TomW Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 (edited) For our August 2016 meeting, we are very pleased to have presentations by Grover Notting, Merging Technologies and Mir Creation. Frank Hinton, CEO of Grover Notting, has assembled a number of highly respected people from across the audio community. The Sydney Audio Club is very appreciative of the effort and dedication that Frank has demonstrated to the club in particular and the audiophile and pro-audio communities in general. Our 4 hour event will consist of two very educational modules: · The first module will be Achieving Optimum Linearity and the rare experience of it – presented by Frank Hinton featuring Grover Notting. · The second module will be High Sample Rate – what it is, how it is produced and experienced – presented by Johan Wadsten, the Main Educator from Merging Technologies Switzerland. Supporting Johan will be Ross A’hern. Ross has two main businesses – his record label, Mir Creation and his studio and recording service, “The Chapel of Soundâ€. Both of these presentations will feature the NADAC DAC (refer to http://nadac.merging.com/). The NADAC has been recently reviewed very favourably by many reviewers. Refer to http://nadac.merging.com/news. Grover Notting is the Australasian distributor for the NADAC.) Frank will also be bringing in 3 different monitors from their Universal Series Audio Monitors: the Code 1.5, Code 4 and Code 5. Most of our listening will be through the Code 5. Refer to http://www.classicaudiodesigns.com.au/universal_audio_monitors/index.php. Power amplifiers will be their Universal Power Plant. Refer to http://www.classicaudiodesigns.com.au/power-plant/. The front-end/source will be a Mac Mini running Roon talking through a router to the Roon-Ready NADAC. The NADAC will be provided by Frank. All gear will be setup and operated by Conan Tran, Merging Technologies technical support in Australia. Note that this event will not be held at our usual venue at Dence Park, Epping. As well, it will start at 1:00 PM rather than our normal 2:00 PM. It will run until 5:00 PM. See below for further detail. There will be music during and between the presentations. We will be presenting music in high resolution DSD 256 and PCM (192K and 352K x 24 bit). We will also have some tracks at lower resolution. There will be two breaks. The first break will be around 2:00 PM, the second around 3:30 PM. Each break will be approximately 30 minutes. Tea and coffee will be provided free by the club. Please note that we intend to keep the technical aspects of the presentations at a “layman†level. We want the presentations and music experiences to be beneficial to all attendees. We will have Q&A during and after presentations. Q&A that proves technically involved, lengthy or considered too technical may be deferred to a break, such that all attendees will benefit. We will not have our normal BYO music session. We will provide Feedback forms as we normally do, however, we will not be passing out the forms due to the anticipated audience size. Instead, you will be encouraged to complete the form which will be available at a table at the back of the room. Guests are always welcome – we are a very friendly club so you don't need to know anyone to join us for an afternoon of fine music and sound. When: Sunday August 21st, from 1:00 PM through to 5:00 PM Venue: The Johnson Hall in the Crows Nest Centre (CNC) at 2 Ernest Place, Crows Nest. The hall has good acoustics, is 180 square metres and will comfortably seat 120+ people. The CNC is in a quiet area that is very close to neighbouring cafes and shops. Trains: 12-15 minute easy walk from the St Leonards train station. Parking: All day free parking on Sunday in a large adjoining car park, entry from Holtermann Street, Crows Nest. (See map) A secondary car park is off Hume Street, entry from Albany Street (also free on Sunday). (See map) Allow for a 5-10 minute walk to the Crows Nest Centre from this car park. Presented by: Sydney Audio Club - http://www.sydneyaudioclub.org.au/ Grover Notting - http://www.classicaudiodesigns.com.au/ Merging Technologies - http://www.merging.com/ MIR Creation - http://www.mircreation.com/ Best regards, Tom Waters President Sydney Audio Club www.sydneyaudioclub.org.au tomwaters@sydneyaudioclub.org.au Edited August 17, 2016 by TomW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomW Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 (edited) Our August meeting proved to be a very informative and pleasant afternoon. The presenters were enlightening and entertaining, the Q&A was thoughtful and the venue was excellent. (Not to mention the coffee at Bean Drinking being quite exceptional.) As was expected, the music this time around took a back seat to the educational talks. But what was played sounded quite glorious ... Stile Antico, Simone Kermes and solo piano were simply beautiful. And the energetic Boris Blank aroused much attention and curiosity. Frank Hinton, CEO of Grover Notting, was of course our main presenter. As is Frank's way, he was very precise and comprehensive in explaining his approach to speaker and systems design, and how that translates into the products he designs. We were also fortunate that our club meeting coincided with local training for Merging Technology products and the Integrate show -- as a consequence we could take advantage of Johann Wadsten (main educator, Merging Technology) being in town. As it turned out, Johann isn't Swiss at all! Not that that proved to be a handicap - his knowledge of Merging Technology history and products was excellent! (And the Merging Technologies NADAC -- well it did sound excellent indeed, and certainly looked impressive.) Ross A'hern showed a small but wonderful sounding 5-channel surround sound system. You could switch between stereo and 5-channel. The difference was not at all subtle - the 5-channel was much more expansive. Afterwards, Ross gave a talk which clearly illustrated his strong belief that hi-res music is far superior to CD quality in the recording studio and the end-product. We also had many audience guests from the ABC who passed on a few of their experiences, for which we are very thankful. So all in all, it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The meeting scored an exceptional 4.9 out of 5 (taken from our feedback forms). Here are a few comments from the feedback forms: Very informative and interesting - very good presenters. Very glad I came. Very good meeting! Very informative. Excellent presenters. Great that the club could arrange an opportunity such as this. Good venue. Very educational on different fronts. The club sincerely thanks Frank, Johann and Ross for a great afternoon. Edited August 31, 2016 by TomW Fixed special characters not appearing correctly. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PKay Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Will Crows Nest be the new venue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomW Posted August 30, 2016 Author Share Posted August 30, 2016 Hi Nap250, No, it was just this 1 event. It would be great if we could hold our club meetings there all the time, but it's too expensive (even considering regular hire) for a non-profit club like us. Our meetings will be returning to Dence Park Epping again from September onwards. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masterpaul Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 Some phone camera shots from the meeting - sorry about the quality, hopefully there will be some more competent pictures soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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