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Boston Bash 1999
photo by: Steven R. Rochlin enjoythemusic.com See Steve Rochlin's groovy write-up of the Boston Bash. I organized a gathering of Boston tube enthusiasts (including one from New Jersey!) at my house on Saturday December 4th, 1999. I called it "The Boston Bash—Not NY Noise." It ran for 6 hours and everyone seemed to have a great time. In attendance were: Mark Hardy, Jonathan Kranz, Patrick Kopson, Denis Najuch, Gary Kaufman, Steve Rochlin (enjoythemusic.com), Clark Johnson (Positive Feedback magazine), Ken Weller, Kevin Kennedy (Kennedy Tube Audio), Steve Fretz (Crowley Acoustics), Craig Dement-Myers, Dick Berkman, and myself, James Melhuish. Speakers were Crowley Acoustics single driver speakers using the Mitsubishi Diatone 610MA alnico full range 16 ohm driver, provided by Steve Fretz (all the way from New Jersey). Before people arrived, I set these up with my Decware Zen amp and played several tracks. My normal speakers are RA Labs mini monitors (2-way, tweeter plus 6 inch woofer—no longer in production). The first thing I noticed was much lower bass and of a high quality. In fact the bass was really impressive, especially considering the small size of the Diatone driver and the fact that it has to do full range duties! I heard an overall quality improvement in tone, harmonics, and detail. I was not too surprised, I think my speakers are only average as far as good 2-ways go. The Crowley speakers are approximately 95 dB 1W at 1m with the 16 ohm coils and they proved to be very capable with even the low power amplifiers. Other equipment included Denon DCD 2560 as digital source, Rotel RB855 turntable, Sumiko Blue Point cartridge, Lehmann Black Cube phono stage for analog source, various interconnects (DH Labs Silver Sonic, Electronic Tonalities copper, Alphacore Triode Quartz 1 silver foil) and either Alphacore silver foil speaker cables or my DIY category 5 solid core copper cables. We opened with Jonathan's Electronic Tonalities (Bottlehead) Foreplay preamp connected to his ParaSEX monoblocks. The Foreplay was stock standard, no constant current source or other upgrades. We played these for quite a while and people really seemed to like them. They had definite power and slam on the Crowley speakers. In fact we never did crank them up to full volume, that would have been pretty loud for normal listening. We played some Flamenco of Jonathan's, then some beautiful acoustic guitar stuff from Mark—"Christmas Classics for Guitar" by SF Bay Area guitarist Stevan Pasero (Sugo CD). Next up some more acoustic guitar, Luke Hurley from New Zealand playing "Ghandi's Rag". Next we dropped in Patrick's grounded grid preamp from a Rozenblit design. The change from the Foreplay was noticeable, but people were a little divided in what they heard. I personally thought the Rozenblit sounded a little more "jazzy" or alive or forward. Not better, different. The Foreplay was perhaps smoother? Others thought the Rozenblit more forward, performers "in the room", some thought it a little bright (maybe lacking some medium to low bass). Neither preamp sounded "bad". Next up was lunch, thanks to everyone who brought food and drink. Jonathan's vegetarian chili was excellent, as was Mark's pasta/pesto dish. Thanks to my wife Jennifer Shearman, we also had sandwiches and cranberry nut loaf. Pizza, cookies, other snacks and drink rounded out the lunch. 
photo by: Steven R. Rochlin enjoythemusic.com After lunch Jonathan had to go so we dropped in the Decware Zen SE 84B amp (Svetlana tubes, 6N1P driver and SV-83 pentode wired as triode outputs) using the Rozenblit grounded grid preamp. Time was running short so we didn't give this combo the time it deserved. The Zen did play very well, much louder and cleaner than I am used to on my old speakers, though not nearly as loud as the ParaSEX was capable of. The Zen did have great detail and imaging though. We were halfway through and everyone thought it was time to hook up the DIY amps. Patrick had to leave so we removed the Rozenblit preamp and hooked up an old George Wright WLA-10 preamp using 6SN7s I think. First up was Gary (Gary's website) with his homebuilt DC Darling (a Bob Danielak design—DIY plans on his site). This sounded very sweet and smooth. It's so hard to describe the qualities when all the amps are single ended tube and they all sound so great! The DC Darling is about 3/4 Watt and played loud with a little clipping into the Crowley speakers, or moderate (good listening levels) with no obvious clipping or distortion. The Denon CD player needed a little help so we hooked up Denis's MSB Link DAC (only $349) (review). The CD player seemed to smooth out nicely with this DAC. Next Gary hooked up his Angela-designed DIY 45 Triode using old globe 45s (plans on the Angela site). We connected it directly to the source because Gary had put volume pots at the input. We ran a bunch of music through this, including some great songs from The Essential Etta James. A crowd favorite was "I prefer you", a rockin' brassy tune with bass, great vocals, trumpets, and excellent rhythm. We also played some nice vinyl that Ken brought along, including a beautiful sounding 50 year old Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald record, and a UK 45 rpm Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced on which we spun "All Along the Watchtower". 
Gary Kaufman's 45 Triode amplifier photo by: Steven R. Rochlin enjoythemusic.com Kevin from Kennedy Tube Audio then installed his 45 triode amp using a regulated power supply and globe 45s (DIY plans on his site). We played "I prefer you" again and man it was sweet! We ran a bunch more songs, then moved to Kevin's commercially-available push pull 300B amp to end the day. After a little tweaking to get the Chinese 300B to fire, and a little time to warm the amp up, things were grooving. The final song for the day was on vinyl, Stevie Ray Vaughan playing Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child—yeah stomp em' up baby! Many thanks to my wife Jennifer Shearman for allowing me to put on a tube meeting and invite total strangers to our house. Thanks also for cooking the cranberry nut loaf and making sandwiches and helping me clean the house beforehand. Love you. Top
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