In attendance was Bill Wassilak and his wife, Trent Fowler, Mark Margiotta, Akhilesh Bajaj, Phil Wilson and me.

Trent Fowler, Bill Wassilak, Mark Margiotta, Akhilesh Bajaj and Mrs. Wassilak

Bill Wassilak has been working on his array speakers for quite some time, and we've all been waiting to hear the fruits of his efforts. He based them on the array whitepaper from Dr. Jim Griffin, a regular participant on the Array forum and well-known contributor to the DIY audio community. Bill's speakers use 20 midwoofers and 24 tweeters per side, and power is tapered at the ends. The crossover point is 4kHz.

Bill Wassilak with his line arrays, based on the work of Jim Griffin

Probably the most amazing thing about these is that the parts are unusually cheap. The midwoofers are 50¢ each, and the tweeters are a quarter. The sound is very good, and when you consider the cost of each driver, the sound is amazing. I can see why hobbyists enjoy building arrays like these.

We listened to them both with high power solid state amps and low power SET. They seemed equally well voiced with either. Bill uses high power Crown amps, and his array speakers sound very clear and powerful. Then we switched to Akhilesh's Zen SET amp, and voices took on a slightly different character, particularly female voices. As you might expect, the mids were just a little bit warmer sounding with the Zen. Very pleasant, actually.

Trent Fowler, Bill Wassilak, Wayne Parham and Akhilesh Bajaj

Mark Margiotta recently purchased a nice tube tester, which he brought to the meeting. Mark E-Mailed each of us to invite us to bring our tubes, in order to measure them. The tube tester is in excellent shape, Mark got a good deal on that unit.

Mark Margiotta's Hickock 600 tube tester

One of the best things about the old Hickock testers is there is so much data available for them. You don't get a four or eight page chart of tubes, but instead a whole booklet with thousands of them. So the tester quality and capability is good, but the data that is provided with them is even better.

Akhilesh Bajaj, Bill Wassilak, Mark Margiotta and Phil Wilson

We sure had a nice time. Good food, fun and companionship. Thanks Bill!

I really enjoyed listening to the arrays. Nice job!! Thanks to you and your wife for the hospitality.

Mark

-akhilesh