300b lovers

I want to share my thoughts about this equipment and about the show, and a little about my experience in the room. The opportunity to hear the Raven and Blackbirds and (hopefully) meet two people I’ve only "met" on the internet was a major reason I drove up from Portland to attend the show. So the Spatial/Sachs/Olson room was one of my first stops Friday afternoon.

First visit... what can I say? Completely unlistenable, mind-crushing, thought-destroying, ear-splitting rave music or (what the hell, I don’t know what to call it but I could not think when I was in the room to come up with an alternative to listen to, though I was invited to do so)... I had to leave. Second visit a little later was a little better and my third attempt was much better.

Oh - a comment about listening levels at the show. I carry a SPL meter with me and typically measured the SPL levels in every room I went into. Many rooms were playing with peaks well over 80dB. Some rooms were measuring 80dB outside, in the hallway. Since my buddy @jzzmusician has tinnitus we didn’t spend any time in rooms that were loud, ’cause loud music aggravates his condition, which is mostly bearable and controllable.

Back to my account about Don’s room. On our third visit I asked a young woman who was managing the room whether Don was around and she said he was in the other room in the suite and would be out soon. They were switching amps from the Spatial integrated to the Raven/Blackbird combo and were having some trouble getting the streamer to connect or something, so when Don came into the room the female assistant let him know there were folks who wanted to talk to him, so we got to hear his thoughts about the Linlai 6SN7s which seemed to be in every piece of equipment in the room, and then the story about the evolution of the Raven & Blackbird. I found Don extremely likable and really enjoyed his off the cuff account of the project. I also really enjoyed hearing about how he came to own a Lampizator Pacific. Fun story.

It’s hard for me to assess equipment in this kind of an environment. I think the Spatial integrated amp sounded really good, the Spatial speakers sounded great, and the combination of Pacific/Raven/Blackbird/Spatials sounded simply like music. Pure, unadulterated. Really, really good. Easily one of the best sounding rooms at the show.

The Whammerdyne/Songer room was sounding typically top-notch. Oh my merciful heavens. It was also really good. I think the Songer speakers are perhaps my favorite speakers in the world.

There were many rooms which, frankly, didn’t really do much for me. The was a ne-to-me brand of electrostatics that sounded okay, but I didn’t really agree with their stated premise that "we all know that electrostatics can’t do bass". Yeah, I don’t agree with that. My Quad 2805s do. They don’t do bass as well as my JBL monitors but they are a very livable compromise. The new electrostatics were something like $70,000/pair.

On Saturday I was back in and out of Don’s room a couple of times and somehow, through a kind of a miracle, I thought I recognized @lynn_olson in the hallway and said "are you Lynn Olson?" He stopped, I introduced myself and he generously spent quite a bit of time talking about his experience, amps, design, the Raven, the Blackbird, scattering gems of knowledge right and left. I was far out of my technical depth but enjoyed it thoroughly. I agree with the comment above that he’s probably some kind of genius. (Lynn, I know you won’t let that go to your head.) Only after returning to Portland I learned from my good friend Harry that Lynn is a spiritually oriented person. Wish I’d known that - we could have gone off on that tangent which I really would have enjoyed.

This post is getting too long. And it’s unfocused and I’m rambling. Oh well. Oh, one more amazing coincidence was that I got to meet another person I’d only previously met via Audiogon - Michael from Corvallis. Yeah! We’re going to be able to finally have that shootout we’d planned to do back in 2019/2020. Really was a pleasure to put a face to the name.

Overall my experience of the show was that it was great. So many audiophiles seem to be real gentlemen and I enjoyed every conversation I got to have.

Don’t get me started on the differences between Mahayana Buddhism and Vedanta Hinduism, and subtle (but fairly obvious) Buddhist influences in the Sermon on the Mount.

Here’s one for you: when I was a little tyke in Japan, no more than ten years old, I was preoccupied with one burning question: "Where Do Thoughts Come From?"

My parents deflected me, of course, because they had no clue, and probably thought it was a ridiculous question. But as an adult looking back to those days in midcentury Japan, it would have been pretty entertaining if this little brown-haired Western kid asked a Japanese monk that same question.

Our family went to plenty of temples, after all, and English was fairly widely spoken at the time. The monks would have went bonkers to see a little Western boy ask, in all seriousness, a Buddhist koan. They’d be running around and shouting, "Proof of reincarnation! Bring the abbot! Take a photo!"

Sometimes I think my Higher Self has quite a sense of humor. I may not get the joke, but it certainly does.

P.S. So, sixty years later, where do thoughts come from? If I met him now, I’m not sure I could honestly answer the little boy.

Thin air, the thoughts‘ most likely origin aka ether also happens to be the medium most difficult to reproduce in hifi. Maybe your quest for perfection there will ultimately answer your deep question as a 10 year old boy? Panta Re…and never mind physicists‘ proof that ether doesn‘t exist.

I heard, and liked very much the Songer fieldcoil speakers I heard at Capital Audiofest.  I believe the dipole driver speaker and the more conventional box speaker were the same price, even though it appears that you get much more with the dipole version (two-way instead of a single driver).  Both sounded quite good to me.  It would be interesting to hear them more or less contemporaneously with my other show favorite--Charney Audio full range systems (higher efficiency than the Songers so even more low-powered SET friendly).  

I am glad I followed this, am in search of a new line-stage and the Raven looks like a good prospect. I have simple needs with only one RCA and 1 XLR input and same with outputs. I will pair it with my VAC Renaissance 70/70Signature amp and XLR into my Legacy Audio Focus XD’s. Saw the Raven design on a You tube show Video.