Impressions
Impressions, or at least some highlights. There was too much to remember it all!
Lots and lots of tubes! My brother, who is a bit of an audiophile has a bunch of Audio Research tube gear for his speaker setup and will be jealous when I tell him about it. I'll get him to look at this thread and check out the photos too.
I listened to a pair of boomana's headphones with no model number. Plugged them into her iPod & portable amp combo and they jumped out with a surprising amount of clarity and musicality and space - distinctly more than I've heard in a headphone before. They weren't quite so good on acoustic bass (low notes seemed to be a bit quieter, and it was a bit hard to follow really fast moving bass lines but the overtones were reproduced very nicely) - but that was a challenge for just about everything I listened to (especially since I'm used to Spendor S9 speakers at home which do this very nicely). I moved over to a better source/amp and listened to a bunch of music I used to audition my speakers until I felt I was hogging the headphones. At one point boomana came over and asked how I liked them, so I asked "What are these?" Turns out that was my first experience of the impressive Sony R10's and I didn't know it at the time :-) They were also very comfortable, even wearing glasses - I find most headphones get uncomfortable after a while.
Later listened to Sony CD3000's on (IIRC) some Woo Audio gear - they had much of the same clarity/space/musicality qualities. Very nice, particularly impressive on classical music that doesn't need the real bass extension, and very comfortable to wear. I moved over to the (HE something?) electrostatics which sounded very good too on a lot of music, but seemed dark in comparison.
At one point I saw the Orpheus was free but couldn't figure out why the source didn't seem to be working :-( Reading other people's impressions I reckon even though I heard quite a variety I missed out listening to some other really good gear (I don't know what most of it looks like, for one thing). There was so much on offer it was almost overwhelming, but I learned a lot and listened to a bunch of stuff in my price range and some that wasn't for future reference ;-)
The Stax setup in the TTVJ room was pretty interesting - haven't heard them before (but then I haven't heard much beyond my old mid-range Sennheisers before). I can see why people go for them. They have that clarity and sense of space at the mid-upper end. I found the reproduction of upright bass a little light for my tastes on most models. Interestingly the 4070 (I think) had a lot more bass, but seemed to lack something in the upper end after listening to the other Stax models. Maybe a different amp/headphone combo would work for me - I reckon I'd really like a combination of the two types of sound.
Speaking of impressions, I had some ear impressions done by Todd for a pair of SuperFreqs which The Freq were generously offering at the pre-price rise level. I have situations (planes, my office) where I want some aural isolation. I've been using Sennheiser HD280 Pros which aren't bad for isolation but are a little larger than I'd like for plane use - and which become uncomfortable when worn with my glasses in an hour or so, which kind of defeats the purpose. I also find standard earplugs get really uncomfortable in a few minutes, and I'm not that keen on fiddling with different IEM tips trying to get a comfortable fit and effective seal. Looking forward to trying them out in a couple of weeks!
Smyth Research's headphones system was pretty astonishing. After calibration I would have sworn to you that the surround sound speaker setup was producing the audio unless I listened fairly closely, and even those differences might be reduced with better calibration. I doubt I'm as accomplished a critical listener as many of the other attendees, but it really worked for me - the illusion was entirely believable. I reckon it's a great achievement and hope it becomes a raging success.
I assume there are limits to how far the speaker response model can go to change the sound of headphones (EQ/DSP can only go so far to get - say - more deep bass out of headphones that don't naturally produce it before you hit distortion or power overload limits), but I'd love to try profiling my Spendor stereo setup at home with a suitable set of headphones. I quite like the sound and wouldn't mind replicating it in quieter form for use when others have gone to bed. Presuming this technology eventually gets commoditized (i.e. licensed for incorporation into every decent DAC/integrated amp on the planet and mass production brings down the price of standalone implementations), it may create a new headphone category - those that may sound ordinary on their own but can sound really good when profiled this way. This seems analagous to automatic room EQ boxes that are apparently starting to get down to ordinary consumer price levels, and that make ordinary speakers sound pretty good by calibrating and then compensating for in-room non-linear responses. Time will tell.
I listened to the two speaker setups for a few minutes. I thought the first one did very well (especially with the jazz recording they were using). Never found out what they were or what was driving them. I think I preferred them to the big Genesis 5.3 speakers (but this was on Saturday and others have reported they sounded better on Sunday, and they played a different style of music on the Genesis so direct comparison was difficult). But now I am home and listening to my fairly simple MythTV box -> optical out -> Rotel RSX-1056 -> Spendor S9 setup which I acquired for a fraction of the price (and space) of the Genesis rig and I'm pretty happy, so perhaps I'm not a really hardcore audiophile yet ;-) But maybe I could get a USB DAC into that chain instead of the optical out ... and my iPod probably needs an amp (or a better source altogether) when I'm not at home ... and depending how the SuperFreqs go I probably need some headphones for some situations or different types of music ... and ... there goes my wallet ;-)
I listened to Headroom's desktop speaker setup which was rather nice for computer audio. There were a bunch of interesting headphone/amp combinations in the room, but after trying for a while I found it too hard with the speakers going. Maybe next meet the speaker setups could be sonically separated from the headphone rigs? It's really hard to hear (say) the Stax properly when the Genesis 5.3 are pumping next door. It would even be nice to have a "quiet room" for listening to rigs - but there's so much headphile passion in the room I can't imagine the conversations being taken outside!
That's about all I can remember about gear right now. The other impression is that everyone was very friendly, the whole thing had a very positive vibe, and everyone had a lot of fun. Great event!
