Posted on September 27, 2019 by Paul

DCHFG September 2019 Meeting — LTA Demo

DC HiFi Group will be beginning its fourth year soon. This is actually quite a milestone. Most clubs like this do not survive past the first two years. We should all be proud of the support the community puts forth to keep the club vibrant and healthy. Please give John and company a big “Thank-You!!!” the next time we see them for all the effort that goes on behind the scenes to keep this part of our hobby going

On Saturday Gary Gill opened his home again for us to have our end of summer meeting. It was a beautiful day for over 45 members to get together. It was fun to meet many new members. The club has grown to over 150.

After chatting and partaking in the lunch spread, we had the usual committee reports. Gary Gill let us know about the upcoming Capital Audiofest on the first weekend in November. This year will be the largest show ever with around 80 rooms. Lots of live music and a bunch of extras. There is a call for volunteers to help out mostly with the front desk reception area all three days. Volunteers get a free three day pass. Gary is providing a room for The DC Hi-Fi Group. This year’s theme will be High End Audiophile sound on an extreme budget.

Chris Barker let us know about Amazon’s new and very affordable HD and Ultra HD music streaming service costing about half what competing services charge. He also spoke about the brand new Schiit Audio Sol turntable with a few teething issues. Finally, this month’s book of the month is Neil Young’s new book To Feel the Music: A Songwriter’s Mission to Save High-Quality Audio which documents the failed Pono product and Mr. Young’s passion for sound quality. Russ let us know about the latest Audiophile LP’s that are available and had a bunch on hand for sale.

DCHFG member Amar Rajvanshi announced his new company, Aurorus Audio (Web site is under production), and showed off his production ready and very good sounding headphones. They are scheduled to go into production soon and at a selling price of around $900 these will be a steal. I listened closely to these. First, let me freely admit I am not a head fi guy. These have to be one of the most comfortable headphones I have ever had on my head. I could easily listen for hours with these. The sound was very much to my liking. Very free flowing, rich and smooth, yet detailed and quick. There are too models — Borealis (open) and Australis (closed). I only listened to the closed back because there was just too much ambient noise to carefully listen to the open back set. But since they use the same drive I am sure I would be positive about them also. Nicholas Tolson of LTA set up the headphone demo area using the Linear Tube Audio Z10e Headphone Amp.

Before the Linear Tube Audio Demo, Tom gave a brief overview of the MidWest Audiofest Speaker Design Competition he judges each year. The designs were spectacular.

Next up we had Mark Schneider from Linear Tube Audio providing the electronics for the demonstration part of our meeting.

Linear Tube Audio is a high-fidelity audio manufacturing company on a mission to bring life back to music at an affordable price. Their amplifiers provide unparalleled accuracy and realism, putting you “in the room” of the original performance.

The heart of all LTA amplifiers is the the patented Berning output transformerless ZOTL technology. Sonically, this delivers the best of both worlds — tube tone and solid state detail. Each unit is expertly built by hand in the Takoma Park, MD.

We listened to the Integrated amp with Gary’s vintage rebuilt Quad (57) ESL speakers. Of all the many times and hours I have listened to music in Gary’s dedicated music room on the second floor this was the best and most exciting. I do have to say I am a big fan of dipole speakers so I was right at home with this system. LTA had on display the complete line of microZOTL electronics.