I got to AES fairly late today for the last hour before the floor closed as I had a job for a client on a serious deadline (they are flying out to Nigeria this weekend) so had to finish it first.
I stopped by the API booth to ask regarding possibly modding the input stage of the 5500 from opamp to transformer as I want to see if the upper mids could be made a little smoother via this but the man I need to speak to is Rick, and he wasn't there at the time. Answer should be forthcoming later this weekend though.
Next stopped by Lavry's booth and got the schpiel from Dan on the new AD10. It looks nice, although the ergonomics of everything being controlled by a single toggle switch look a little awkward to me. Then again - with most parameters it would be set it and forget it, and the built in attenuator is a digital controlled analog potentiometer with 1dB steps, which makes it nice for recalls, so this really isn't that big of a downside. While it has word clock in on bnc it doesn't have word clock out so it couldn't be used as a master clock - a definite downside to me. There's two optional digital processing algorithms labelled "transformer" and "tube" you can put in line after the analog input (or both together for "complex") - but Dan, like me, felt the best option is just the straight "clear" conversion which does not color the sound by default. After hashing it out with him seems in my case my needs would be met a lot more just adding a Blue Msync and ADC module to my existing 4496 chassis - so might have this done early next year.
Next spent a bit of time taking a look at the Elysia Alpha. Ergonomics and functions looked very cool: the niveau filter style single eq band to do seamless tilts of a mix to darker or brighter, onboard side chain tuning, built in and easily switchable m/s matrix (along with solos for m/s processed and unprocessed) all were really cool features to me.
From what I could tell from the terrible listening environment that is the AES floor it seemed very effective while clean and solid sounding. The price tag of $10g's doesn't really seem that outrageous once you see what you can actually do with this thing. I'm not sure whether I really would have the budget for this any time soon though - so while I'd love some real demo time with it - right now it looks like it will just have to be a wish list item.
Next I ran into Al Grundy, and talked to him for a bit. Seems he has a few restored Neumann cutting lathe systems for sale. I'm mighty mightily tempted to get back into cutting vinyl based on the price he quoted me for a full guaranteed working system. Please talk some sense into me regarding this if you see me on the floor!
I ran into Ed Littman there as the floor was closing. He told me that Burgess had a small booth with a single chair and a couple eq's and showed me the new Sontec / ITI price list. Can't remember the exact pricing but I believe a new 432 would run around under $9000, and a new 250EX about $2850. He was also offering some mastering eq's that were switchable from Sontec to ITI-style electronics in the one box for around $11000. Looks like Brad sold his used 432 right on time!!
I'm going to make a point of stopping by to introduce myself to Burgess later this weekend - pictures at 11:00.
After the floor closed I had a really nice dinner at a good Italian joint on 40th & 9th Ave. (lots of great places on that block and above for those looking for good eats near the Javitz center) with Ed where we had some good shop talk.
Tomorrow I have an afternoon rehearsal with my string quartet and then am going to see Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings play at the Apollo Theater - so if I can't get my lazy butt up early enough I might miss the day - but I should be around for most of Sunday and maybe a little bit on Monday so hope to run into some more folks then.
Best regards,
Steve Berson
