Great day in Audioville!

[tom_hankins]

Saturday was one of those days. Listened to music on different systems from 10:00 til 7:00.

Started out at the Zu Audio demo here ATL. Got to Here the new essence, definition and a prototype they are putting out shortly. The Defenition was a very good speaker, (they all were really) Listened to them with Pass XA30.5 and pass new preamp. Also with a 2.5 watt tube monos, and the Peachtree Nove. (also used as DAC w/laptop). Other source was an Esoteric, I think he said XA-10?? I prefered the Nova as source.

Two things that really impressed were the package deals Zu is offering. They are offereng The Essence, Peachtree Nova, and all cables (he said around $1K worth of there cables) for 3999.00. The same package was offered with there prototype which is a small floorstanter for 2500.00. These systems both really clicked together. They will be very hard to beat (new or used ) in there price ranges. My wife and I pretty much decided when the new speaker comes out we are going to put the 2500.00 system upstairs, and use both the DVD player and a laptop with it. Plus the finishes are killer on the speakers and you can pick your color or wood grain.

After this my wife and headed over to a friend of mines house to hear his new source and speakers (Esoteric X-01D2 and Wilson SashaWP)

He uses Mac C500T preamp and Mac 2301 tube monoblocks with shunyata cables.

WOW WOW WOW!

I have never been able to get into the Wilsons, but these are a different creature. Treble tamed but very detailed, bass killer, and by far the nicest midrange I have heard on the Wilsons. All in all one of the best speakers I have ever heard. He says they sound even better with the BAT gear and is going to switch over to the REX preamp and 600SE SS amps.

I wish I had the room and money for his Mac amps. They are the best bigtube amps I have heard. I've listened to them in four different systems and they put there stamp on all of them.

At the end of the day we got down to some trading. I had 70 SACDs to let go of and he had a bunch of vinyl. I ended up with 19 of the new bluenote remasters, 12 new mofi reissues, and 40 nice used records, also got the zepplin, clapton box sets. Most of the

Bluenotes and MOfis are still sealed. System is warming up now and I am on my way to listen to some music, Art Blakley here i come "Roll Call"

[tyrion]

Tom, how many people were at the event. I was thinking of contacting them to see if they could make it for the meet and get an extra room for them to display their gear. Probably too late but it can't hurt to ask. I was curious as to how many people have been showing up for their events.

That package deal for the Essence, Nova and cables is a good one. The speaker are $3,500.00 and the Nova is around $1200.00. When I heard the Druids, which were the model replaced by the Essence, I didn't like them much but I've been reading good things about the Essence.

[tom_hankins]

They were doing it in shifts. I got there by 10:00 and there were around 25-30 people in two rooms. I think they more scheduled for the later times, but not sure. Pretty sure they were trying to keep under 55 for the day or something like that due to parking (at private house) I like the Lower and upper model treble over the Essence. But nowadays I like warmer sounding speakers in general. Be even so, the package deals are very good.