This is my first meet, so I didn't know what to expect going in. Mike (tyrion) and family were doing a great job of organizing and checking people in. There were quite a few demo halls and vendors on site.
As you can see by my sig, I'm into IEMs, so my first stop was at the Shure stand. I was really looking forward to see Westone, but they were not there. While I have tried a few Shures before, there are some in the lineup that I've never listened to (SE420/SE310). I did some A/B-ing with my UM2s and found that the SE420s are solid headphones, but still prefer the sound of my UM2s. I listened to the SE530s, which I previously owned, and regretted selling them (but I needed the money at the time). The guys at the Shure stand were very friendly and helpful.
At the Shure stand
My wife came to this meet for me to check out what my headphone obsesion was about.. We both tried quite a few of the headphones on demo including the mighty Orpheus (thanks to whoever brought that in!!) as well as various Stax, Audio Technicas, Beyers, and Sennheisers.
Trying out the Orpheus..
In my opinion, the Orpheus was the best headphones I have ever listened to hands down. But would I ever drop that kind of money on headphones??...only if I was a millionaire!! Honestly, to my amateur ears, I could not tell the difference between $100 headphones and $10,000 headphones, so I will stick to my ATH-A900s for now; but it was fun to demo different headphones. Also, I found out how much of a difference a good source/amp can make to your setup.
Next, we went to meet
TTVJ and check out other home theater demos. At 4pm, we had a raffle where there were tons of prizes (I didn't win as usual, always bad luck with those things). Finally, I checked out the Sennheiser booth, where I tried out the new
Sennhieser IE7s, to which I was pleasantly surprised to hear!! This thing was awesome in everything from sound to comfort. I only wish they would standardize the format of the tips of these things (they use similar size to the Sony EX81s rather than Shure/Westone tips). Other than that, these are solid contenders to the IEM market and I think they will do very well.
Sennheiser IE7
Thanks to all of those people who put in the time in planning this great event. Hope to see you all again soon (maybe tommorrow)...