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Great Plains Audio Fest, Tulsa, OK: April – May, 2005

Reviewer: Akhilesh Bajaj                                                  BACK TO HOME

This was my first Audio Fest, ever. First, a big thank you to Wayne Parham, of Pi Speakers for organizing this, and making it so easy going and successful. The

biggest difference between this & other high-end audio shows is the presence of DIY and small scale audio manufacturers. The 2 main benefits I derived

were: a) I got to meet a whole lot of nice people and learnt a lot, and b) I got to listen to a whole lot of stuff I had only heard about. Another great feature

was that a lot of equipment was swapped around between rooms.

The “official” write-up on this is at: http://audioroundtable.com/General/messages/1666.html

authored by Wayne Parham.

What follows are my opinions of all the items I heard. I will describe each room I attended, to the best of my recollection, so as to give the reader a flavor

 for the different participants, and maybe get you to come next year! If I miss anyone out, please let me know! No slight to anyone is intended.

Summa Room:

This room featured the Summa Cum Laude speaker system designed by GedLee (Earl Geddes & his wife, both PhDs have formed a company). The hosts

 were Duke & Lori LeJeune & Dr. Earl Geddes.

In general, standard components were used in the room, though occasionally some tube amps were played from other rooms. The main design goal of this

 speaker is that it is relatively flat in frequency response both on and extremely off-axis. The result is that you get a stable image, and also can listen to it

 from another room and hear pretty much the same frequency dispersion. B&C drivers were used: one 15 inch woofer and a 1” compression in a horn, with a

 foam plug. The crossover was approximately at 1500 Hz. Efficiency is around 98 db.

To me, the speakers sounded very capable and professional. Since I prefer a slightly rolled off response on the top, the speakers sounded a little bright to me

 with much of the material. But that is just my personal preference. This was one of the few items at the meet with measurements behind it. It is clear that a

 lot of engineering & thought has gone into this design.

Suggestions: I would love to hear this speaker with the following tweaks: 1. The ability to roll of the top end slightly (maybe GedLee can put a little switch

 and tweak the crossover to give that option?), b) a three way setup where 200 Hz to about 3000 HZ is also handled by a cone driver. I am not sure though if

 they can achieve the off axis plots with a 3-way. Overall, this speaker represents a solid engineering achievement, and with a few tweaks could be a

 phenomenal performer. It was priced at $2399 a speaker, which, given the construction & quality of drivers, seemed reasonable. The cabinets were fibre

 glass, and dead.

Earl is a scientist, and as such he holds views different from many of the other participants at the convention. One of my friends who is into hi-fi, hi-end

 components called the GPAF a “cultist” convention, half-jokingly. I think he is right. But it’s fun! It’s hard for a scientist to not argue with all the various

 views, theories and legends that abound at a convention like this, and kudos to Earl for being one of the manufacturers there who went by the measurements.

 Duke & his wife are very mellow, and the funky smoke lamps were a big hit. My three year old son Aadesh, is also a music lover, and he enjoyed the

 candies in the Summa room on Sunday morning!

 From left, we see: Earl, Summa & Duke

Element Cable Room:

Anthony & Chris are from Dallas. They offer low cost cable, that is well crafted. Their cables looked good (power, ICs and Speaker) and well made. They

were also mainly $100 or less. A bunch of quicksilver components were playing, along with a pair of Quad monitors. These monitors are sourced from

China by Quad Electrostatics from England. They sounded pretty good, with amazing bass. Their eff is around 85 db, so power is a must. But they offered

 very good sound, excellent imaging, and I was very impressed.

Both Anthony & Chris were very nice and easy-going. Cool to hang with.

 From left, we see: Chris & Anthony

 Quad Monitors, these are the 12's.

Iconic Room:

Iconic speakers have taken over the machinery of Altec, in Oklahoma city, and have started manufacturing good, solid looking drivers. Thank God, we can

 now get NEW drivers that are similar to the old altec drivers. Todd White was the rep and is based in Tulsa, OK. It was clear that a solid engineering team

 is being assembled at Iconic, and I will be keeping an eye out.

A large speaker was being played, with a large woofer and a horn, coaxed into the woofer. Crossover was at around 1500 Hz, I think.

The overall efficiency was around 99 db. The sound was very impressive. It was more professional, large auditorium type sound than the delicate small

 cone driver sound. I think the cost was around $1500 a pair, which was very reasonable.

There were also a bunch of great looking compression drivers on display, as well as solid looking woofers. I can see some real nice two and three way

 systems coming out of this organization, once they start manufacturing. Also a great place to design and build your own tri-amped system!

Todd was very professional and easy-going, very courteous and very easy to talk to. A real nice guy! It was a pleasure hanging out in that room.

 From left, we see: Iconic Speaker with Todd

 The new Altec type drivers from Iconic.

Zephyr Audio & Audio Crafters Guild:

Norman Tracy is the system designer of Audio Crafter Guild in Tulsa. He had on display a one Z speaker which is basically a fostex fe103 in a BR box! No

 crossover. The sound was very impressive. No bass, but great imaging, and great mids & highs. Would make excellent satellite speakers if actively matched

with a sub. He also had a proto-type two way speakers with a fostex w207 (woofer) and a tweeter. That sounded better, primarily because of the better

frequency response, but lacked the straight-through clarity of the 103. I believe the ONEZ speaker retailed for $400 the pair.

Leo McIntire of Zephyr Audio, in Tulsa, was showing his $4000 tonearm, the Zephyr I Air Bearing Linear Tracking Tone Arm. This was one of the really

 high-end audio items of the show that is Stereophile level. I don’t listen to vinyl, but on their REGA turntable, it sounded pretty good!On this high-end setup, I

 did notice that vinyl sounded different from CDs, I am not sure I can articulate how, or even if it was better, but it sounded a little bit different. Or it may

 just be psychological on my part.

Norman is a hard-core electrical engineer, who has built his own DAC, and we had fun talking about my Meitner Bidat. Leo is an older gentleman who

 looks like he’s seen a few shows, and was very genial and professional. Both clearly loved just hanging out & listening to music!

 From left, we see: Prototype 2-way, OneZ, Norman Tracy of Audio Crafters Guild

 Zephyr Tonearm with Air Bearing.

Brines Acoustics:

This was one of my favorite rooms. Bob Brines is a courteous, well groomed gentleman from Arkansas. He had the FT1600 Mark II (A larger transmission

line box with a FE 167 fostex driver), and FB 16 (a smaller BR box with the same driver) a Lowther DX2: the LT 2000 in a transmission line box, and a

sub: Sp-10. His sources were pretty much a Panasonic discman (a portable CD player) and either a sonic impact chip amp or one of the many tube amps

floating around. Most often, he used Wayne Parham’s Stoetkit Junior, from Heart Audio.

Bob deserves a lot of credit for taking Martin King’s theory on single driver design, and creating a well packaged commercial solution, that offers solid

 value. If you are not a DIY, I would strongly recommend one of his products. The use of the contouring circuits as espoused by Martin really does take away

 some peakiness in the Fostexes & Lowther and adds some bottom. Bob’s wood workmanship is excellent. All his parts are good quality, and he is a very

 neatness-oriented guy. All his solders looked good, and everything was just neatly put together. He even dressed neatly, unlike the standard jean-sneakers

 crowd of which I was part.

The fostexes sounded good. The Lowther was significantly better. I can see myself building a project with Lowthers as the central piece in the future. They

 are super clear, and efficient. They have peakiness which needs to be tamed. Bob was using some cotton behind the whizzer, as well as a contouring circuit.

His LT2000 sounded great, and was very popular at the show. He also had a tweeter, and IMHO, the tweeter is needed as a super tweeter for all these

 drivers. It added significant air to the speakers. The LT2000 sells for $1475, which I thought was solid value.

His SP-10 bass consists of a 10 inch peerless driver with a Parts express plate amp. Bass was quite good on this sub. It sells for $575.

When the sub, one of his full ranges and the tweeters were put together, even with very rudimentary attempts at level matching by ear, the sound was very

 pleasant. The SP-10, with the Lowther Lt-2000 and a tweeter crossed suitably is a $2100 setup that would be hard to beat at the price.

Bob is a very easy-going guy, and I enjoyed talking single driver jive with him!

 From left, we see: Lowther Lt-2000, Fostex FT1600MkII, Fostex FB16, Bob Brines.

Abraxas Audio:

Jef & Deborah Larson drove a long distance to get here. Jeff is an intense but pleasant man, and his wife Deborah is a very warm lady. She noticed my 3 year old: Aadesh, (the only below 18 participant at the show) had candy on his face at the Summa room (GedLee & Duke: see above), and just went and got

him a tissue without even asking me. Very nice lady!

Jef makes tube amps. He loves to try new circuits. His workmanship is very good. The cabinets are not super fancy, but very professionally done. The

 quality of his layout & soldering is excellent. He obsesses over each amp he builds. He had on display a 2a3 amp he had built for Jim Denton (not finished

 yet), that cost $700. That’s a pretty good deal for a custom built SET amp using 2a3 tubes! He also had on display a funky 6bx7 SET amp, that made the

 rounds in many rooms, and sounded great on all set-ups. This amp had an output tranny with a primary Imp of 20KOhms! Jef was selling it for $250, and I

 was sorely tempted, but desisted. I need another tube amp like I need a hole in the head.

Abraxas offers excellent value. I plan on contacting Jef for a future amp project. In fact, a tube amp from Jef & a speaker system from Brines Acoustics

 can get you a sweet sounding $2500 setup!

In the Abraxas room, Jim Denton, local Tulsa resident, graciously lent Jef his Fostex 168 speakers in a voigt pipe as well as his Rotel CD player.

 From left, we see: Spud Pentode amp (sold at meet for $150), 6bx7Se (I nearly bought it) and Jef Larson.

The Houston Audio Club Room:

Fred & Linda Thompson drove up from Houston with Fred’s Line arrays. These had enormous sound stage, like all line arrays, and really need a big room to

 shine. Very impressive. So much speaker for so little money. I have heard Bill Wassilak’s Line arrays as well, and here’s my take on this type of speaker:

 Huge soundstage. Need at least 12 feet away for decent imaging. High efficiency. Need EQ to get the tone balance right, but can sound awesome after that’s

 done. Very cheap parts list, with corresponding high amounts of sweat equity required to build.

Fred also had a Scott Nixon Tube Dac, Non OS. This was the first time I ever heard a Non OS dac, and it sounded great! None of the harshness in the highs

 that some people talk about…at least I could not hear any. Another benefit of the audio fest: you get to hear all sorts of stuff you’ve only read about. The

 guys from Element cables had graciously lent cables to a bunch of rooms, like Fred’s room.

Fred & Linda are very polite and nice people. Very happy to be at these kind of events and to share their ideas.

 From left, we see: Fred Thompson & his home built line array.

The Locus Room:

Locus makes high end accessories, mainly for high end vinyl setups. They were playing a SOTA turntable, with very nice components from Eastern Electric,

a Korean based manufacturer of high end audio. Good sound!

Since I don’t listen to a lot of vinyl, I can’t comment more on their products, except they are high-end. Lee & Brian also had a bunch of cryo cables there

that sounded good. They used an Eminent technology speaker, which sells for under $1000 and is push-pull planar-dynamic with a cone bottom: The LFT-16.

I was very impressed by its sound. It needs power, but sounded super clean!

 From left, we see: Lee with the LFT 16 Element drivers speaker. Beautiful for under a grand! Run by their cables!

Great Plains Audio Club Room:

Mark Margiotta had got a room and had excellent snacks! My son ate a lot of them!

Mark put in his new Audio Note setup, with a Meridian CD player. It’s the $13,000 AN 300b SET amp, and the 2-way AN speakers that sell for around

 $4000. Mark has recently moved from an electrostatic speaker setup, with a genesis sub, and a large wattage push pull tube amp, to the AN setup. His was

 the most musical sounding system of the meet. The SET magic really came through. I loved the fact that the AN speakers thumbed their nose at stuff like

 baffle dispersion or cabinet deadness. They were boxy cabinets, two-ways, with cabinets made the old fashioned British way: the cabinet adds tone to the

 speaker.

The main driver is an 8 inch FOAM surround driver with paper cone…paper coated with some kind of glass wool. The tweeter is a dome.

These speakers produced awesome bass! The X max was huge, but distortion was low & natural, because of the foam surrounds. Overall, they shone in

 the midrange and highs, and had very good bass.

The 300b amps were absolutely beautiful. They had WE 300b tubes on them. They weighed about a 100 pounds a monoblock, and what a great way to hear

my first 300B amp!  I told Mark that my son Aadesh was very picky about tone and natural sounding reproduction, and the fact that he had no problem

listening to Mark’s system was a great compliment!

 From left, we see: Mark Margiotta with his AN speaker and AN 300B SET amp.

Mark's AN 300B SET Monoblock. What a beauty!

Pi Speakers Room:

Wayne & Alona Parham had reserved a large room. Wayne had two setups going: one was his new three way setup with, with a mid & high horn, and a horn

 loaded bass reflex. This sounded great from 40 Hz on, very smooth and easily able to handle complex musical arrangements. His other speaker setup was a

 set of two ways, which he also played in my house earlier at the most recent GPAC meet. Both setups sounded very nice! I have to say that the 3-way horn

 design of Wayne’s is a great idea, and works really well. Wayne was also kind of the host of the show, and was really busy, with other Tulsa GPAC

 members helping around.

Components used included Sony CD players/changers, and amps from Selectronics (MOSFET), Acoustics Tropics and FS audio.

 Pi Speakers three way horn loaded speaker! Highly recommended.

Other Folk at the Meet:

Dean & Damon came over from Arkansas. They are obviously audio enthusiasts (father & son?) and we had fun talking about tuners. Jim Rivers, the man

 who co-created fmtunerinfo.com, that started the analog tuner comeback and drove their prices sky-high on ebay was also there. Jim is a very kind man, who

 obviously liked to just hang & enjoy the music. He knows a heck of a lot about tuners (obviously!) but is very low key. I told him about the Kenwood kt

-7500 I picked up stock on ebay, and how great it was, just stock. That’s another project I need to get done: get that tuner modded! It was an honor to meet

 Jim. His bio & the history of how fmtunerinfo.com was created is at: http://audioroundtable.com/General/messages/1713.html

  From left, we see: Deborah Larson, Jim Rivers, Dean & Damon.

Bill Wassilak, Jim Denton & I just hung out. Forrest Merrill & Mark Fitzgerald from Tulsa also showed up for a couple hours and then left.

Lessons learned for next year: The organizer should have a cell phone! (Wayne hear that?)

Times should be set up & advertised, so that people driving up know when the show will be on!

Overall, this was a great success. A true Woodstock style get together of DIYers, small manufacturers, and some high end people, all coming together to

 just hang, with no posturing or posing. Great job, Wayne!

review, as a whole. This review is part of an experiment in knowledge dissemination using information of controlled quality. The contents of this

review reflect only the subjective listening experience of the reviewer. Neither the reviewer nor anybody affiliated with the reviewer, including his

employer, is responsible in any way for consequences of utilizing the contents of this review.