A workshop at Shakti’s - hORNS Universum, Bohne Audio BB-15, etc.

jackelsson

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Dec 1, 2013
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Some here at WBF might have already heard about the gatherings of fellow ’philes which Jürgen/Shakti is holding at his place a few times a year. As far as I know this started off a few years back as some sort of live meetings of members of the ’aktives-hoeren.de’ forum and grew from there to today’s all-day workshops with some 30-40 people attending on the day.

Last weekend was now again one of these lovely loony meetings, for me the fourth time over the course of the last two years to do the four hours drive to attend. And so I thought I just show a few pictures to give everybody here at WBF an impression of what it’s like there.

Shakti’s place is a beautiful, ca. 120 years old, and completely refurbished, converted inn at the outskirts of Köln (Cologne). With this having been a place to host guests in the past, there is of course still quite a bit of space to do exacty this today and Shakti knows to make the best out of it.

There is one main listening room of ca. 60sqm (650 sqft.), the former front guest room of the inn, where Shakti himself is taking care about the demonstrations. On top of that there is a former, even bigger back room which is normally the home theatre, but which on workshop days usually serves as a second event room, and which is then usually a place for dealers, distributors, or manufacturers to demo their stuff.

The workshops usually have a dedicated topic. This time it was a mixture of hearing the hORNS Universum III, a comparison of different SPUs, a short mid-price phono stage shoot out and a comparison of different LP pressings of various albums. And that was just the front room. In the back room Bohne Audio played their impressive BB-15, their second biggest speaker with a digital crossover and a ribbon going down to 800Hz. Plus Andrejs Staltmanis, the German importer for Reed demoed their newest deck, the idler driven Reed Muse 1C plus the just amazing new tangential tonearm Reed 5T.

Enough words now, here are the pictures...

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jackelsson

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Micro Seiki DDX-1500...

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Micro Seiki RX-5000 with a Dereneville DMS-5001 motor unit...

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Dereneville's newest motor unit is made to match the classic Micro Seiki record players and is said to be a considerable improvement over Micro Seiki's original units...

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Audiospecials Phonolab: a fully adjustable MM/MC phono stage with two inputs and an external power supply. Two shelving EQs for bass and treble allow for subtle adjustment of poor recordings or pressings. A very interesting phono amp...

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jackelsson

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The rear listening room...

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For me the two big surprises of the day were to be found here in the back room...
 
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jackelsson

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Firstly the quite amzing tangential tonearm Reed 5T, a rather ingenious construction: a normal gimballed arm mounted on an arm base that is being rotated on an air cushion by a linear motor, which is triggered by a laser switch as soon as the arm exceeds a certain deviation from the right angle to the groove of the LP.

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A pretty convincing idea for realizing a tangential tonearm - albeit with a somewhat hefty 15k€ price tag...

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Idler drive Reed Muse 1C...

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Andrejs Staltmanis, the German Reed distributor, DJ-ing with the Muse 1C...

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jackelsson

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And then my biggest positive surprise of the day, the Bohne Audio BB-15. The large ribbon plays down to 800 Hz before a 15" JBL bass takes over (there are also versions with 12" and 18" bass drivers).

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Instead of a passive crossover the Bohne loudspeakers use a modified Trinnov preamp which provides both frequency separation for the drivers and a room correction for the listening room.

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The two silver boxes underneath the Trinnov are two Bohne 600W stereo power amps to drive the four channels separately, although every flavour of power amp can be used instead. This makes the Bohnes an active loudspeaker system with a digital crossover and a free choice of power amplification.

This was one of the most dynamic speakers I have ever had the pleasure to listen to. I never heard a drum kit at live volume so realisticly before, that was quite impressive. This is definitely a speaker I will have a second look at after the turn of the year.

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As a final picture from Shakti's workshop please meet the loudspeaker man himself: Jörg Bohne with his BB-15.
 
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jeff1225

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Great pics and a wonderful thread. My speakers work in a similar way to the BB-15, the JBL woofers take over at 800K. I bet they sound wonderful with the full range ribbon.
 

Derainer

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Great pictures and a very informative post. :)
It must have been a great weekend and a great workshop.

Thank you for your efforts and your commitment.

best regards Rainer
 

audioquattr

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Great report with beautiful pictures, good job!
Even more turntables and tonearms than i thought overthere :)
 
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nemu

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Jun 25, 2018
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Dear Swen!

Thanks very much for these fine pictures. Watching them and reading your comments, I can imagine the great day you all had listening to music.

Best Regards
Stephan
 
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groovemaster

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What really impressed me were two things. Bone-Audio with a really good sound in combination with Trinnov in the digital room and the Audiospecials AS Phonolab with its perfect combination of professional audio engineering and puristic design.


The BLUE GIANT with AS PHONOLAB 1.0
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Groovemaster
 
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awsmone

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Apr 6, 2014
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Fantastic photos

Amazing equipment in that room

What ribbon do the Boyne use
 

jackelsson

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Dec 1, 2013
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Fantastic photos

Amazing equipment in that room

What ribbon do the Boyne use
Hi awsmone, the ribbon is an in-house development by Bohne. As far as I know it's a special aluminium. Folded length is 300 mm.
 

Cdupree

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Jan 30, 2016
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Thank you for sharing this with us, It must have been a fascinating weekend. Can anyone tell me who manufactures the big diffuser above the TechDAS in the main system? I love it !
 

Derainer

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I have seen that diffusor and some similar in the presentation room from Reinhard Thöress
in Munich at the high end.

As far as I know are they manufactured by a company in Poland.

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best regards,
Rainer
 

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