Posted on July 26, 2019 by Paul

DCHFG July 2019 Meeting/Party/Overture Open House

This was a multi-part, two location, extravaganza set up by our majordomo John Gatski. This was a lot of work and he deserves a pat on the back. Our group meetings are just getting better by the month.

First was a special open house at Overture in Wilmington, Del.

Wow, what a great time we had at the Overture open house. For the members that made the trip up to Wilmington, Chris Murphy really rolled out the hospitality for us and treated everyone with a couple of special demonstrations of some pretty spectacular listening rooms. A nice lunch was spread out for us too! This was my second open house this summer. I previously wrote about the McIntosh Birthday bash last month. Overture has been going through some major renovations and plans more improvements and in the near future. Since Chris has joined Overture, they are moving to a higher level of quality listening experience for their clients. This is truly a high end audio environment.

I was attracted to this open house with the promise of hearing the Magnepan 30.7 for the first time. Even though this speaker has been out for almost two years now, I had not heard it. Magnepan does not do audio shows. They do dealer demos. I’m a big fan of dipole speakers. My system includes Maggy llla’s and Quad 57’s. Both heavily modded by me but still dipoles, meaning that the sound presentation is equally the same from both the front and the back of the speakers. These speakers do need to be quite far from the front wall. At least three feet out if not more. They have a very natural presentation.

So, this was going to be a real treat for me. I was not disappointed in the least.

The 30.7′s were set up in the smaller of the two high end rooms. Overture did not hold back on the electronics with all PASS amplification and VPI Signature TT with SoundSmith cartridge.

Equipment used included PASS XP17 Phono, PASS XP22 Preamp, and PASS X600.2 mono blocks. Yes, that’s 600 watts per side.

All interconnects and power cabling were top of the line Cardas.

This was what I like in a system sound. Yes it was polite, laid back, very west coast. Deep and wide soundstage.

The image of a solo instrument does get quite large but a full orchestra image is very real. This system did draw me in wanting to sit and really listen. Luckily I was allowed to run the system and change records at will.

I spun a nice variety of music from Cannonball Adderley’s 1958 Something Else, this classic Jazz album had Miles Davis and Art Blakey, I could listen to this all day and on this system never tire.

Stevie Ray Vaughn’s, Couldn’t Stand The Weather, sounded appropriately gritty.

Next was Stokowski’s Rhapsodies album from which I chose the Smetana’s The Moldau. You could not help but feel the flow of the Vltava River—or, in German, the Moldau—from its source in the mountains of the Bohemian Forest, through the Czech countryside.

There is a tremendous sense of space with these speakers.

It was hard to tear myself away from the Maggy’s but I did want to hear the main high-end room.

Overture set up the Magico M6 with Audio Research Reference 6 Preamp and References 160 Mono blocks.

This was the best I have ever heard Magico‘s in many years of traveling to Audio shows except the in 2010 CAF’s first show I heard the first Magico’s Birch ply monitors and I thought they were great.

Well, this presentation of the M6 was magnificent. Full dynamics without any edginess in the highs.

This was an exciting sound. Drop the Banana!!!

But, I had to go back and listen to the Magnepan 30.7 one more time.

The time flew by and all of a sudden we had the drawings. Some records and a turntable were given away and we had to say goodbye to Chris and Overture and head down to the beach for John’s party.

John and Mila put out a great Latin American spread. Great salsa’s and toppings for the beef and rice and beans. Sangria flowed. We watched some Woodstock footage on John’s HT using the KLH towers, center, sub and surrounds.