Fruition & Magoo Concert Kicks Off A Week Of Live Music ~ Mtn Music Mondays @ The Dillon Amp 15Jun26

Jim & I are headed to Telluride but took the opportunity to see some great early season artists @ the Dillon Amp on the way. Magoo opened to a packed house in a venue of little comparison. Magoo is an ascending, excellent alt bluegrass jam band from Denver, and they brought their admirers to Summit. They killed it and we all loved it. I've seen their stuff online but it was my 1st time live. We all means Jim & me as typical but we were very pleased to be joined by our great friends S&D from O; Steve was an excellent chauffeur. I usually lead my friends to the center of the stage at the rail above the fixed seating ~ we bring our own chairs for the grass and end up in position A right behind the sound engineers.

While 1st is friends of course, the Dillon Amp venue and sound are excellent, plus Mondays are FREE! While we dislike the necessary queuing 100 min before the shows (to get position A), as they are GA, we are never disappointed with the vibe, sound, or spot. Dillon Amp is owned by the municipality and it was recently rebuilt nearly equivalently to prior for patrons, but for better bathrooms, real artist green rooms, and a fab sound system... nothing in the mountains competes anymore ~ simply, this is the best for many counties around.

Back to Magoo... really great alt bluegrass with Phish/Dead-like jam songs and other tight playing. Wow. Let's go. And howdy did mostly young patrons turn out with Magoo gear, pajama pants and bikinis, and dance their asses off. My sense is that 'free' was good, 'Magoo' was better, and folks came out to pack the house to see them. It was a very strong and fun set and we were treated to a dobro.

I was mostly alone in this crowd, to have come to see headliner Fruition (though sure I appreciated Magoo immensely as opener). 15 mostly consistent years of genre-bending/avoiding songs with a multi-instrumentalist female leader and mad musicianship all around is a lure. They didn't disappoint on non-genre definition, moving deftly from 40's swing, to blues, to Americana with facility. I loved the set but for a bit of muddling in the vocals... I don't know why. I caught some images and some footage.

Heading Over To Shakedown Street ~ Harvest Hosted @ Ascent Brewery 12Jun26

With a pending major trip west with the Crusher and BC20X I decided to make an overnight shakedown run. I used Harvest Host to book a "free" night at Ascent Brewing. I had checked the Crusher Too for alignment and sway and needed to add assurance of camper and Starlink ops. Ascent is cool; Joe & Steph are great hosts. I watched the Paraguay-US soccer match and tried Joe's beers. Sunset was alive from Falcon. The BC20X was fine in all regards but Starlink draws down the batteries a bit more than I want; I need to remember to unplug when not needed. I was back at Blodgett in time for the Catalonia F1 qualification session.

Summit Fun In The Sun ~ Encouraged Kala To The Nest 04Jun26-07Jun26

Kala and I headed to Summit for some days out of the heat along the Front Range. We planned some events and had a great times with Matt visits, the Vail Mtn Games, beers @ ORB, hiking the Eagles Nest Wilderness, watching F1 @ Monaco, and fishing 10 Mile Ck. Our backyard...

Wed 03Jun26-Thu 04Jun26 ~ Visiting Matt In Den  & Hiking "Kala's Trail"... we stopped in the DTC to visit TK on the way. Mostly "hi" and "bye" but we would see him again on the other end. All's well in the tough coding world. We decided to hike on Thu and defer our visit to Vail to Friday. We did a 5 mile loop in the White River NF and Eagle's Nest Wild in our backyard. It was nice being out hiking the wild with Kala again ~ knees did not fail and hip flexor stayed sane. Dillon Rez is very low and will not fill ~ Frisco even closed their marina for this season. I tried to find a way to hike all the way down to ORB but we decided to drive. We stopped at the new Tiki Bar (new operator Steep) at Dillon Marina to check it out - nice and there's a stage now for live music and Steep's beers are approved.

Fri 05Jun26 ~ The Vail Mountain Games... With the weak snowpack the runoff into Gore Ck did not swell the stream enough to host the water sports (which were moved to Glenwood Spgs on the Colorado). Still the games are fun and we especially like seeing the dog events. Big Air champion was a greyhound named Mayhem and Dueling Dogs champ was a black lab named Ace, nosing out a golden named Brianna. We heard a bit of music just walking around the games but chose against seeing bands at the Ford Amp this time. I did catch Kala checking some math with Rocky (Hail Mary reference) during our visit.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Monaco GP Qualifying & Race... One of the best hours in motorsport is the qualifying for Monaco. This is a tight track with tons of turns and walls in your face... so, there are few passing opportunities during the grand prix, placing a premium on quali position. The pole sitter at Monaco wins the race 70% of the time. It was very exciting to watch on the NestMT, though Apple has added plenty of advertising over prior F1 channel viewing pleasure. Max threw down a blistering lap late in the final qualifying session but Kimi bested him by 4msec to take pole. I slept through the early race on Sunday but was regaled of it's many penalties and race car failures. Kimi basically went wire-to-wire from pole. My un-rebuilt team fell from 2nd to nearly last in Alpine Rippers F1 fantasy league.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Fishing 10 Mile Ck... My back was oddly blown yesterday but the hot tub really helped so I chose to head out to fish 10Mile Ck during this odd flowing (~100cfs) spring this afternoon. I hit the Copper Mtn area of the stream then went downstream to the Officer's Gulch area. I had a decent outing and caught a number of 10" browns and a couple of similarly-sized rainbows, it was a decent double handled well on the Rodfather True 3 v2. I was all sub-surface but a decent brown hit my bobber. Best flies on the day were the oil can Perdigon, the Wired Ice caddis, and the MHFBPT. 

Sun 07Jun26 ~ Visit With Matt... After the Monaco GP we packed up and cleaned up and headed down to the Front Range. We made seared tuna steaks with salad for us at Matt's place on Hampden, and he provided spicy quinoa! I finally scored my Cars & Canyons sticker for the FlyBox and adorned it.

COS Stuff ~ Aviator With Yoho & Happy Anniversary To Us 28May26-31May26

We spent the week in COS to get through some home tasks and Front Range appointments. After fishing the Ark, I showered for a date. We  got out with Jim & Mary for a tasty yet quirky meal at the Aviator atop the new Hotel Polaris near the north gate of the AFA. Superior cocktails were enjoyed as was the Asian-vibe appetizer-sized nosh. View is great too.

Happy 46th to Kala & me! We chose to hike the Blodgett Open Space and did several miles and plenty of vert over there. On the way back down we observed a murder of crows attacking a hawk in the area... they dive-bombed her relentlessly till she flew off downrange. Sufficient physical investment that we even passed on opening the Kala-acquired Champagne. 

Back In Big Horn Sheep Canyon ~ Quick But Good Day Double 28May26

Though foggy in the Springs it was nice past Canon City on the Ark in BHSC. I was slowed a smidge to 10:15am by construction but got a couple of good hours in @ Pinnacle Rock today. The river was off color from recent rains but I caught a half doz fish by noon with 13"-14" browns and 15"-16" rainbows/cutbows. Every fly worked: MHFBPT, oil can Perdigon, red squirmy worm, and rainbow warrior. I tied on the rainbow warrior due to the low visibility; I tied on the squirmy 'cause of recent rains. The fish are smaller now here at Pinnacle Rock but at least the fishery is back from the Hayden fire.

Dave's Audiophile Systems' Summaries Update ~ Blodgett Theater Tweaks 27May26

Blodgett Theater ~ Paradigm Reference 5.1.2 Theater... I 'updated' the controller to a 12 yr old Integra DHC 80-6 (cheap from eBay) to get modern discrete decodes like Dolby Atmos and new DTS & THX stuff. The 7 channel Integra Research RDA-7 (clean 150w/ch class AB) still rocks as amp, connected balanced to the controller. The 5.1 array is our original Paradigm Reference '1s' with mains now augmented by Fostex T90 horn super-tweeters. The .2 height speakers are Paradigm Titan Performance versions updated to the task. My main sources for this system are BluRay, Roku Ultra, and a mele Linux JRMC streamer. I re-EQed the mains with the venerable miniDSP 2x4 HD. I hadn't touched this system in a while and these additions are excellent. Yet, there are more improvements in the works.

Nest GR8 Room Theater ~ Three Unique TABA Designs... The latest audiophile system I've finished is the Nest GR8 Room Theater. This 5.1 system's front and surrounds are all custom built using 4" titanium TangBand W4-1337SDF drivers, so timbre is consistent throughout. The L/R mains are quarter wave transmission line speakers with front firing rectangular bass ports (TABAQs) delivering down to 45Hz in these TL cabinets - amazing; the center channel is a unique dual chamber bass reflex speaker with two rectangular bass ports (TABAD) delivering effortlessly to 70Hz; the surrounds are tiny (2.9L) PicoOnkens using aperiodic rectangular bass ports (TABAOs) smoothly tuned to 78Hz. This array is backed by a classic 400w Velodyne ULD-18 Series II servo subwoofer for the very lows (resonant frequency of 4Hz). The TV monitor (Sony 55" XBR HD) and AV receiver (Denon AV-1912) are serviceable but dated. The 90w/chan receiver does do Dolby Digital+ for discrete though and Dolby ProLogic IIz and other DSP settings derived from PCM 2 channel and all other analog stuff needed. My sources for the Nest GR8 Room are all digital: Roku Ultra, iPod, Denon Blu-Ray, and BT or Apple AirPlay. The recently added speakers are a substantial upgrade from the stock NHT 1s, NHT surrounds, and NHT CC they replaced.

EleFrugalKit ~ High Efficiency Stereo Horns With Low Power Tube Amp... I moved the EleFrugalKit to the lower level. It is built upon the incredible Frugel-Horn Mk3 cabinet design; I built and tweaked this keen design from Scott Lindgren. After rolling and measuring 5 different 4" full range drivers, my favored are Mark Audio Pluvia 7.2HDs. The MAs are smooth and and completely round sounding and deliver down to 45Hz. Driving the transducers is a DRC hand-built Elekit TU-8200R 4 watt tube amp loaded with modern Russian Tung Sol 6550 power tubes (configured SET, not Pentode) and a 1960's NOS Valvo ECC82 pre-amp section. There was a significant roll through of power tubes and driver tubes to get to this optimum. Offering source material is a keen Bluetooth aptX HD receiver called DS200Pro on one input (for phones and other transient wireless stream sources), and a mele Linux computer streaming from JRiver MC networked to my .5TB of flac files spun from my ArchLinux server on the 2nd input. The hardwired source is rendered through a Schiit Modi Multibit 2 "multibit" DAC, the least expensive MB DAC I could find (tested great); the DS200PRO has its own ESS Sabre 24/192KHz delta-sigma DAC. The gear all sits on a suitable mobile stand now and I can get lyrics and band images on a $200 43" OLED monitor. I navigate in theater view with my universal Harmony remote via Flirc, except when doing maintenance on Linux, then I use the Logitech Pop KB & mouse connected via USB Bolt dongle. The stereo only sound is simply fabulous; I trialed external DSP and a subwoofer and ultimately removed these adulterations and just relocated the horns forward and placed damping pillows behind. I did EQ/flatten the system to my house curve, for when streaming FLAC files, via the EQ capability directly in JRMC itself (I measured in REW and auto-generated the PEQ filters, then loaded them my hand into JRMC. It's awesome.

Blodgett Schiit ~ Reference Headphone Kit... The best headphone system in the quiver is my Schiit & Mr Speakers gear in Colo Spgs. This setup, most often featuring closed headphones, does not suffer the incursions into folks' personal space that speaker systems do. My preferred drivers are the awesome Mr Speakers EtherC Flow planar magnetic over ear headphones with balanced cabling. Alternatively, when dynamic driver sounds are warranted, I am stocked with Sennheiser 600HD dynamic open back headphones for this system, also with balanced cabling to the amp. Driving the cans is a hybrid Schiit Mjolinar 2 tube amp. I've evaluated many driver tubes and my favorites are all early 1960s: the Amperex "Holland D Getter" E88CC (fun) and the Telefunken E88CC (clean). Again I selected a multi-bit design (vs delta-sigma) DAC... to me they sound more organic (at least when the resistance ladder is very accurate). Matching the amp in the Schiit line is the Gungnir MB version (updated with Unison USB subsystem). Notable is that I've balanced the system all the way from digital stereo sources to my ears - meaning each channel is driven directly from source to ears via separate  circuits (except for any initial signal processing). We come to the cans from 4 wire XLR connectors and cabling and prior through the amp, via XLR interconnects between amp & DAC, and then back from that, fiber or USB digital stereo sources inbound to the DAC from the macOS Studio. The source, mostly flac files from JRiver MC as bit-perfect streams, or YouTube vids. My headphone system corrects for even tiny abnormalities (non-flat frequency response curves) via Sonarworks directly in the mac via digital signal processing. I used this because I can't do the measurements on headphones myself - I sent my headphones to Lithuania for measurement and they sent me correction curves! This is definitely my reference headset and Kala sleeps soundly.

Nest Music Theater ~ NestMT... 6.1.2 Immersive Sound

Mobile Nirvana ~ Fine Portable Music Gear... It's small and balanced and dynamic.

NestDesk ~ Bamboo Blanda Bowls All Around With Massive Monitor And Planar Magnetics... Condenser mic for podcasts and zoom calls, Black Ice FX10 amp and Denfrips ENYO DAC. The front 6" bowls are built with 4" Fostex FE108NS drivers and they're supported by an 11" Blanda serving bowl subwoofer carrying a 6.5" Tang Band WS-22536 driver driven by an external 100w class AB plate amp. Yeah, that's a bamboo dog bowl holder carrying the sub. The kit is driven by a Black Ice FX10H tube amp updated with Tung-Sol 7189 power tubes and winning the DAC-off was a Denefrips Enyo 15th R2R DAC. I added a cork-backed desk pad (not shown) to absorb some bounced mid-high waves but otherwise this has killer near field sound, with some thump. I didn't scrimp on the monitor either; it's a 42" 4K/HDR LG OLED on a monitor arm. Works for lots of workspace, or killer desktop concerts... that's the amazing Anna Moss on screen. Too, the kit has some nice headphones: Audeze planar magnetics or AKG dynamics when right; a condenser mic is lashed in through a mixer for podcasts and a Logitech camera delivers for Zoom calls. Source material is spewed by my MacStudio YouTube/Music, FlacBox or JRiver MC apps.

Blodgett Family Room ~ Front Array Onkens & Updated Surrounds... The referenced post is about the front array of Onkens but I've now updated the in-ceiling surrounds for this install as well.

You cannot go anywhere @ Blodgett or the Nest without finding stellar audio and fun music. At this point I think my work is done; wait, it never is. Listen intently.