"Best Sound in the Show" Dave Glackin, Positive Feedback Online
"Doc B.'s room (Bottlehead/MagneQuest/Progressive Engineering/Paul Stubblebine Mastering) was in an awful lot of ways the best of the show....The Doc has got some exceptional SET designs going these days… gorgeous to see, wonderful to hear. Quite a lot of work went into his setup, it's clear." David Robinson, Positive Feedback Online
"And finally, we come to the Bottlehead room. I don't care what they said at the Digital Shoot-off, the best source at the show was (the) Ampex 350 tubed, open reel tape deck." Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
Doc gives his spiel again, and again, and again. Here you see the Bottlehead room, this year dubbed The Queen's Lounge. After three shows in this room PJ and I felt like we finally had somewhat of a handle on it's acoustics. Note the absorbent screens to catch the first reflection and the rather asymmetric listening position, which is being occupied by the guy sitting right in front of the little red cocktail lamp. What you don't see here is the additional absorbent material behind the black drape and the big 3' deep alcove on the right half of the front wall that creates the bass response asymmetry. Three hours with a B&K mic and our portable measurement system yielded this setup, and it worked quite well as long as we could keep listeners from moving the chair out of the sweet spot and into the middle of the room before the music started...maybe we'll bolt that chair down to the floor next time.
photo credit - Chuck "Air" McCalment
Here's a closer pic of the system electronics, and the rundown-
On top is the phenomenal The Turntable by Progressive Engineeering. Below that are a pair of Mu moving coil step up transformers from Bent Audio, housed in beautiful black anodized aluminum cylinders. To the right of the Mus is a Bottlehead Seduction preamp assembled on one of Harmonic Design Works' beautiful curly maple bases. The next shelf down holds a Sony universal player modified by Exemplar Audio. Below that is a prototype 6N1P parafeed output line stage with active loads and hybrid 5965/TL431shunt regulation that Doc and John Tucker have built and modified over the years. At the bottom is a prototype two way active crossover, also with active loading and shunt regulation, designed around the Bottlehead Foreplay line stage form factor. Look for a kit along these lines in 2004. The four amplifiers on the outboard racks are prototypes of the upcoming Bottlehead Paradox 2A3/300B amplifier kit. The kit can be built as a direct coupled 2A3 Parafeed amp (top amps in picture), or an RC coupled 300Bamp (bottom amps). Output transformers are MagneQuest TFA-2004 with nickel cores and matching plate chokes are a custom for Bottlehead model called the Brainiac Choke.
Photo Credit - Paul Stubblebine, Paul Stubblebine Mastering
Here's another photo of the system, showing the Bottlehead Climax monitor/subwoofer prototype setup. Cabling is all custom made in house, from high purity long crystal copper wire.
Photo Credit, John Smallman, Slant-6 Design
The Bottlehead Climax Satellite/Subwoofer prototype. The system is composed of a 97 dB paper cone midwoofer in a vented box and 103dB phenolic diaphragm slot tweeter, used in combination with an active subwoofer crossed over at about 70Hz. The tweeters were powered by the 2A3 Paradox amps and the woofers were powered by the 300B Paradox amps. The Two Way crossover had a custom crossover slope designed specifically for this speaker, at about 3200Hz. The future kit will be designed with the ability to modify the crossover points for a range of speakers.
Photo credit - Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
Here is a closer look at The Turntable. There were a lot of great turntables at VSAC 2003. This one, Mike Paschetto's latest version of The Turntable with a super trick glass filled acrylic platter, sounded the most articulate and vibrant to Doc's ear. The arm/cartridge combos demoed were a Rega RB300 with Eclectic Audio Incognito cable upgrade and an old FR-1MkIII, and a knockout combo of SME V with a Shelter 501. The Turntable was very happy on it's Neuance isolation platform, custom built for The Turntable by Ken Lyons. Ken also conceived the original IKEA "Lackrack" equipment rack concept, whose design was borrowed for this display.
Photo credit - Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
Many months before VSAC Doc initiated a dialogue with Paul Stubblebine about using some samples of Paul's mastering work for demo pieces at the show. Paul suggested that the best possible format to present the work was analog tape. A call to Doc's long time audio bud and Ampex guru, Dave Dintenfass of Full Track Productions, confirmed that we could borrow a 1/4" half track player capable of 30ips tape speed at show time. Shown here is the custom player Dave put together just for the show. Dave started with an Ampex 351 transport which he customized for 30 ips playback, and added Shafer playback electronics. The completed player is housed in a nifty green steel transport case custom built by Dave. The massive player was lovingly dubbed the Herniator Mk III by PSM's Michael "Romo" Romanowski.
Photo Credit, Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
Here Dave poses next to the Herniator in a very dark room during system dial-in before the show. The pic has been enhanced.
Photo credit, Chuck "Air" McCalment
"The bird sounds on that Respighi? Oh, they used professional bird players. Sometimes they squeeze them, sometimes they pull their tails.." Michael Romanowski of Paul Stubblebine Mastering, cues up a 1/4" two track 30 ips master on the Full Track Productions Ampex 351 while simultaneously handling the questions of curious audiophiles.
Photo credit - Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
Doc and Paul "Dr. Knobs" Stubblebine
"If I have to spend the evening with a bunch of audiophiles, I'm gonna need a drink." Paul Stubblebine, Paul Stubblebine Mastering
Photo Credit, Rod Morris, Audio Asylum
l to r - Paul "Brainiac" Joppa, Bottlehead's chief designer; Michael "Geets Romo" Romanowski, mastering engineer at Paul Stubblebine Mastering; Paul "Dr. Knobs" Stubblebine, owner and mastering engineer of Paul Stubblebine Mastering; and Doc take a breather before a Sunday night marathon listening session with Klaus Heyne of German Masterworks and Oliver Archut of TAB-Funkenwerk. Man those guys look tired. Suppose it's from all that hard work setting up the Bottlehead Room and playing demos?
Photo credit - Chuck "Air" McCalment
Well, maybe that bar in the back of the Bottlehead room had a little to do with it too...
Photo credit - Chuck McCalment
Many thanks to all of those involved in making the Bottlehead room such a success at VSAC2003. Much more VSAC2003 coverage can be found at the link below:
