MartinT, MikeMusic, John and I ventured down to the Hampshire/Dorset border to spend a day with speedysteve and his mate Pete for a music listening session on Steve's incredible horn system.

Steve's home-crafted speakers are a sight to behold and occupying one end of the studio space above the garage block, offer immense bass power, coupled with delicacy and the portrayal of inner detail.

I am unable to describe the system in detail, but my modest understanding is that 4/5 driver (per channel) system is powered by a Cerwin Vega bass amplifier, Crown amp for the upper bass and a trio of Icon Audio valve amplifiers feeding the midrange and superb Raal ribbon tweeters. The crossovers are built into a combined preamp/DAC unit and the source material was mainly file-based audio from Steve's laptop, as well as offerings from Tidal and Spotify. For good measure, Steve connected his Musical Fidelity CD player for those of us dinosaurs who brought silver discs to spin!

If I have misinterpreted any of the details regarding Steve's system, I'm sure he will join in to correct any errors in my description!

We had an absolutely great day, playing music, chatting and sheltering from the variable weather conditions outside, which ranged from warm sunshine to thunder, lightening and rain/hail!

Special mention and praise must go to Steve's lovely wife, Marie, who kept us well-plied with ale, coffee, tea, cake, crisps and biscuits as well as an amazing Thai curry to round the day off!

Thanks to Steve for the opportunity (my first time) to listen to your fantastic system and experience the bass power that comes from horn-loading!

fullsizeoutput_942 by Steve Coward, on Flickr