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Oswald's MillTube Tasting and Speaker Listening by Herb Jeschke 
When all had gathered we were a rounded dozen: There was Jonathan Weiss the host, offering the very spacious mill and listening room. RCA horns from movie theaters, driven at this time by Altec speakers and compression drivers, towering in the left and right corners energized by an Audio Matiere EL34 PP amp. Then came Herbert Jeschke (early, they had to take care of some wiring details left) hauling the old pair of RS 1354 Voigt pipes and a new 8foot pair of Voigt pipes with Philips 800 Ohm -12” drivers in them. He also brought a Groove Thang/27 line amp and a 300B amp with added 800 Ohm output. Then came Mark Williams and Steve. Mark had his beautifully build Paramour 2A3 monoblock amps and a Foreplay, as well as a Regal CD-player. Gary Bronner arrived with his all-important digital camera and the SUN VT-25 stereo amp. He also brought his Micromega Drive2 CD transport and a PCM63 DAC unit build by himself. Scott Scholl had a whole van full of goodies. Out came the Nor’Easter, a powerful 572-10 SET amp (known from Scott’s VALVE magazine article) with 6C45 drivers, his “Peanut” amp, a transformer phase-splitter 6C45 PP amp, a very red EL34 triode connected SE amp and a pair of large speaker cabinets with a 15” JBL woofer and a Klipsh tractrix horn in it. Nathan Lewis and friend Yoko came and brought a self build “zero-oversampling” battery operated DAC with four TDA1543 chips and a battery operated chip amp (National LM1875) Rick had flown in from Texas, interested to listen to horns in combination with SET amps.
Hans Dietze came, a retired professional from RCA speaker labs, having been instrumental for Jonathan in finding and setting up the big horn speakers. Eli Duttman came with turntable BIC 960 fitted with an AT331LP MM cartridge, RS #97-1018 chip preamp. His preamp an "early" AVA FET-Valve hybrid built into a recycled Dyna PAT5 chassis and two large power-amps, a HK Citation 2 from the 1960ties, upgraded, and a hybrid power amp that needs "burn in", an AVA FET-Valve 550HC 250 WPC into 8 Ohms. Al, a neighbor, came along to join and had a listen and a beer or two. The horns had had already their morning loosening up done driven by the “no nonsense” power of the Audio Matiere, when Herbert came anxious to hear what a 300B would do with them. It takes a moment to get used to the enlarged dimensions of the soundstage, that spreads from corner to corner of a large hall with an open window in the middle, which again is larger than double doors taking the view to the woods beyond the street. Cat Stevens did not quite give it justice, but then Handels Creation did. The very efficient horns did so well with the six watts available from the 300Bs, that Herbert did not miss much while outside unpacking the car. Unquestionably the horns ruled the day, with everyone wondering how his amp would do. I think all were really pleased, but definitely Mark Williams, with his Bottlehead 2A3 Paramours. He had not been sure if they would ever be strong enough for his living room. Well, they were strong enough and with a nice character to it for that large listening room. Gary Bronner’s SUN VT-25 with the beautiful looking monoplates was also in this league of lower power, but brought out surprising volume, bottom all there but wonderful clear mids and high frequencies. I am getting already out of the line of events with arrivals, unpacking, the marvelous spread for lunch break and listening to music. So let me proceed as memories come. Regrettably we did not follow the well found format of NYCBlast or NYNoise, but rather took it all by stride as wishes came from the group with two dozen perked up ears. We listened to it all anyway, only louder.
Scott Scholl’s Nor’Easter looked so familiar and it was very nice to see a piece of equipment turn up, that had been only part of internet experience so far. That amp grabbed the horns, took over control and kept it well. If the low end had been sounding somewhat loose with the 300B, the Nor’Ester made it play and stayed in command with ease. To me the big surprise of the day was the tiny “Peanut” amp with the 6C45 in push-pull developing 7.5 easy, musical watts. We got an hour out of that one at least. For most all the listening Mark Williams Regal CD player was used. Alone first, then with Nathans zero oversampling DAC, later we used Gary Bronner’s Micromega and his PCM63 DAC. To me all these sources were very satisfactory and tasty. Herbert Jeschke’s 27 lineamp was often used to provide volume control, which was missing on some of the power amps. When Eli Duttman had set up his Turntable and appropriately introduced the RS metal box preamp he said it demanded a tube line stage to sound good. And so it did.
We also gave the Voigt pipes a whirl. The 6 foot RS 1354 ones could not hold up in this environment were the horns had spread such lasting impression. The 8 foot Voigt pipes with the 12 inch Philips 800 Ohm drivers however took the floor with ease, powered by the 300B amp which had a small modification to be able to drive these 800 Ohm speakers as well as 8 Ohm speakers. Jonathan had a moment of wonder if he really needed that large horn set-up. These pipes displayed a large enough low end, but the real quality of the drivers comes out in the airy clarity and spaciousness of the top end. That little pink cloud was soon blown away by Eli Duttman’s HK Citation 2 commanding the horns with its 120watt capability. Jonathan liked this one best to drive his horns, I liked it too, but missed the subtleties and nuance of a SET in the tiny sounds where WATTS don’t matter so much any more. The Citation pretty much had the later part of the afternoon with some exchanges to the Nor’Easter or the 300B. The next greater change came when Scott’s vented box speakers were connected to the Citation2. That sound send me right back to the early seventies. A very different coloration in the mids and the low end, but yet very accurate and fitting to the music that might well have been mastered listening to Citations driving the studio monitors. I wish there had been more speakers of a different sort, but we thoroughly enjoyed what had come in the door. There were plenty of unique amps to play with, so many, that we might have forgotten Scott’s red amp with the triode connected EL34s. When dinner time came around I had to leave, some others had left earlier, but the fun went on until after midnight. I loved to be able to see and hear some known designs, but had my interest fired by not one but two DIY DACs, Mark's very nice finish work on his Bottlehead kits and Scott Scholl’s surprising amp designs. Thanks goes to all who came and made this an exiting experience with their skills, equipment, know-how and help. A special thanks to our host, Jonathan Weiss who offered his place, but also catered this event with an incredible abundant spread of food and drink. Report by Gary BronnerHere is the cast of characters at the recent Oswald's Mill Audio Fest Jonathan Weiss - Brown hair, red striped shirt with blue collar. Owner of Oswald's Mill. Film maker, gourmet cook, and rapidly learning audio enthusiast.
Rick - fellow from Houston who flew up for the event after reading about it on the net. Interested in single ended and horns and wanted to hear some in person. Nathan Lewis - From New Jersey. Journalist, and home brew enthusiast. After a few years in Japan, recently returned from Japan and has started building his own system from scratch. Built a non-oversampling dac (Kusunoki type) and a single chip amp, all battery powered. Uses Altec 755C at home. Scott Scholl - From central Pennsylvania. Built and brought a lot of stuff. Noreaster 572 amp as seen in Valve. Push-pull 6C45 amp. Another "red" amp of unknown heritage. Some impressive JBL/horn box speakers. Mark Williams - From Pennsylvania. Brought Bottlehead stuff - paraglow 2A3 amps and foreplay preamp. Great wood worker as demonstrated in the finish of his gear. New to electronics and anxious to find someone to trade some electronics know how in exchange for wood working.
Herb Jeschke - From Philadelphia. Know for his great rendition of the classic Voigt pipe. Brought his Voigt pipe with Radio Shack driver and also a new version with a Philips driver. Also brought a fine sounding 300B amp and a nice preamp. Al ? - A neighbor of Jonathan's who dropped in for a listen and a bite to eat. Hans ? - A friend of Herb with connections to the tube business. Seemed to know about RCA tube production first hand. Also very knowledgeable about horns. Seemed to be the one who had helped Jonathan actually find his horns. Eli Dutmann - You know Eli pretty well and he needs no introduction. Brought his AVA preamp, his Citation II amp, his BIC turntable, and a cheap but good radio shack phono stage. Was so pleased with the sound of the $25 radio shack phono stage that he gave a long speech extolling its virtues, prompting Jonathan to suggest that he belonged on QVC.
Gary Bronner (me) - Outside of audio, I work on the development of microchips, so this is a nice retro activity for me. I brought my Sun VT-25 amp, my Micromega Drive 2 transport updated with an LC low jitter clock and BNC outputs, and my homebuilt PCM63 based DAC. Here are some random impressions of the day:It was pretty interesting although a longer drive than I had planned for. Took almost 3 hours, which was fine going but a bit much returning. The mill was a great space - the listening room must have been 30ft x 50ft with very tall ceilings. The large bass horns had 2 Altec 515 drivers, the mids used Altec 288 into multicell horns and a Fane super tweeter. They filled the space and gave a great sound field and dynamic jump, just like one would expect from horns. When cranked up they gave an incredibly realistic sense of a concert hall. Bob Marley sounded wonderful. Herb Jeschke felt they lost fine detail on classical music, but overall they were very enjoyable. They did well with Bottlehead Paraglow 2A3 amps, my Sun VT-25 amp, the 6C45P push pull amp, Herb's 300B amp and an HK Citation II. Herb's preamp sounded fine, while I found the Bottlehead foreplay to sound grainy and not very musical. Comparing CD players, my Micromega Drive2 and homebuilt PCM63 based DAC sounded good and quite powerful. A non-oversampling DAC sounded very relaxed but also not nearly as powerful. The Voigt pipes just couldn't deal with the large space. They sounded like a stereo as opposed to the way the horn system recreated the real thing. Another highlight was the food. Jonathan Weiss had a pretty amazing kitchen and really likes to cook. He put out quite a spread that alone would have made the trip worthwhile. I think Jonathan is a professional film/TV director and is working on a cooking show. His love of this was evident in the great meals. All in all, a nice day. A complete set of pictures are here, though I don't know how long they will stay up. Top
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Al and Jonathan
Hans, Al, and Mark
Herb and Eli
