After hosting the meet for nearly 12 hours yesterday, I spent the day today finishing the job of putting the house back together and hanging with my wife and kids. They are fascinated and confused by this interest in headphones, but they were very generous in allowing me so much time with13 mostly strangers into our house for the day. I have thanked them for all of us who enjoyed the time sampling gear and mostly talking a lot. Gladly, you’re not strangers any more.
My wife also enjoyed reading the comments and seeing the photos of the meet and our house, dog, etc., on the web. It looks nicer than we might think being here every day. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a fine photographer like Spektrograf framing such artistic shots with his great camera. PFKMan said at one point yesterday that he wasn’t sure if it was rude to say it but that our house looked like it should be in one of those design magazines. As I said yesterday, that was a nice compliment. Thanks PFK, and thanks for all the other kind comments. I had a blast and it was my pleasure to have you all over. Oddly, I want to do it again soon, but I am going to let somebody else take that on next. Illah has offered and I hope we take him up on it and keep this group going.
I actually went to bed for half an hour tonight, but thoughts from the meet were running through my head and simply kept me awake. I decided to turn on the MPX3 and take advantage of Rhythmdevils’ generosity in allowing me to borrow his beautiful HP2s before someone buys them from him. They sound particularly good with a nice old Tung Sol driver tube I got from ayt999 yesterday. It is the best-sounding tube I have had in the MPX3. Previously, I had thought the Ken-Rad was where it was at. I am going do some more comparisons of them when I have some time, and I need to try these W tubes ayt speaks of.
My headphone appreciation skills and listening tastes are still evolving, but the relative ease in sampling different types of gear is surely one of the more enjoyable things about the hobby and this forum. Still, as others have said, I look forward to having a more stripped down and focused meet where the sheer quantity of gear doesn’t overwhelm the senses and make me want to try everything if even for a little while. While I do not have the ears of neilvg or NeilPeart (too many Who concerts years ago?), or the depth and breadth of experience ayt999, I still wanted to post some thoughts from the all too limited listening I did yesterday:
1.ayt999’s PS1s rock my world. I don’t *think* I am a basshead or anything, but man the bottom end out of those things is killer. I think they were the most “fun” cans I experienced yesterday, as that term is used around here. ayt’s home-brew balanced recable certainly might put this pair in another category altogether, and of course they were plugged into the simply incredible SDS-XLR Mikhail made for him. Nonetheless, PS1s are high on my list of cans to own.
2.neilvg’s and ayt’s L3000s both sounded excellent to my less well-trained ears. I was surprised by the bright crispness of the presentation out of them, but I like it and thought with the right amp they could easily be the perfect AT cans by cleaning up the occasional muddiness (maybe I mean sluggishness?) and lack of top-end extension/energy. One was balanced and one was not, but I used ayt’s adapter and plugged them both into Sleestack’s former Mad Maxxed MPX3 in succession and wanted to spend a lot of time finding just the right tube compliment to make them reach their highest potential. Coming into the meet I most wanted to hear the the L3K and especially with the DHA3000. I got to do just that, but like everybody else I think there was something absent in the setup that didn’t allow the DHA to shine like I expected and had heard. I want another chance with that combo soon. neilvg, if you are serious about your IC today then will loan your set to me for a week so I can see if the Leatherhead Lounge can be made into a permanent installation?
3.utep10’s DAC1 was set up late-ish and I wanted to hear more of it. I thought that using it solely as a DAC sounded good through the EMP Anniversary but I wanted to experiment with it as the amp and also with a different external amp. Next time.
4.The balanced 650s were another revelation. I had the same impressions posted above by neilvg and Rhythm so no need for more words here. I had heard Sleestack’s pair with a balanced silver dragon cable briefly on his new SDS this last week, but didn’t really crank them up. That amp with tube rectified power supply sounded more smooth and silky but I really did not have enough time or even play the same kind of music. I also think ayt did a nice job on the cable he made for his and think Slee should see about ordering a set!? Find more of those connectors ayt, because one of these days I am going to be balanced. Seeing a post by Larry reminded me that I wanted to mention that we used ayt's cable to class up my Headphiled maple woody 600s and they sounded very cool. We also had Larry's work in the form of woodied MS1s and HP3000s. You knew Rhythmdevils was here, though, so some of your work must have been here too.
5.Blessingx had the best-sounding computer setup I have heard since hearing the Headroom Micro Stack with desktop module in SJ. He has a Scott Nixon tube dac and the SR-71 and it sounded very sweet with 650s and I think I tried it with some Beyers briefly as well. Sorry you had to leave so early but I hope we will bridge the 10 blocks separating us again soon.
6.Speaking of Beyers, somebody brought a couple of them and I checked them out with NeilPeart on neilvg’s RudiStor amp. I am so clueless on Beyers that I don’t remember what is what. I think it was the 660 that sounded just way too bright for my taste even out of a tubey kind of amp. The other one was a 250-something I think (more flat and oval shape and pads rather than the round slotted plastic cups—help me out here Leeav), and I liked those a lot more. Sounded fun and not as shouty (neilvg’s favorite diss) as the other Beyer.
7.There were lots of portable rigs to sample, from my own SM3 and Katrina SR-71 (that had good reviews all around—thanks again Tyrion and Ray), to a Go-Vibe, and a cool Porta Corda. The last was paired with an iRiver which I would like to like but the interface is for crap after years with an iPod. Prof. Anderson really should have brought his nicely constructed META amp that tipped him off as a Head-Fier when I walked into his office the other day.
8.Some great sources were here as well, from the Esoteric, to the Accuphase to my own Onix CD-1. The SACD sound out of both of the first two was stunning stuff. I don’t get to hear Pink Floyd often but The Wall and Dark Side were great. I should have pulled out some of my hybrid discs to exercise their SACD tracks a bit. I did enjoy strutting some DVD and DVD-A out of my home rig with the Arcam DV29/AV8 combo and Gallo speakers. The echo game scene of House of Flying Daggers is a stunner in 5.1 and the Ref 3s are incredibly resolving speakers, so I was happy that a bunch of head-fi nuts could appreciate sound on a larger scale.
9.OK, last but least, the HE90 and HE60. If you have gotten this far then you are a glutton for punishment and therefore a true Head-Fier. The Blue Hawaii seemed temperamental as others including its owner have stated, and it is too bad it was just a damn connector. That was unfortunate, but they still sounded great and it didn’t change the fact that both of these cans are really in another league of sound from the incredible dynamic cans in attendance. Putting on the big Daddys is like slipping into another realm. The sound was well described earlier and has been written on many other places. That electrostatic sound surrounds you and yet is seemingly not localized anywhere. Amazing thing. And the Baby Os are really so close to their pater that was intrigued. At the SJ meet I preferred the Orpheus out of the Stax amp that was there and would like to hear that again as well as the HEV70. Too bad neilvg did not have the power from Senn. Really cool cans, man. Thanks again to ayt and neilvg for bringing their precious e-stats.
OK, I think I can sleep now. Most readers are probably already asleep. Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to download these thoughts before they slipped away, and nobody has ever accused me of being too brief.
Cheers, and long live Head-Fi and the SF/Bay Area contingent.
