Tres Amigos Visit The Pacific Northwest For A Weekend Of Listening Bliss
- Thread starter Steve Williams
- Start date
Could not agree more. And if you lose contact for a period of time and you get together for a visit its like it was yesterday.
Never felt more comfortable with other people than in this insane asylum, I mean hobby of ours.
Auto racing is another close family. We had a part break on our car and did not have a replacement part with us and the competition gave us the part. We beat their ass and they came over and congratulated us, were happy for us and partied with us.
I know I am new here but at some point look forward to being invited to hear some of your kit at some point.
I live in Southern California and have family in Seattle so I spend time in the summer there.
I have met Amir, and wouldn't you know it, on a day when he was cooking!
If you have not heard his theater room, its worth the visit, very well done.
So enjoyable to be "In the groove" with others with similar thoughts and views.
Mike
Mike
where in SoCal are you as I am in South Orange County
Day 2- Visit To Ki Choi
we arrived at Ki's home at 2:00 and Mike Lavigne was nice enough to join us there as well.
Those of us who know Ki understand the mind behind the man. Ki has become WBF's resident expert in all things reel to reel. In fact when I asked Ki how many R2R's he possesses he smiled and declined to answer the question as he said they were all out in his 3rd garage at which point Mike smiled and said that Ki has at least "one of everything"
Ki essentially has 2 listening rooms with one on the main story of the house in which he had a pair of Maggie 20.7's driven by a simple but highly articulate Crown amp and a German preamp which Ki had basically stripped down and completely modified and redid. It was sitting in a Tupperware box completely open as we listened. The cables were all completely constructed by Ki as he made no bones about the faith he places in his cables as compared to any which are commercially available. We played CD's through a vintage Denon CD player. It was remarkably good. It was readily apparent that not only is Ki brilliant in all things electronic but he has such an inquisitive mind that he seems to always be tinkering with vintage gear in his system and there seemed to be no shortage of electronics that he was quick to show us. The Maggies BTW sounded wonderful. Ki also had a running Nagra 4 which was beautiful to behold
We then adjourned to his dedicated listening room upstairs which housed a pair of MBL 101E Mkll speakers powered by a pair of MBL stereo 900 amps which were biwired to the speakers. He had a Forsell Air Tight Supreme TT sitting on a Herzan 140 Stable table. On one side of the room was a Studer A80 and on the other side of the room a Studer A 820. Sound was taken off the tape heads and routed through a Doshi Tape head preamp (which BTW so also did Bruce have not only a Doshi tape head preamp but also a Doshi phono stage). The music was wonderful as we listened to only tape. Beside the A80 R2R wa a huge Tupper ware box filled with countless 1/4" Studer tape head blocks that Ki uses to prcisely match the tape head for a particular tape. Ki also has 3 operational Nagra-4 R2R's sitting at the back of his room.
I have always found it a treat to listen to an MBL system and this was no exception. The tapes Ki played were wonderful. We all left with a smile on our face for such a listening experience. As we were leaving we noticed a newly delivered crate sitting in front of his garage which was clearly labelled "Wave Kinetics". Ki smiled and said it is his new TT which has yet to be set up. We then followed Mike Lavigne back to his house for the final stop of the day
Where's Ki?
Ya those are 9008's driving the MBL's - I had a pair - so did my friend (member Husk who posted #39) I also had them paired up with the 9011 flagship mono amps which is a step up but once I heard them being driven by the VAC 450 Statement mono blocks, game changer - bye bye to the 9011's
Husk also has a MBL's & Vac 450 combo also but has StillPoint Ultra 5's under his like I did - looking at Ki's set-up this would be a substantial upgrade sonically speaking from just sitting on the carpet - just my recommendations.
Hope this thread can serve as a model for some great future threads. There probably are other cities where other audiophiles could do a similar thread. How about Ny, Toronto, Dallas, Chicago to name a few. Hard to top the Tres Amigos thread however. You do feel like you were along for the trip.
earlier i had thanked Steve for his words about his visit to my room. i'd also like to thank Russ and Marty for their generous and thoughtful comments about their visit. their eloquence and insights only further adds to the value of the whole experience for all involved. i am humbled by the picture they both painted and also again processed it as something apart from my own view of things. another 'eek!' is likely needed. but also a smile.
these three guys did our hobby a service sharing their experiences and their views of the people behind the names and systems and posts. the high end audio community is what we all make of it.
and it was lots of fun. i enjoyed their visit, and the music we shared, at least as much as they did.
many thanks.
but also a smile.these three guys did our hobby a service sharing their experiences and their views of the people behind the names and systems and posts. the high end audio community is what we all make of it.
and it was lots of fun. i enjoyed their visit, and the music we shared, at least as much as they did.
many thanks.
Great thread i read it about halfway now , stereo reproduction put to perfection albeit via different perceptions
There are too many threads pertaining to Mike Lavigne’s system to know exactly where to post this, so I’ll post it here as the next installment called:
ONE AMIGO RETURNS TO SEATTLE TO HEAR MIKE LAVIGNE’S SYSTEM.
For those of you that might want to get caught up on some of Mike’s trials and tribulations, you may want to refer to these before further reading:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...FC-(R)-outlets-this-morning&highlight=lavigne
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ree-and-4-inches-the-final-1&highlight=amigos
The past few days found me in beautiful Seattle attending a scientific meeting, but I thought I might make even better use of my time by asking Mike if I could stop by for listen. For those of you who do not know Mike, he is not just an enthusiastic audiophile but an unbelievable host who welcomes the opportunity for serious audiophiles to listen to a system that he has masterfully assembled, and which he uses to great effect in the service of being a great ambassador for high end audio.
Before I get started I want to emphasize that the traveling audiophile road show (which, as near as I can tell, has provided Ked with enough frequent flyer miles in the past few years to earn free passage around the world) is one of the great privileges of our hobby by affording like-minded hobbyists the ability to learn and share both music, information (and even techno-babble) among us. OK, enough with the advertisement to encourage more of these trips among WBF readers. On to the adventure.
I have been fortunate to hear Mike’s system 3 times now. What impresses me the most is not the sound Mike manages to coax from his system, which is always superb, but the efforts he has made over the years constantly making incremental improvements that most of us mere mortals simply might never entertain because they are tedious and hard. I’d also suggest that most of us probably would not think that making time-consuming small changes frankly would be worth the effort. But not Mike.
I last visited Mike a bit over a year ago, and while his sound was enviable as usual, I actually may have had some nits to pick which I kept quietly and politely to myself. And in fact, Mike posted a few weeks after our visit, that he too had some nits that he thought could be easily addressed by moving his listening chair up about 4” Is it any wonder that I was looking forward to a re-visit? Not surprisingly, when I visited Mike’s familiar liar last night, it mostly looked the same. But Mike proceeded to point out a litany of small things (some not so small like his new DartZeel pre-amplifier) that included some changes in gear as well as room acoustics. Some of these changes looked deceptively simple, like replacing some fabric segments in his ceiling and wall, but if you know Mike, you can bet they were time consuming and done after careful trial and error evaluations.
I don’t really need not go into all of the changes he described (how much time do you have anyway?), but I will go into some detail about what I heard. To cut to the chase, the sound was simply exquisite and as far as I was concerned, the nits I thought I heard last time were gone. We played vinyl of course, but a fair amount of digital as well using the venerable Lampizator DSD DAC. We basically ran out of time which is why I didn't hear tape on this visit, but that was of little consequence. I know what tape offers and while it wasn't on the menu this time there's always a good reason now for a return visit! Besides, I was having a pretty damn good time listening to vinyl to even think about what I might have heard with tape. I think the phrase Mike used as it applied to the vinyl experience was both apt and poignant. He called the system a “space machine” and indeed it is. The view of the soundstage was a modestly forward one, say row F-H of a good hall, but left no uncertainty about image localization. Let’s put it this way, if the second violinist farted, you knew it was the second violinist and not the first violinist. Am I making my point?
More importantly, for all intent and purposes, musical enjoyment reached the heights of what I think home reproduction is capable of achieving in so many significant areas; (i.e. relatively flat frequency response, good dynamics (micro and micro), low distortion, timbral accuracy, imaging etc.). The net result was simply a very joyful experience listening to music. His system was truly impressive in the ability to suspend belief that what you are hearing was coming from a machine hooked up to a bunch of powered electronics. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Mike isn’t particularly motivated to change anything because he says he has reached a state of satisfaction. I can certainly understand this since there is great truth in the adage “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. But I wouldn’t be surprised if my next visit there was met with yet something new simply because Mike has been relentless in his pursuit of the finest home music reproduction possible and my sense is that this just isn’t going to change. You can call is crazy, or you can call it a genetic defect, or use any other modifier you wish. But not only do I understand it (it takes one to know one) but I respect it enormously.
It was not easy to know in advance what small token of appreciation I might bring to accompany my visit. Certainly not an LP as there are none that he would want that he doesn’t already have. A CD? C’mon folks, let’s get real. So I chose a little token* which is just my way of saying how much work- real time consuming and hard work- it takes to get to where he is with this hobby and why he is a most deserving recipient. From reading his contributions over the years it’s obvious that his tireless efforts are just something to be admired for what they have achieved, which is nothing more than a music reproduction system that first and foremost, makes him happy. That it also happens to be truly world class and in rarified company is a plus that I actually don’t think Mike cares about nearly as much. This is all the more reason I genuinely admire his impressive accomplishment.
Marty
* It was a small trophy that said "world's greatest audiophile". However in chatting with Mike by phone he is so darned modest that his preference was to keep it on his shelf, rather than make a pic public, where its intent might be misinterpreted. How can you refuse humility like that? So I took down the photo of the trophy.
ONE AMIGO RETURNS TO SEATTLE TO HEAR MIKE LAVIGNE’S SYSTEM.
For those of you that might want to get caught up on some of Mike’s trials and tribulations, you may want to refer to these before further reading:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...FC-(R)-outlets-this-morning&highlight=lavigne
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ree-and-4-inches-the-final-1&highlight=amigos
The past few days found me in beautiful Seattle attending a scientific meeting, but I thought I might make even better use of my time by asking Mike if I could stop by for listen. For those of you who do not know Mike, he is not just an enthusiastic audiophile but an unbelievable host who welcomes the opportunity for serious audiophiles to listen to a system that he has masterfully assembled, and which he uses to great effect in the service of being a great ambassador for high end audio.
Before I get started I want to emphasize that the traveling audiophile road show (which, as near as I can tell, has provided Ked with enough frequent flyer miles in the past few years to earn free passage around the world) is one of the great privileges of our hobby by affording like-minded hobbyists the ability to learn and share both music, information (and even techno-babble) among us. OK, enough with the advertisement to encourage more of these trips among WBF readers. On to the adventure.
I have been fortunate to hear Mike’s system 3 times now. What impresses me the most is not the sound Mike manages to coax from his system, which is always superb, but the efforts he has made over the years constantly making incremental improvements that most of us mere mortals simply might never entertain because they are tedious and hard. I’d also suggest that most of us probably would not think that making time-consuming small changes frankly would be worth the effort. But not Mike.
I last visited Mike a bit over a year ago, and while his sound was enviable as usual, I actually may have had some nits to pick which I kept quietly and politely to myself. And in fact, Mike posted a few weeks after our visit, that he too had some nits that he thought could be easily addressed by moving his listening chair up about 4” Is it any wonder that I was looking forward to a re-visit? Not surprisingly, when I visited Mike’s familiar liar last night, it mostly looked the same. But Mike proceeded to point out a litany of small things (some not so small like his new DartZeel pre-amplifier) that included some changes in gear as well as room acoustics. Some of these changes looked deceptively simple, like replacing some fabric segments in his ceiling and wall, but if you know Mike, you can bet they were time consuming and done after careful trial and error evaluations.
I don’t really need not go into all of the changes he described (how much time do you have anyway?), but I will go into some detail about what I heard. To cut to the chase, the sound was simply exquisite and as far as I was concerned, the nits I thought I heard last time were gone. We played vinyl of course, but a fair amount of digital as well using the venerable Lampizator DSD DAC. We basically ran out of time which is why I didn't hear tape on this visit, but that was of little consequence. I know what tape offers and while it wasn't on the menu this time there's always a good reason now for a return visit! Besides, I was having a pretty damn good time listening to vinyl to even think about what I might have heard with tape. I think the phrase Mike used as it applied to the vinyl experience was both apt and poignant. He called the system a “space machine” and indeed it is. The view of the soundstage was a modestly forward one, say row F-H of a good hall, but left no uncertainty about image localization. Let’s put it this way, if the second violinist farted, you knew it was the second violinist and not the first violinist. Am I making my point?
More importantly, for all intent and purposes, musical enjoyment reached the heights of what I think home reproduction is capable of achieving in so many significant areas; (i.e. relatively flat frequency response, good dynamics (micro and micro), low distortion, timbral accuracy, imaging etc.). The net result was simply a very joyful experience listening to music. His system was truly impressive in the ability to suspend belief that what you are hearing was coming from a machine hooked up to a bunch of powered electronics. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Mike isn’t particularly motivated to change anything because he says he has reached a state of satisfaction. I can certainly understand this since there is great truth in the adage “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. But I wouldn’t be surprised if my next visit there was met with yet something new simply because Mike has been relentless in his pursuit of the finest home music reproduction possible and my sense is that this just isn’t going to change. You can call is crazy, or you can call it a genetic defect, or use any other modifier you wish. But not only do I understand it (it takes one to know one) but I respect it enormously.
It was not easy to know in advance what small token of appreciation I might bring to accompany my visit. Certainly not an LP as there are none that he would want that he doesn’t already have. A CD? C’mon folks, let’s get real. So I chose a little token* which is just my way of saying how much work- real time consuming and hard work- it takes to get to where he is with this hobby and why he is a most deserving recipient. From reading his contributions over the years it’s obvious that his tireless efforts are just something to be admired for what they have achieved, which is nothing more than a music reproduction system that first and foremost, makes him happy. That it also happens to be truly world class and in rarified company is a plus that I actually don’t think Mike cares about nearly as much. This is all the more reason I genuinely admire his impressive accomplishment.
Marty
* It was a small trophy that said "world's greatest audiophile". However in chatting with Mike by phone he is so darned modest that his preference was to keep it on his shelf, rather than make a pic public, where its intent might be misinterpreted. How can you refuse humility like that? So I took down the photo of the trophy.
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Amir,
Thanks for your concern but Mike and have spoken and we are good. He know that while the trophy was in good fun, it was also a damn honest expression of sincerity on my part. The truth that Mike's yeoman efforts have always impressed me as extraordinary and I sincerely hope that my genuine admiration is in no way mitigated by what might easily be perceived solely as just a light-hearted fun gesture. Most audiophiles will never really get the depth and commitment that his passion translates to in terms of real work.
Marty
Thanks for your concern but Mike and have spoken and we are good. He know that while the trophy was in good fun, it was also a damn honest expression of sincerity on my part. The truth that Mike's yeoman efforts have always impressed me as extraordinary and I sincerely hope that my genuine admiration is in no way mitigated by what might easily be perceived solely as just a light-hearted fun gesture. Most audiophiles will never really get the depth and commitment that his passion translates to in terms of real work.
Marty
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Steve, Peter and Amir,
I appreciate what Marty did was with only positive intentions.....and thank everyone for their support. many times we get caught up in the dollars or shiny gear and lose sight of the effort, passion and commitment that it takes to go down these paths to our own individual audio/music bliss. Marty's intention was to honor my degree of effort and that recognition to me was priceless and cherished.
thank you Marty!
I appreciate what Marty did was with only positive intentions.....and thank everyone for their support. many times we get caught up in the dollars or shiny gear and lose sight of the effort, passion and commitment that it takes to go down these paths to our own individual audio/music bliss. Marty's intention was to honor my degree of effort and that recognition to me was priceless and cherished.
thank you Marty!
Great Read and well deserving of praise for one of the pinnacle systems in our circle--
Pardon my pedantic(?)
I'm sure he lives in his Lair--and is not a Liar
Kudos
BruceD
Ya got me Bruce!!!! Thanks for letting me know what remedial courses I should be attending in summer school! (spelling AND typing)
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Marty,
Great write up!
Glad I had a chance to see the trophy before the purge.
Did Mike demonstrate his Entreq Poseidon's galvanically isolated middle box?
Great write up!
Glad I had a chance to see the trophy before the purge.
Did Mike demonstrate his Entreq Poseidon's galvanically isolated middle box?
Great write-up and a superb trophy. Maybe some of us should compete for a trophy of the most travelled audiophile. Was watching Captain America yesterday (disappointing) but the movie moved from US to London to Vienna to Berlin etc, and for a moment I was wondering if the Avengers were audiophiles
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