Re-imagining "Class A" Amplification

[davidavdavid]

Hello, everyone. I'm preparing for my return from a holiday in Italy following HE2024 and looking ahead to the remainder of the year, including new product announcements and another appearance at Capfest this fall with Lampizator and Von Scheikert Audio.

As final notes from Munich, Angus and I had great meetings with Hear This fellow Westminster distributors from Germany and France. The German WL distributor focuses on Wilson Benesh and the French partners Vivid and Marten, who contribute to the list of leading loudspeaker brands with which our electronics are performing exceptionally well. So what's next.....

The Home Entertainment Show 2024 June 7th-9th in Irvine, CA
Bristol Room 1 with The Audio Association

It is nice to have a show close to home this time! At The Show, we will, for the first time, display our bridged Rei amplifiers. Bridging two Reis amplifiers per side delivers a 4x increase in amplifier power rated at 400@ 8 ohms and 800@ 4 ohms. While the increased power numbers are impressive enough, the real magic is derived from Angus, who originally designed the Reis for optimal performance in bridged-mode operation. The easiest way to describe the increase in performance is, as Angus says, "Once heard, you cannot unhear it."

We will be privileged to show with loudspeakers from Evolution Acoustics for the first time. While I have yet to hear the SYSTEM THREE version of their new modular series, we expect the combination with bridged Rei amplification to be special!

Phono playback will consist of the Wave Kinetic NVS direct drive turntable fitted with the DS Audio Master 3 cartridge and Durand Tosca tonearm. Rumor has it that Ed will also fit a second tonearm to the NVS, adding a mono cartridge to show off what great mono recordings can sound like.

For those wishing to chat with me directly, I will split my time between Bristol 1 and suites 336 and 338. Colin King of Gestalt Audio and I will demonstrate various single-ended and push-pull tube amplifiers from our newest brand, Trafomatic Audio. Speakers will be from Wolf Von Langa, so it is well worth a visit for a look and listen.

I hope to see you there. Ciao from sunny Sicily!

You were away. News to me, but then I sleep under rocks when bridges and highway overpasses are too hard to find.

 

[gleeds]

I heard the bridged REI in my house in my system and Angus is right …..once you hear them you can’t unhear them. I still think they are underpriced for what they do. Truly a system changer. Looking forward to seeing you there Gary

Thank you, Steve. Showing them off with Kevin and Ed's highly capable SYSTEM THREE loudspeakers should be fun!

 

[gleeds]

Steve et al., the Evolution Acoustics System Three speaker is so new that no photos will exist before The Show on June 7. I therefore asked Ed to share whatever he had available so folks would know what's in store. A rendering of the System Three can be seen below.

 

[lscangus]

Steve et al., the Evolution Acoustics System Three speaker is so new that no photos will exist before The Show on June 7. I therefore asked Ed to share whatever he had available so folks would know what's in store. A rendering of the System Three can be seen below.

View attachment 131690

Hi All! I am back to Hong Kong finally! It was wonderful to meet all the friends, Lukas, Florian, Marc, Damon, Gary, Paul, Ivo at the show in Munich. It was fun and we really had a great time.

The System Three does look like a killer speaker and I am excited to hear the feedback from all of you after the show!

 

[LL21]

Steve et al., the Evolution Acoustics System Three speaker is so new that no photos will exist before The Show on June 7. I therefore asked Ed to share whatever he had available so folks would know what's in store. A rendering of the System Three can be seen below.

View attachment 131690

Exciting!

 

[vermaxis]

I just wanted to throw a comment in here that Gary @gleeds is an absolute pleasure to deal with. He was charitable with his time, taking the opportunity to discuss my system at length, what I was looking for and just overall sharing audio stories and advice.

If anyone is even thinking of adding the Westminster Reis to their setup, please take the time to talk with Gary!

 

[SeagoatLeo]

I posted this on another forum with different members than on this forum. I bought a pair of Westminster Labs REI amps which power Von Schweikert VR9 SE Mk2 (upgraded). They are ample power. They replace 50 years of tube amplification (I'm 68). No worries about impedance matching, output tubes wearing out (sometimes taking the voltage regulation), heat, etc. They just sound like the upstream source and ancillary equipment. Neutral. Small. Powerful. Affordable. The first time I've tried and owned a solid state amp (now permanently). As with the speakers, my last purchase in those two categories (sorry manufacturers).

My Poseidon is being broken in at THE SHOW this weekend. Thanks to Gary, I will have a $1+ million sound or close to it for 10th the price. My wife, the only time she ever got emotional over a system, was after hearing the VS Ultra 11s in such a system in 2017. Here I am with such a system to play my 16,100 CDs (less culling) along with my 31,000+ LPs (less culling), etc. I already listen nightly from 12 to 2 am. THE SHOW was the best sounding one since 2017 with a good mix of LPs and actually excellent streamed files together with a few CDs. The music was better; hence, I enjoyed it more.

 

[gleeds]

I’ll definitely be stopping by all your rooms, probably multiple times! Looking forward to it for sure.Wwarren, great seeing you at the show as always

 

[gleeds]

I’ll definitely be stopping by all your rooms, probably multiple times! Looking forward to it for sure.Wwarren, great seeing you at the show as always

 

[gleeds]

Warren, it was great seeing you at The Show last week. Steve, Ron, and his posse, Matt K., aka mxk117, were there. My close colleagues, Damon V, Colin King, Ed Sudario, Dan Meinwald, Steven Norbert of Prana Fidelity, Bruce Ball and Julian Marguels, Ken Songer, and many others, were there. The show felt less well-attended than last year, but the sound was definitely up a notch, with some terrific rooms. Overall, this allowed visitors to linger, ask questions, and have a great listening experience.

We had a blast showing WestminsterLab electronics with Evolution Acoustics and their latest System Three loudspeakers. The sound from ATR Services' brilliant Ampex R2R machine was perhaps the most impressive music playback I have experienced! While there were at least three other R2R decks at the show, none compared with the ATR. The machine is roughly $30k with built-in electronics and $60k, as presented with their external pre-amp stage!

Mike L., I'm jealous you have one, and I don't!

We finally showed with bridged Rei amplifiers (800 watts into 4 ohms) with the Quest preamplifier, V2, and the new Monologue phono stage. Ed Suadario brought his one and only Jonathan Tinn Memorial NVS direct drive turntable in black, honoring our dear departed friend JT. Besides sounding incredible with Joel Durands Tosca tonearm and a DS Audio
DS-3 Master cartridge, the presentation was a fitting tribute to Jonathan and Kevin's next-gen Evolutions speakers.

Von Schweikert was killing it in one of the other big suites with the incredible Ultra 55 speakers and dual 12" Shockwave subwoofers controlling the room modes and producing the great imaging and powerful, tight clean bass VSA loudspeakers are known for. Lastly, in one of the smaller suites on floor three, we showed our new Trafomatic Audio 300B SE integrated amplifier with the magical Wolf Von Langa "Son" field coil hybrids.

 

[Pokey77]

Warren, it was great seeing you at The Show last week. Steve, Ron, and his posse, Matt K., aka mxk117, were there. My close colleagues, Damon V, Colin King, Ed Sudario, Dan Meinwald, Steven Norbert of Prana Fidelity, Bruce Ball and Julian Marguels, Ken Songer, and many others, were there. The show felt less well-attended than last year, but the sound was definitely up a notch, with some terrific rooms. Overall, this allowed visitors to linger, ask questions, and have a great listening experience.

We had a blast showing WestminsterLab electronics with Evolution Acoustics and their latest System Three loudspeakers. The sound from ATR Services' brilliant Ampex R2R machine was perhaps the most impressive music playback I have experienced! While there were at least three other R2R decks at the show, none compared with the ATR. The machine is roughly $30k with built-in electronics and $60k, as presented with their external pre-amp stage!

Mike L., I'm jealous you have one, and I don't!

We finally showed with bridged Rei amplifiers (800 watts into 4 ohms) with the Quest preamplifier, V2, and the new Monologue phono stage. Ed Suadario brought his one and only Jonathan Tinn Memorial NVS direct drive turntable in black, honoring our dear departed friend JT. Besides sounding incredible with Joel Durands Tosca tonearm and a DS Audio
DS-3 Master cartridge, the presentation was a fitting tribute to Jonathan and Kevin's next-gen Evolutions speakers.

Von Schweikert was killing it in one of the other big suites with the incredible Ultra 55 speakers and dual 12" Shockwave subwoofers controlling the room modes and producing the great imaging and powerful, tight clean bass VSA loudspeakers are known for. Lastly, in one of the smaller suites on floor three, we showed our new Trafomatic Audio 300B SE integrated amplifier with the magical Wolf Von Langa "Son" field coil hybrids.

Gary,
Great stopping to talk with you as well. I also noticed that the show seemed to be less well attended. I also noticed that there seemed to be fewer good-sounding rooms. Just a feeling on my part.

Of the rooms you mentioned Gary, I found two rooms that I really liked, for one reason or another. Here in no particular order are the rooms that moved me.

The Hear This/Gestalt room with Trafomatic Audio 300B SE integrated amplifier with Wolf Von Langa "Son" field coil hybrids. On Saturday the ARS Machanae turntable was serving up some very beautiful music. Always a pleasure to hang with Colin and his great picks in eclectic music.

The Audio Association - Ed Sudario - The Evolution Acoustics System 3 with WestminsterLab amps/pre/phono was big and bold. Great sound.

(I edited my post to stay on topic)

 

[seatrope]

Wanted to give a big thanks and shoutout to @gleeds and @LampiNA for my new Westminsterlabs Quest V2. I have been running my Lampizator Horizon direct into my REI monoblocks, but finally could not resist the call of the Quest V2.

I'm now the proud owner of a shiny Quest V2. I have a odd setup where my source (Horizon) is about 30 ft from my amps. The plan is to place the Quest next to the REIs and have the Horizon run at full output level 63 through the long 30ft XLRs to the Quest, with very short XLRs from Quest to REIs.

My Horizon is in Poland for XDMI retrofitting, so my system is down right now. I am in the process of running another dedicated circuit for the Quest (each REI has its own circuit from a dedicated 100A subpanel).

The Quest V2 looks gorgeous as does everything designed by @lscangus - his architectural background really shines through!

More comments on sound once my Horizon gets back.

Again, muchos gracias to Gary and Fred for your exemplary service and dedication!

 

[gleeds]

Wanted to give a big thanks and shoutout to @gleeds and @LampiNA for my new Westminsterlabs Quest V2. I have been running my Lampizator Horizon direct into my REI monoblocks, but finally could not resist the call of the Quest V2.

I'm now the proud owner of a shiny Quest V2. I have a odd setup where my source (Horizon) is about 30 ft from my amps. The plan is to place the Quest next to the REIs and have the Horizon run at full output level 63 through the long 30ft XLRs to the Quest, with very short XLRs from Quest to REIs.

My Horizon is in Poland for XDMI retrofitting, so my system is down right now. I am in the process of running another dedicated circuit for the Quest (each REI has its own circuit from a dedicated 100A subpanel).

The Quest V2 looks gorgeous as does everything designed by @lscangus - his architectural background really shines through!

More comments on sound once my Horizon gets back.

Again, muchos gracias to Gary and Fred for your exemplary service and dedication!

Our sincere pleasure Yeang! I'm looking forward to seeing how the new setup works out!