CanJam 08: Team Florida Invites All Their Friends...

[mrarroyo]

Originally Posted by jpelg

Any technical info on the this amp, or sound impressions?

It was at the Head-Direct table, I listen to it and I thought it sounded very good. It will be ofered shortly, waiting to know what will be the asking price.

[SiBurning]

The benchmark dac arrived at the office today. Tried it out with my beyerdynamic 831. Boy, it's bright in the office! Guess I'm looking for new cans. This hobby's like a roach motel.

[Grahame]

Now that I am back to reality after the bedlam that was CanJam'08 some heartfelt thanks are in order for the various folks that made CanJam'08 a truly memorable experience.

There is not much more that I can add to the already 500+ posts on the matter, but here goes.

Team Florida
Thanks to the members of Team Florida for not only planning, organizing and executing CanJam'08, but also knowing how to party like rock stars.

The Vendors and Sponsors of Head-Fi
Thanks to them for bringing their wares, supporting the event, and for their donations to the raffle.

The Attendee's
It's not just amazing collection of equipment all in one place, but the people that made this such a memorable event.

Some Honorable Mentions:

• Agile_one - for some quality time on his various rigs
• AMB - for creating the B22 - there were some fine examples at CJ08
• Team Sober - Hey we can't let the drinkers have all the fun
• Jan Meier and Meier Audio for being such a generous sponsor - many thanks
• Jahn/Jude - for being the bearer of good fortune - thats one wake up call I won't forget.
• Tyll - for the quality time on the reference desktop setup, for being a great conversationalist and a welcome drinking parter for Joanne
• Mikhail and Galina - for their late night chill out lounge with mood lighting - and some excellent amps
• Smyth research - not only for such a great implementation of a killer technology - but being mad enough to fly from the UK to pick up their gear in LA , then drive to CJ08 to demo it , and repeat the the process in reverse on the way back. That's what I call dedication.
• CrappyJones123 - for being our newest recruit to the head-fi family. Pleasure to meet you sir.
• Sennheiser, Crossroads, and Vsonic for the IEM's in the raffle. Good things do indeed come in threes.

A simple post can't do justice to the enormity of CJ08.

Great gear, great people, great times.

I'm still smiling just at the thought of it.

Roll on CJ'09.

[daveDerek]

jeez, i haven't joined back in since page one. well here's a couple of belated mentions. first off i'd like to tip my hat to our wonderful hosts for the terrific party/meet that they organized and for their hospitality. it was a tremendous effort that took a lot of work from many folks (both from team florida as well as from some out of towners such as johnny#s (well i guess he's still a member of team florida and voltron, for example) but special mention, and a big cheer must go to tyrion. thanks mike!
next i'd like to thank the vendors for putting in the time, expense (not insignificant), and efforts to head into town, often from whereabouts far flung, set up (which for some of them showing a ton of gear was a lot of work) and still having the good cheer to enthusiastically schmooze and demo cool toys, and then often party for hours on end. and boy were they ever generous in donating to the raffle!
and lastly i'd like to thank the paricipants for showing up, many having traveled quite a distance, and many hauling their lovely systems along and allowing us to sample their special joys. philodox even shipped his massive amp internationally to share it with this wild and wacky group.
i wish this meet had gone on for another day or two (though the way this group parties it might have been hazardous to one's health!) so that i could have listenened to more goodies and spent time with these folks. there was simply too much there to try it all. i kept meaning to get to various vendors and try their wares, but simply ran out of time. i also missed trying out many head-fiers systems. it was a real treat to get to try a number of them though. one that i got to very late in the game when many systems were being broken down was a special treat and an eye opener. the famous sony mdr-r10 was well represented at the meet and i've had the opportunity to listen to various samples of the model in a variety of systems any number of times. i've liked the can but found it overrated and overpriced relative to it's reputation as one of the, if not the finest phone ever made. however listening to the cowboy junkies trinity sessions on queen vicki's r10s through her special sp extreme - well that was someting else! 'twas good enough that you could easily say 'who cares about any of the other stuff'!
gotta go now. maybe i'll share some more thoughts another time. head-fiers, if you like this hobby and this group, then you owe it to yourself to make it to one of these events.

[ingwe]

I don't ever want this thread to end!

[tyrion]

Originally Posted by ingwe

I don't ever want this thread to end!

Nor should it. It must go on and on and on. We can start the fall Tampa meet impression thread where this one ends.

I still haven't posted impressions other than the most general. I guess I am a little burnt out at the moment.

If I didn't say this yet, the people are what makes any meet, imo, at least the meets we throw in Florida. When I say that, I am including the vendors as most of them are new and old friends who didn't stop when the doors closed. Speaking of vendors those IEM guys can party. So what if one of them had some trouble opening a bottle of beer. At least he had a bottle of beer and isn't that what this whole thing we call Head-Fi is all about.

[daveDerek]

Originally Posted by tyrion

At least he had a bottle of beer and isn't that what this whole thing we call Head-Fi is all about.

a bottle of beer? some would argue that head-fi is about headphones!

[grawk]

They missed the fun part of canjam

[n_maher]

Long Overdue Impressions:

There were only really 3 items of note from CanJam for me. Like a lot of folks I spent a great deal of time socializing and not so much listening. I also tended to stick pretty close to my rig for fear that the great conflagration was only moments away.

1. UE11's - I just sort of happened by the UE table during lunch time and decided to sit down and have a listen. I tried both the 10s and 11s and came away more than just a little impressed. I preferred the 11's by a pretty large margin and as expected the greatest difference between the two is in the amount and quality of the bass. The 10 has a lot more bass than I've ever experienced with IEMs but to my ears seemed to have an unnatural presentation, as if somehow I was hearing synthesized bass. The 11s had slightly less bass (still way more than my Ety 4Ps) and the presentation was far more refined and realistic sounding. If I had $1100 I'd own a pair, sadly that's way out of my league and not something I'd feel at all comfortable wearing while I mow the grass.

2. The TTVJ/Millett 307A - I went into CanJam with really high expectations of this piece based mostly on my prior experiences with Pete's work (namely the Menace). He and I had been talking about this amp for months and I knew that he had put a lot of effort into the design and making it a statement piece. In my opinion he and Todd have succeeded to a great degree. The fit and finish of the amp is far greater than the prototype pictures that I had seen and while the look isn't for everyone those who prefer clean, functional gear over bling should be very pleased. The sound lived up to every expectation that I had for it, with an even, clean sound and plenty of power. My woodied HF-1s (balanced) sounded fantastic on the low-ohm setting and I really wish that I'd been able to get back over there the second day w/ my HD650s but time did not permit it. Bottom line - I don't think that I've heard a better dynamic rig.

3. Headamp's BHSE/O2 - I know enough folks have waxed poetic about it already so I'll keep my impressoins short. If the O2's are your can of choice you owe it to yourself to get a listen on Justin's latest stat amp. This rig was just amazing.

Otherwise I had a fantastic time - due in no small part to the folks that attended and planned the meet. It was great to meet some new folks who I'd only corresponded with on the forums and through email and it was equally good to see folks that I'd met at other meets. Great job Florida, someone's got their work cut out for themselves next year.

[crappyjones123]

Originally Posted by tyrion

Nor should it. It must go on and on and on. We can start the fall Tampa meet impression thread where this one ends.

not trying to invite myself but just wondering if there was a date already set for the fall meet (if in fact you were serious in mentioning tampa tyrion).

[HighLife]

now that we have a big florida crew again, tampa sounds nice =)

I got dibs on matt's couch.

We can car pool also since gas is expensive as **** right now.

[crappyjones123]

car pool sounds nice. i can certainly help pay for gas if anyone wants to truck me up north. a date would be nice coz i have to go for some surgery in early august. doc said something about my brain being too big for my own well being so they need to take some out. hopefully it is either before or a few days after =/

ps. ~60 degrees out right now here. take that you sweltering south florida heat. man its good to be back in some nice weather.

[HighLife]

wow, its 60F in Tamarac? Crazy its 76F here and im like 5 miles from you.

Ill truck you up crappy, or maybe You, me, Mike and Vicki can get together. Mike is like 20mins south of me, you on the way in tamarac, vicky is in west palm area...so we can swing by and pick her up on the way up north.

A date would be nice though for sure =)

[crappyjones123]

i iz in bean town dood. tamarac was left behind in the heat (pun intended) ugh i hate coming back to boston after spending time in florida - boston seems to bring out the nerdiest and the lamest in people for some reason.

[HighLife]

Ohh you at MIT now? When you going to be back in SoFlo?