June 2025 “Classic & Vintage” Meeting

[masterpaul]

Dear members and friends of Sydney Audio Club Inc.,

The next Club meeting for 2025 will be held on Sunday 13th April with the very popular Vintage Equipment meeting for active listening and static display.

 

There will be no TechTalk this Sunday.

 

The doors will be open from around 12:30pm to meet and chat with members and inspect the various items on display.
You are still welcome to bring along your vintage treasures for static display on tables around the room. 
It would be helpful to other members to add a short typed (or written) information note about the specifications and year of manufacture if known.

 

We intend to blow the dust off the turntable and valve phono preamp recently donated to the club, so bring along some vintage (cleaned!!!) LPs to spin on the platter. The new stylus will not be subjected to LPs that fail a visual inspection test.

 

All members and guests are welcome to offer music to share with us all. So bring along your favourite music to play on LP or CD. 
There will be a vintage CD player available, however we consider that USB and streaming do not yet pass the vintage test. 
All we ask is that the music and recordings be interesting. 

We will ask you to tell us a little about the artist/recording before it is played. Tracks over 6 minutes will be faded out, to give everyone a fair go. 
We will also have a club member act as Disc Jockey for this session.

 

There will be one afternoon tea break around 3.30pm. If you need to ‘stretch your legs’ just wait for a break in the music before leaving the room. 
The meeting will finish at 5:00 pm.

 

Guests are welcome – we are a very friendly club so you don’t need to know anyone to join us for an afternoon of fine music and sound.

Whether you are a novice or a seasoned veteran, you will have the opportunity to listen, learn and share your experiences with others. Feel free to come and hear the capabilities of the system, or to just share the experience with like-minded music lovers in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.

 

Doors open from 12:30pm to meet and chat with members, Music starts at 2pm and the meeting finishes at 5pm.

 

It is a requirement of entry that you sign-in in the visitors’ book. You are not required to wear a mask but you may wish to do so.

 

Venue:  Mathews Room, Epping Creative Centre, Dence Park    
Address:  26 Stanley Road, Epping    
When:  Sunday 13th April 2025
 
Hope to see you there on Sunday 13th April.
John McEvoy
Meeting Co-ordinator
Sydney Audio Club Inc.

[masterpaul]

Some images from the meeting. The Audio Research / Meridian combo was superb. After the break the AR was used with a Luxman tube amp.

The Optonica turntable also impressed.

[A.K.]

The original A.R.  LS 2 (not the Mk 2), is a legend of a preamplifier that I am sure, many older audiophiles would remember from the 90's.

It was only an "entry level"  preamp  in the A.R. line of "Line stages"  (no phono preamp) and  yet, not quite cheap in the day...

But then,  there weren't many Audio Research products that were exactly "cheap",  and that continues to the present day.

[masterpaul]

Speakers du jour :
AKAI SW-157 II - The oldest of the five, improved drastically when placed on stands. Not accurate, but not embarrassing either.

Audiovector C Series - easily the most "audiophile".

B&W DM220 - struggled with the Denon amp, much more impressive with the Meridian or the Luxman.

B&W DM-580 - Unfortunately had been kiddiepoked, compromising the HF.

Mordaunt-Short bookshelf - shone with classical tracks, less comfortable with strident rock music (Yello, anyone?)

 

The 1984 Kenwood CD player refused to load, and  a Panasonic BluRay found in a rubbish clean-up saved the day.

 

There were some very nice Japanese pressings played on the Optonica turntable.

 

Notable, for all the wrong reasons, was Wings - "Venus and Mars/Rock Show".

What were they thinking ? (Or smoking)