BAF 2025 Epilogue
Thanks to all the attendees and everyone who made Burning Amp 2025 a success. It was two days of hanging out with fellow DIYers and audiophiles, talking about audio, listening to tunes on gear we built, and learning about new stuff. What could be better?
A quick word of thanks to our presenters, who gave their time to prepare and present at Burning Amp, starting with Nelson Pass, Scott Hinson, Mark Johnson, Rene Jaeger, Tom Christiansen, Steve Gray, Olen Rasp, and Greg Prisament.
The auction has become a Burning Amp tradition, with master auctioneer, Jim Tiemann leading proceedings. Several FirstWatt amplifiers were gleefully snatched by attendees, as were a brand new pair of full range Lowthers, also from Nelson, that went for a steal. A big thank you to Nelson for his generous donation of FirstWatt amplifiers and other gear, and to Bay City Screw and Bolt (Union City) for the tool set, and to Madisound, Parts Express, and Solen for donating cool parts to the auction and raffle. Bob Cordell, another audio legend and author of several best-selling books, donated two signed copies of his books to the auction. Mark Johnson donated a bunch of soldering irons and solder kits for the Amp Camps, and his Filt1AMax PCB’s for his new PSU filter design.
For the first time, there were two amp camps being held simultaneously, where attendees built power amps and headphone amps to completion and walked away with working amplifiers. A dedicated group of helpers, starting with Jim Tiemann, who led the camps, Mark Johnson, and Steve Gray made sure that every single amplifier was working. Both amps were Nelson Pass designs, and Nelson also donated all the parts and PCBs for them. A huge thank you to Nelson for making amp camp possible, a standout event at Burning Amp.
This year, we had a unique Speaker Measurement Camp led by Scott Hinson, he of DIYRM. Over two three hour sessions, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, Scott led camp attendees through the intricacies of speaker measurements and how to get repeatable, high quality speaker measurements using freely available software. The camps were a huge success and we look forward to what Scott will come up with for next year.
BAF 2025 featured cool posters and t-shirts, designed by Sheldon Smith. Thanks to Sheldon and to Chris Ouellette for getting the shirts and posters printed. A big thanks to Sheldon and Ruchi Sood for coordinating our online stream for the Ask Me Anything session with Nelson. Special thanks to Sheldon for running the audio/video desk on Sunday for the presentations, auction, and raffle. Videos for all the talks are available on Youtube.
Special thanks to our volunteers, Bill, Graeme, Cary, Demian, and many others for helping make Burning Amp a success.
See you again next year!
- The Planning Committee (Jim, Rahul, Dan, Nelson, Scott, Sheldon, and Mike Rothacher)
BAF 2025
Burning Amp is back for 2025. We will back in Petaluma for 2025 given the success of the past two years. Please continue to look for updates below as we finalize details.
Dates
October 4-5, 2025
Location
Petaluma Community Center – Petaluma California
The Petaluma Community Center is 40 miles North of San Francisco. There is plenty of parking. (Google Map Link)
Lodging / Transportation
The Best Western Petaluma Inn is 4 tenths of a mile from the Community Center and was a popular hotel for BAF 2024.
The three most common airports used for those flying in are:
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) – 52 miles with a shuttle service (see below)
San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport (OAK) – 53 miles with a shuttle service (see below)
Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (STS) – 24 miles
The Sonoma County Airport Express runs every hour from SFO and every two hours from Oakland airport. It drops off at the Fairgrounds 6 tenths of a mile from the hotel.
Dining
We will have food trucks at the event. Continue to watch this page for updates. We have some exciting options. For morning and evening meals, the Best Western has a breakfast available. There is a large shopping center across the street from the Community Center with plenty of dining options.
Events
Amp Camp
Update!
This year, we’ve purchased more equipment and tools, we’ve dedicated more space, and we are planning to run two parallel build camps. One group of DIYers will build a unique power JFET headphone amp / preamp, and another group of builders will be building a new and novel speaker amplifier. Both projects come from the mind of Nelson Pass and are as easy as ‘make and bake.’
Speaker Measurement Camp
Want to learn how to measure speakers like a pro? Learn how to measure the anechoic response of the speaker in a room with Scott Hinson. We will go over ground plane measurements, gated measurements, the software to use how to check all the settings and configurations and be an expert in a mere few lifetimes. We will use REW for the majority of the measurements but quick comparisons will be made to other free software such as Arta and open sound meter.
We will go over the following:
- Near field measurements
- Gated farfield measurements
- Merging measurements with corrections for baffle step
- Ground plane measurements
- Impedance measurements
- Distortion measurements
- And more!
What to bring? Attendees do not need to bring anything to take this workshop, but if you have your own you may bring any or all of the following:
- Computer with your measurement software of choice if we have time we can do some quick comparisons or set up checks.
- Measurement microphone, again if time allows we can check against my calibrated microphones.
- Bookshelf sized or small tower speaker to measure. (someone needs to bring one I’ll be flying to the event and won’t be able to bring anything this year)
- Notepad for taking notes
- Bottles of Brunello to bribe your instructor for your final. JK, but not really.
Presentations and Speakers
Burning Amp Festival has been lucky enough to have been graced by audio luminaries such as Nelson Pass and Siegfried Linkwitz at past events. The planning committee is working to put together an exciting line-up of speakers. Here is our list of speakers for 2025: Nelson Pass, Tom Christiansen, Scott Hinson, Mark Johnson, and Jim Tiemann.
New this year will be four 10-minute power talks given by BAF attendees! We are a creative crowd and we have a lot to share. Listen to what BAF attendees have been up to, learn new things, and get ideas for new projects.
Event Tickets
Link to tickets and registration is here:
Volunteer Sign-Up
We need volunteers. See this post on the BAF thread for signing up to be a volunteer. Contact Dan aka birdbox on diyaudio if you want to volunteer.
Schedule
| Petaluma Community Center Room | Sat, Oct 4th | Sun, Oct 5th | ||
| Craft2 (Preschool) | 8a-5p | Registration, Amp camp I | 9a-Noon | Speaker Measurement Camp |
| Conference 2 | 8a-8:30p | Systems, gear, listening | 8a-8:30p | Systems, gear, listening |
| Activity | 8a-8:30p | Amp Camp II | 8a-8:30p | Systems, gear, listening |
| 1p-4p | Speaker Measurement Camp | |||
| Meeting Room | Not available | 8a-9p | Presentations (10a-3p), auction (3:30p), raffle | |
| Club Room | Noon-8p | Pass Room | 8a-8p | Pass Room |
| Craft1 | Not available | 8a-8p | Registration | |
Map
Map of Petaluma Conference Center
