Nice news guys, next meet will be even better!
Impressions
First and foremost, I'd like to say that it was a joy to meet new headphone enthusiasms. Even though we didn't have any specified rules, most of the time, the gear was handled with care and nothing bad happened to our stuff.
So far so good, here's the multiple setups I listened to :
Random laptop > SilverStone EB01 USB DAC > Cavalli CTH DIY amp > AKG K601
This was one of my favorite setup of the whole meet, mainly because of its SQ/$ ratio, that's around a $400 setup (Laptop not included) and it really impressed me. It goes to show that the DIY stuff is where's it's at as far as amp goes.
John's original setup with the 12BH7 in the amp was quite good at capturing the mids and adding a bit of lushness to the overall sound. The Dac was decent enough to extract some background artifacts but frankly the soundstage was a bit blurry and the low deep bass was lacking but it makes up for that by delivering a fair amount of texture.
I enjoyed his K601 for a short period of time, enough to find the pros & cons. The soundstage was quite narrow but gave nice intimacy to the performers, bass was nicely taunt but lacking in tightness, the midrange is their best feature by far, not really neutral but sweet enough to be quite enjoyable, the treble isn't really shining here which helps when having a long term listening session.
Overall a more pleasing pair of headphones than the K701 in my opinion.
(More to come!)
Impressions
First and foremost, I'd like to say that it was a joy to meet new headphone enthusiasms. Even though we didn't have any specified rules, most of the time, the gear was handled with care and nothing bad happened to our stuff.
So far so good, here's the multiple setups I listened to :
Random laptop > SilverStone EB01 USB DAC > Cavalli CTH DIY amp > AKG K601
This was one of my favorite setup of the whole meet, mainly because of its SQ/$ ratio, that's around a $400 setup (Laptop not included) and it really impressed me. It goes to show that the DIY stuff is where's it's at as far as amp goes.
John's original setup with the 12BH7 in the amp was quite good at capturing the mids and adding a bit of lushness to the overall sound. The Dac was decent enough to extract some background artifacts but frankly the soundstage was a bit blurry and the low deep bass was lacking but it makes up for that by delivering a fair amount of texture.
I enjoyed his K601 for a short period of time, enough to find the pros & cons. The soundstage was quite narrow but gave nice intimacy to the performers, bass was nicely taunt but lacking in tightness, the midrange is their best feature by far, not really neutral but sweet enough to be quite enjoyable, the treble isn't really shining here which helps when having a long term listening session.
Overall a more pleasing pair of headphones than the K701 in my opinion.
(More to come!)
