[Tyll Hertsens]

Whew! What a whirlwind. Bozman to Ceadar City UT Friday; Ceadar to the Holiday Inn in LA on Saturday; Sunday is the meet and drive to Santa Cruz afterward; Pick up my daughter and drive to Reno Monday; Reno to Boz Tuesday. Four nights and 2650 miles later I realize I have no pix! Argh! So a huge thanks to Edwood and JonL for their pix.

Big thanks also to 909 for rounding up guys before the meet. It's been a very busy summer for me and David did a marvelous job rounding up some guys with sweet rigs for the meet. Thanks, man.

The day started out very nicely for me, Iron Dreamer and I had exchanged a few PMs the day before and he met me for breakfast at the hotel. We had a nice relaxing breakfast, and then proceeded unpack the pile of stuff in the van and set up gear. Santacore, who had also PMed me with an offer to help set-up, came in shortly and we were putting up gear like crazy. Shortly before the meet proper, I went back to my room for a quick shower and donned my Hawaiian shirt, and I was ready to go.

I did a little talk, answered some questions, and then it was audiophiles off to the races listening to gear. I sold stuff at the meet this time---first time ever selling gear at a meet. That worked out pretty well---sold about $2000 worth of gear---but, I dunno, seems like I was missing the opportunity to help people out with headphone questions because I was taking credit card info and such.

By the time things had calmed down a bit and I was fielding a variety of questions, it was time for the raffle. We gave away a Millett, some 650s, a couple of BitHeads, and UE tossed in a couple of Triple-Fi's---quite a nice stash of gear. Yadda, yadda, a half hour more of talk and it was over.

Then it was time to get folks out of there and break down the gear---a mad rush for me and much appreciated helpers, but over in about 40 minutes.

I then had about ten minutes of the sweetest time of the whole meet, just standing in a circle with all the Head-Fi guys talking casually, and Edwood holding little Phoebe. Nice job dad and mom, she's cute as a button.

I think the whole thing worked pretty well. The society members seemed quite interested and invigorated by what they heard. Bob Levi invited me back for next years August meeting to do it all over again, so that's a good sign. I'll be happy to, of course. The fact that it all went off so smoothly and was so comfortably recieved is evidence, IMHO, that audiophiles and headphone-philes are cut from the same cloth. I'm looking forward to replicating this meeting across the country next year as I work to more intimately merge headphone enthusiasm into audiophiledom proper.

Thanks again, LA, it was a great first-time event, I'm looking forward to more.