Orlando, FL Mini Meet: August 16, 2008

[mrarroyo]

First I would like to thank Nick20 for organizing the event. Choosing the Embassy Suites was a great idea, I learned they have large size rooms with conference tables that will seat up to 10!

To me the best part of the meet is that it brought together a nice bunch of head-fiers w/ great gear! Sadly, some who had indicated would show up were not able to do so. Bad for them but great for those who made it! more time to play w/ the toys.

I will say that for me the best and also the worst was listening to the Denon D5000. We had an stock one, one w/ Mark's mods, and one w/ Mark's mods and a Jena re-cable. The first two had only about 25 hours but you can definitely hear the significant improvements brought upon by Mark's mods. Earlier in this paragraph I wrote "worst" and it was in reference to my wallet, I will be saving $ to order a D5000 and then have it modded by Mark. At this time I would be happy w/ just the mods, hard to justify the price of the re-cable. Of course things could change and ...

For those that have not had an opportunity to listen to an stock and a Mark modded D5000 you are in for a treat. IMO the mods allow a level of detail and clarity to come through not possible w/ the stock version. In addition there is a sense of layering and depth that the stock does not possesses, heck to me the Mark modded was also more comfortable.

Of all the gear I personally took to the mini-meet the one that has me most excited was a brand new development by Graham Slee. Graham has designed and built a new amp, the Novo. This little jewel (IMO) is a fully discrete offering which he will be selling for $400 plus S&H. The amp as stated is a fully discrete and comes with a wall wart providing 24 vdc and meeting all the latest environmental rules. Thus the "green" label. Note: I brought along the upgraded PSU made by Graham the PSU1, and we could not hear a difference over the "green wall wart". To me that speaks very well of the little wall wart and its implementation, heck I even placed an aftermarket power cord on the PSU1 and the sound was the same as the "green wall wart". I will not comment on what I think of the "Beta Novo" until the other participants in the mini-meet post their impressions on it, I will say that the unit only had about 25 hours of burn in. I am really looking forward to getting at least 200 hours of burn in on the "Beta Novo" and then do an in depth review.

The Novo amp I took along is a beta version. If you look closely at the edges there is still some work with the case to make sure the edges overlap correctly, something Graham is working on w/ the shop fabricating the cases.

For those of you who own or plan on purchasing the Ultrasone HFI-780 we had two, one fully modded by ALO and the other by APureSound. Opinions were split, I prefer the APureSound as well as another head-fier. Another head-fier preferred the ALO w/ the Jena re-cable. Actually both are fantastic and a heck of an improvement over the stock ones, but I just preferred the sound of the APureSound re-cabled can. I might add some cotton balls to the chambers to see how the sound changes.

I just got back from Orlando a few hours ago and have been spending the time putting everything back in their place. Boy you forget how much gear you take along to meets until you have to restore your system.

I will close by once more thanking Nick for a job well done! The food, drinks, and cookies were a very nice touch. Finally some pics.

















More impressions to follow tomorrow, after I rest. Besides I have to do some work in preparation of Fay!

[vcoheda]

some nice gear there. looks like it was a fun time. small meets are always good for quality listening.

[krmathis]

Looks like a nice mini-meeting.

[ISALULA]

Looks like a fun meet. Thanks for the pics and impressions

[illkemist]

Having made it to my first Head-Fi event, I was really pleased to spend some time with some great members. I'd like to say a special thanks to nick20 for arranging everything, making sure everyone enjoyed the event.

It was a pleasure for me to meet mrarroyo and HiFlight. I've been reading their posting since I joined the forums. It was a real treat to talk to them and learn some things. More importantly, It was great to hang out with people that are just as crazy about music as I am.

Impressions? I found out that my D5000s could be even better than the stock setup. Between HiFlight's MarkL mod and nick20's MarkL modded, Jena recabled setup, I really got the chance to find out where my cans could be improved. As a result, I did a mini-MarkL mod for myself this morning, choosing not to overstuff the cups, but dynamat-ing the cups and driver. I never would have made this choice had it not been for the meet.

Thanks to mrarroyo, I got the chance to listen to the Graham Slee designed Beta Novo amp, which looks like it could be a great product at a reasonable price point. Thanks to Miguel for sharing that with the group.

I think the highlight for me was talking to Ron as he showed me some of the rolled amps that he had been working on. His rolled D1 was sensational. I'm beginning to wish I had kept mine. The rolled amp really was swinging above its weight. I also got to witness his mad scientist act, literally rolling a D2 (Viper or Boa?) to sound almost like raffy's Predator.

Speaking of raffy, I enjoyed watching him test the Beta Novo with HiFlight on the 1s and 2s, switching the headphone from amp to amp. That was pretty cool to watch. raffy is the man with the golden ears.

Other than the modded D5000s, I think the most impressive piece of equipment had to be HiFlight's modded D1. Sensational.

More pictures from the meet:


mrarroyo breaking it down


nick20's rig


nick20 checking out mrarroyo's setup


the tower of power


mrarroyo checking out the Predator


raffy in the zone


HiFlight tinkering


mrarroyo dishes on the GSS Beta Novo


raffy, about to put the GSS Beta Novo to the test

[raffy]

Here's my impressions, I'll update them as time goes by and as I get my thoughts together:

iBasso Viper - w/ the correct op-amps, sounded very close to the Predator, the only difference was that the Predator had a little different decay, sounded more realistic and pleasing but one doesn't have the Viper and the Predator side by side to compare, you'd never notice. Overall impressive portable, I wouldn't hesitate to get one if I was in the market for a portable.

Earmax Pro - the tiniest tube amp I've ever seen! Really smooth sound but still accurate enough. Worked really great for cans that weren't too current-demanding such as the HFI-780. On the other hand, cans like the D5000 and the HP-1 caused some clipping/distortion when cranked, per HiFlight this was due to the said cans demanding too much current. For some reason, my HP-1 had little to no synergy w/ this amp.

Nick's Adcom CD Player - great sounding CD player. Very smooth and sound seemed to have more authority compared to my iMod (duh!).

Benchmark DAC1 Pre - I used the headphone amp on this unit w/ my ALO-780 and the Denons. Surprisingly, it was very decent as a headamp but sounded like a solid-state amp as expected. Build quality was very very good.

Denon D5000 Stock - a little too much bass for me and I thought I was a basshead!

Denon D5000 Markl Modded and Jena re-wired - this is the second time I have encountered this can at a meet and for some weird reason I seem to sub-conciously snob this can and not give it ample time. Maybe deep inside me, I know it might wow me so much that I would have to buy one Anyway, with the little time I spent on them, I noticed much better bass control vs. stock and a little wider soundstage. Overall nice cans, I wish I spent more time w/ them.

Denon D2000 - another can I spent little time with. Only comment I can make is it's very well balanced and didn't have the excess bass of the D5000.

Ultrasone 2500 - the first can I've picked up and couldn't stand for more than a minute and I'm really not the criticizing type, I try to look for the good in everything. High frequencies sounded way different from what all the other cans produced, as if the recording was a different one.

mrarroyo's MPX3 and Monarchy DAC - awesome rig! Smooth sound without sounding too laid back. The tube output of his DAC really killed the SS output, seemed as if the SS lacked something the tube section brought to the table.

Sennheiser HD650 w/ RAL recable - sounded a little too dark at first esp. when you switch from the D5000 to this but I gave it more time and I found a certain chemistry/fondness for it. Non-abrasive highs and deep bass really floated my boat. I liked the non-fatiguing nature of this can.

Grado HP-1 - I just got this in earlier this week, together w/ my Melos SHA-1. The most detailed can I've owned, beating the K701 I just sold off. Came w/ bowls and this seemed to cause the bass to be a little lacking and I found this can to be fatiguing at times (it has tipped up upper mids/"lower" treble range), especially when I try to "rock out" w/ them. As time went by though, the Melos probably settled down and it's getting a lot better. Awesome w/ Eric Clapton, Bob Marley and other tunes that had background singers. On one song that the title escapes me at the moment, I could distinctly tell that there were 2 different women backup singers, one to the left, one to the right and one was definitely farther from me than the other one. It was really cool to experience this. Hopefully flat pads make this can shine better and tame the higher frequencies.

I had a blast during this meet, it was really cool to meet some fellow FL head-fiers. There was a very good variety of gear to try out but I gotta admit, HiFlight's exotic Sony headphones and his various amps impressed me a lot. Everyone was really nice, especially to a noob like me w/ all my stupid inquiries Thanks again Nick for putting this meet together, hopefully we can do it again sometime soon!

[mrarroyo]

Glad to see so many pics and impressions. Now if Nick20 and HiFlight would post we would have all the participants input.

Raffy, the Monarchy NM24's SS output can be improved via a coupling transformer sold by Mr. Poon of Monarchy Audio. The price is $200 and it is made to order, I have considered getting but Mr. Poon told me that in his opinion the Tube DAC output sounds better than the SS DAC output w/ the coupling transformer. I realize it is just his opinion but if the seller is willing not to make a profit that speaks volumes of his business practices.

The observation or Ron (HiFlight) as a mad scientist is both funny and accurate. When you see him in action you realize how much he enjoys the search and the final find of the better sounding op-amp.

FYI, I sent Ron an email trying to talk him into a follow up mini-meet around Fort Myers. This because both of us should be getting the new Head-Direct Hybrid Headphone Amp shortly, thus we could have some additional gear to test. So if you all want to do a quick follow up send a PM to Ron to see if we can convince him of doing the mini-meet during the upcoming long weekend.

[jpelg]

Nice looking meet!

Any impressions on those wide-open Sony's (PFR-V1 and the MDR-F1)?

[vcoheda]

Originally Posted by raffy

Grado HP-1 - I just got this in earlier this week, together w/ my Melos SHA-1. The most detailed can I've owned, beating the K701 I just sold off. Came w/ bowls and this seemed to cause the bass to be a little lacking and I found this can to be fatiguing at times (it has tipped up upper mids/"lower" treble range), especially when I try to "rock out" w/ them.

bowls on the HP1.

[mrarroyo]

Originally Posted by jpelg

Nice looking meet!

Any impressions on those wide-open Sony's (PFR-V1 and the MDR-F1)?

Jimmy, the Sony MDR-F1 has got to be one of the best kept secrets in the headroom world! First, is like you have nothing on, very confortable. The way the music is presented is reminiscent of speakers (at least to me). This because it is so airy and non-point source.

This comes w/ a price, to be used in a very quiet environment. Basically when you are home along. Recently the price of the F1 has gone up to a tad under $300 vs under $200 a year ago. I guess it has to do w/ the weak dollar.

The Sony PFR-V1 are also a very airy and light. However it takes some time for you to find the optimal fit. I am goofy looking enough so I decided to pass, but Ron (HiFlight) and others who tried liked them a lot.