely in the middle ground but no for the first time have I been deceived by looks before hearing a piece of kit.

Just as I expected we were all almost ready to shuffle away into the night we moved then to Nigel's DAC which straight away on the first three 16/44 tracks he played from his MAC hit the spot and had us all wanting one of these DAC's, it had all the beauty and scale of the high quality vinyl we listened to earlier and with tremendous attack and detail. Another hour was to disappear with some great music.

We finally introduced the Bush A746 from Panda2rom replacing the Leak 20 not expecting much given its appearance and were surprised how powerful and dynamic it was, just go to show once again that looks can be very deceiving!

If you are thinking of purchasing speakers at either budget entry level or something more serious I would recommend a trip down to Ciaran's as it is a great room with a great selection of speakers to suit any budget.
Most of all I think these solid hardwood design with the SEAS drivers will make an easy sell for any one needing buy in from a partner as they are serious pieces of furniture and very pleasing to the eye.
Cheers, Pearse.

[Sligolad]

[cybot]

Great write up lads!

Sounds EXACTLY what I was expecting to read.

Can't wait to hear THAT floor stander - was it the Delling?

Doesn't look like it especially since it doesn't have the front loaded port. Delling 2 maybe?

[Ivor]

may I add my thanks to Ciarán?
A great relaxed night with a fine balance of music and hifi. I can only echo what the lads have said above... the 2 1/2 drivers of the (provisionally named) D2W sang like angels no matter what was thrown at them in either hardware, format or genre. From vinyl to CD to computer audio the speakers never failed to capture the subtleties. That's quite unusual. The pics above show speakers with a huge WAF and as future production will be fully walnut that domestic acceptability will only increase.
As always it was great to meet old friends and I expect Simon and Francois will become regulars at future Forum meet ups...

Once again huge thanks to Ciarán for the venue and the catering ;) I look forward to hearing new products from his range... It's lovely to know there are companies like CK and Eist making high quality hifi products in ireland.

[nige2000]

great evening

As pearse says it's unusual to hear so much equipment and music (especially if it's a computer audio meetup)
the D2W's were easily the stars of the show (shown in Pearses photos above)
i think we all had assumed the bigger floorstanders were going to be the top of the range so that surprised us a bit when we heard the D2W's after them
We threw everything at them and shown them absolutely no mercy
easy known we had some great audiophile experience in the room
we had some extremely well recorded tracks, tracks with fast transients, fast dynamics and tracks to test the frequency extremes

Francois introduced us to Furia Taurina, so as well as been an expert speaker valuer he really knows a good test track
yes the track is over 10 mins long and we heard it at least 4 times (wonder can we shorten it)

we started out with the cd player but when Ivor put the Shelby Lynne on the rega it really put everything into perspective
we played quite a bit of vinyl it was nice to hear some choice material bought by Ivor and Derek

id like to thank Ciaran for having us and providing coffee, beer, wine, bikkys and crisps
and letting me hook up my test dac without worrying i was going to blow up something :)
also for letting me use his soldering iron on my travel injured dac

its really fantastic to have an irish speaker manufacturer where customers can come in with there gear and hear what the options sound like together
build and material quality is also excellent and as Ivor states a very big + on WAF

[tony]

Sounds like a great night, sorry to have missed this one. Speakers look really top class. Leak amp is one I would like to hear also.

[sebna]

Yes, sounds like everyone head great fun. Shame I could not make it. I have to work on my bi-location skills ;)

[ckspeakers]

Thanks for the above 'synopsis' of last Thursday night/Friday morning. I certainly enjoyed the evening, it was great to hear so much music and on so much kit. Derek – a copy of 'Shaft' on vinyl is now on my shopping list!!!!!
As for the gear on the night..... vintage equipment along side modern a DAC, as they say, 'Candy for the ears'. No disappointment here.
The Croft Micro 25 stole it for me, with both CD and vinyl it delivered a clean, natural finesse not found in many pre-amps at it's price point – not an amp to be overlooked by any means.

Thanks to all who attended on the night for taking the trouble to travel beyond the glow of the capitals street lights, and for those of you whom couldn't make it, don't worry there will be another opportunity in the not too distant future, or if you can't wait that long just get in contact and we can organise a listening session.

Ciaran.

[Sligolad]

Just a little aside while I remember it....several people asked me on the night where i got the small USB drives!
Links below:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L ... ge_o07_s00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00F ... ge_o07_s00

Cheers, Pearse.