Hey Suntory, I'm not sure I even met you on Saturday. Mind you, I don't know what you look like so I may have. You should have come with a bottle of your namesake! There were a few people I didn't meet and/or talk to. I guess I'll have to make more of an effort at the next meet.
I had a look at the photos I took, but I don't have any really good ones from the meet. Maybe someone else can post theirs? As far as impressions go, I really didn't end up listening to as much as I was hoping to. I guess the main thing that really impressed me was the Pico. Man, that little DAC/amp is absolutely stunning, both in it's visual presentation, and the music that it makes. I was particularly taken with how lush the midrange was... puts my Alien/M^3 combo to shame! I know where I'll be investing my money if I ever want to upgrade my portable solution.
Mmm, speaking of portables. The Yuin PK1 were also quite amazing. I can't say I've ever really expected much in the way of performance from earbuds, probably because I only owned cheap pairs during the 90s. But, when I heard these guys I was mightily impressed. I didn't really give them a hard time, but from the short listen I had, they seemed to have a nicely integrated frequency response that would be more than adequate for portable use -- it really felt like I was listening to something with bigger drivers!
Although we ran out of time, I did manage to spend a whole 30 seconds listening to the Darkvoice amp. This is the second meet that I've had the chance to hear one of these but just haven't had the time. Anyway, my initial impression wasn't too favourable when being fed from the SA-11 and driving my HD650s... there was way too much valve bloom happening. I think this was after the stock valves were swapped back in tho, so maybe next time I'll get to hear it once it's had a little fettling.
Hey Minivan, I never got a chance to discuss the K1000s with you, but I'm sure you had a session with them... what did you think? And James, what did you think of the presentation of that Storm DAC (the audio, not the casework!)?
