DCHFG Member Paul Elliott provides the text and photos for this month’s meeting.

Audiophilism [sic] (not a real word but it should be) is a lonely hobby. Think about it. One spends hours working on their kit, trying out a new this or that. Maybe you received a new LP or digital download, marveling about the bass or the glorious highs or the blooming midrange. But there you are in a room full of boxes with knobs and wires – alone.  At some point, you want to share or show off this stuff. This is where the Audio Club comes in.  A place to discuss what is new or important to you or your system. A place to meet others in the same boat that you are in. Floating along in a sea of bits and bytes, distortions and resonances, tubes and cartridges. Now you can find many others with the same doubts and concerns that you have whether to spend money on a widget or not that will take your system to the stratosphere and beyond. 

This is the great thing about Audio Clubs. They bring like minded people out of their dedicated sound rooms and into a room full of life.

It is always a great pleasure meeting at Dave’s house, a lovely place in a beautiful setting. We had quite a crowd on a rainy Saturday, maybe forty members all looking forward to an afternoon of comradeship, good food and drink, and listening to the new Bryston B135 V3 Integrated Amp/DAC.

So, here we are in Dave’s beautiful home listening to the B135 V3 with a pair of NHT Classic 4. The Byrston certainly had a lot of punch, speed and a high end that is (for me) the Bryston house sound, which is not my cup of single malt.

Dave’s journey is an interesting one. He at one point joined the DIY club and started a thread about what he was building and saying with confidence that he felt he was going in the right direction. Dave invited the DIYer’s over for a listen and to put it mildly our comments were not very subtle with what we heard. Every time I have heard Dave’s system in subsequent visits, I kept hearing vast improvements. Each time I said to myself, it cannot get better but it does. I feel his main system, in the basement, is one of the best I have heard – anywhere. Drop the scotch.

So, I hope all our members of the DC Hi-Fi Group are taking advantage of the combined knowledge available. As they move along their journey to optimizing their system, they can then sit back and enjoy the music.