Seattle Meet Impressions: June 21st, 2008 - Page 2

Great!

Thanks everyone! The meet was great. I especially enjoyed trying the K701 with Little Dot amp and the DT880.

As I mentioned to a few people, I recently bought a pair of AKG K340 headphones, and they arrived in the mail yesterday. Very interesting creature - and my first step into the hi-end water. I don't have an amp as yet, and I'm wondering if anyone local has the Darkvoice 336i. I'd love to try it out, and let the owner try out the K340 of course. Thanks! -Joe

I drove in the wee hours to arrive as they were setting up for the
Naked Solstice Parade!! What a neat town!! The venue was equally
spectacular, massive tube amps pushing ribbon speakers, exotic metal cone speakers. Wow! Meetting the Seattle crowd was awesome! Thank you all for putting this together. We went out
after for dinner and .. the other highlights for me were.
Unveiling the Valve Code. Triad Audios prototype 6 tube amp. someone's head was always hooked to it. I shall post soon on my impressions as I have spent time tube rolling and enjoying the PPL
characteristics with tube influence! The George Wright amp surprised me with very good high end, not normal in my understanding of most tube amps. I wanted to hear Cream, played earlier but there was some jazz with alot of horns and no vocals when I was able to listen. It sounded mono even playing with the individual gain knobs. I would consider it a deal at the $850 SRP. Cosmo let me try out a pair of Sure IEM's with Lisa III , as many people have asked about compatibility issues. I was pleased it was the pure Lisa and I-pod sound, as it should be. 10-15% of the volume was all I used or needed. It works great. No hum, Black background. and the Shure IEM were fitted with soft form fitting material that was comfortable. I would of liked to test more gear,
Like the stuff Mike personally made, quite a range! However I needed a power nap.

before posting the pics, another suggestion for the next meet is "we should have name tag!!"

I'm so bummed I missed it (meet and nekkid solsticers )but had to look after wifey as she was feeling a little off color. I really want to make it to the next one. I have a few new and old modded toys and I want to hear more gear and chat with everyone.

OK here are my impressions of the meet: I thought it came out pretty good with a few snags. Didn't know it would get as warm as it did. I would have put fans up there. A lot of my gear got poached. MS-1's at Joshatdots table, Brad got my CD player. It was all good but my gear was in in pieces on my table. A few of the winners at the raffle were not present. The guy with the black beret and sunglasses won the Cardas Cable. He kinda looked like Skeletor from He-man. Mr Stephenson lucky S.O.B. R. Marshall won the De-Oxit survival kit. Give it a couple of days and I will probably have a second chance on the couple things that are left.
Larry (The Candy Man) at Resolution Audio (Candy Store) was just so easy to work out the details of the meet. A real pleasure to work with.
Ken at Revolution Power put the raffle to the next level. This guy can play guitar. We walked into the Guitar Emporium around the corner from the meet and he picked up an acoustic guitar and just started playing really good.
Cosmo from Streamline Audio/Video. He helped with the meet from day one. Him and his wife came down checked out the space and was down for the meet. It was nice to audition the M-transit USB DAC on Witty's Gear. I have to get one I really did like it more than my Alien DAC. And thanks again for your help.
Dave from Bop Steet. Cool dude brought a box of his favorite Albums to listen to on Curbfeelers setup. Great guy to have at a meet. Asked a lot of questions and by the end of the day he was really liking the HD650's And my Mapleshade's Music Festival CD. Really glad you came.
Brad from Triad Audio. Drivin' all night to make the meet to debut the Valve-Code. Wow, you delivered a amazing amp. And those exotic woodied Lisa's were gorgeous. Glad to hear you had a good time on your fist visit to Seattle.
Curbfeeler you lit the fire under this great meet. The ride was a little bit crazy at times, But thanks for doing it. The Wright Sound Amp was beautiful with that great Vinyl station you set up.
Iamoneagain, thanks for the stuff for the raffle. You always win something! How is your dog doing? Your set-up is so caviar to me.
Xtreme4099 you were downstairs so much I'm thinking you are defecting to Speakers??LOL I know it is half my fault.
Bhjazz thanks to listening to all my crazy ideas and complaining during the preparation for the meet. It was kinda odd you without any cool DIY amps. The UFO, The CKKIII, Man I miss them. Just a fan.
Timjo You have a cool rig with the Linn Gear.
It was cool talking to JoeSeattle about tube stuff. The next Purchase is always a good conversation.
Wittyz, man you have some really nice gear, The A-T's, the Raptor, all those power cables. It was fun to see if the if the brass footers made a difference and they did. I like my GhettoShade set-up with a cutting board as a platform. I may breakdown and get Maple.
Most of all Thanks to my wife for putting up with me getting this thing together. It was nice she came and listen to some gear and brought my avatar (son Gabe) to the meet. He is the Ruler of my universe.
A Big Thanks to everybody who helped moving the tables. That was work up and down those stairs and not touching any of the gear on the floor.
Anyway I do know I missed a few things but I will address them later. Had fun, cant wait for the next meet.

Definitely. It is the one thing we always forget!

I heard the Little Dot as well and really thought it had a nice synergy with my HD600s. (was it a little dot ii??) I'll keep that on a list of "must have another listen".


Brad, you are always welcome to show up at any of our meets. Come unannounced, we don't care! I'm happy you had a great time. Yes, we do have a decent batch of DIYers up here. Next time, you'll get to see even more of their things... Did you get a chance to listen to the Linn+Millett Max combination (it was over near Ken of Revolution Power). OMG. Anyone who is iffy about how important a source is in their chain should witness it. I had a demo CD I made for Headfest 2006 and was able to get so very close to this very familiar music. The combination seemed to have an excellent balance of low end heft without overhang, clean highs, and honest midrange. The tune "Down to the River and Pray" from the soundtrack of "O Brother, where Art Thou" was rendered with such emotion and honesty that it nearly brought me to tears. Amazing. Many thanks to TimJo for attending, talking shop, and for bringing this gear.


Smeggy, we missed you as well. You're a good man for standing by your babe! There will be more meets.


We're sorry, too. But you warned us last time! I think you've been to enough of these to know that they are all a little different from each other. Anyway, it was fun, but could have been that much more fun if you would have been there! Cheers!

Great impressions Gil, looks like I missed a doozy of a meet.

The after meet was really good. We went around the corner had a cold one waiting for our reservation. Almost lost Curbfeeler, we were across the street from the original place to have a cold one. The food at Thaiku was really good. I even had one of their elixirs. It was like a Thai Mojito with a little extra kick of some sort. Then we went to Kings Hardware to have another cold one. Eye candy gone wild, Ask Brad? For some reason I am everybody's long lost best friend. Full time Raider Fan. Not my fault. People come up to me all the time. We went to another place that had some really nice taps and I get that dreaded 911 call to come home. Brad walked me to the parking lot since I was parked next to him. Really nice guy. I really enjoyed his company. It was also very cool to hang out with Curbfeeler, Joshatdot, and K, and Xtreme4099. I F'ing had a blast at this meet. Good Stuff!!!

Wright Sound WHA-22

I have to address Remitrom's observation about mono presentation from this amp. There were a number of mono LPs in the box of discs that Dave brought to the meet. Don't know which LP he was hearing, but I have to report that the unprocessed representation of instruments in space is near holographic with this amplifier using stereo source material. Unique in my experience is the recreation of sounds in terms of height at the extreme left and right of the soundfield. It is one of its great strengths in addition to the natural reproduction of high frequencies and unlimited power. Only the Grado PS-1 needed the master volume control turned to 12 o'clock, and even then the left and right volume controls were only at 10 o'clock. I would urge Remitrom to hear these attributes for himself and would gladly help to arrange for same.

I can't believe I didn't know about this meet. I even waked by Resolution Audio and thought "it would be nice if they sold quality headphone gear." Little did I know head-fiers had taken over. Too bad for me.

Larry does sell Grado. He also has other stuff. Just have to go see him.

I listened to some of the gear there, mostly IEM's from Streamline Audio Video..and dgbiker1's Atrio M8's.

I was blown away by the Atrio M8's! The Shures were good for analytical listening, but the M8's were bass monsters. I am going to have to research them and see how they compare to other bass IEM's in the $150~$200 range.

Did I say, The People I met were the Best. Really , I showed up with The VALVE CODE, and 3 Woodie Lisa's. I snagged Big P's CD player Xtreme lent headphones, and both together found matched sets of tubes within 24 hours! granted they are easy to find 1970's TV tubes but still, with everything else to do to.. this is going beyond the call of duty, I have found that Gill the person does this as routine in his everyday Life. And who asked me to test the AC power conditioner? cource I jumped on it. I want one. PM me. you know who you are. It works great.. Phil spent hours rerouting cable to reduce AC hum to the point it is only barely audible between songs, yet a little remained, my home speaker amp is worse. Your conditioner eliminated what was left... Curb, These meets are great for preliminary impressions, however real testing takes alot of time under controlled conditions. No doubt it was a mono record I was not familiar with. Yet I personally said to you, i thinks
"i am pleasantly surprised that Both of our engineers are now getting the high & low ends of the musical spectrum yet maintaining that Tube Feel" This could indeed cause a Paradime Shift , People that have disregarded Tube systems are in for a surprise .. The ValveCode always had a head hooked to it. Yet few 1st impressions have been posted. Feedback Please! If I had my druthers I would take everybody up on their offers to test equipment, unfortunately, I am slammed.. I will get back to Seattle sometime, It is the same distance fir me as Reno is (family) with alot less bumps (mtns) in the road. And ya Gill, there is more "eye candy" in one Seattle club than all of Canyonville OR. (pop. unreliable(-We dont know how to fill out census forms and use them to start the woodstove)