Added link to the Detroit Mini-Meet 2009 photos to the first post.

I'll add my impressions later today.

Excellent pics, looks like a super meet! Cheers for posting!

Wow those pics are pure ****. Niiice.

I spy a TTVJ FET-A. Any impressions on this amp?

anyone else notice a certain pair of Shure boxes in this photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-jud...7617077976346/

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I believe those are the boxes of the Shure full-sized headphones.

Oh , I thought that we weren't supposed to talk about those!

The SRH440 for $99 is right in the area to compete with the D1000/1 and the ES7.
I thought that the two top sets sounded like monitors to me and the SRH440 laked some extention in the nether region. Not presense, just the ability to hear those very lowest notes. Detail was better than what you would expect given the retail price. Given the fact that they look a little less bulky on the head than do Ultrasones, it could make a very nice portable headphone. They use miniplugs natively anyway and were pretty easy to drive IMO. It is a coiled, single sided cable that is ~5ft. in length. If these are any indication of price, the SRH440 will be comming in actually a bit cheaper than I expected as I predicted $150.

The top one was nice too and right in the price range I think that we were talking at right around $200-$250. The SRH840 does sound quite a bit like the se530 *from memory* and it is point that thread and I both somewhat agreed upon, although I thought it was more balanced. While the SRH840 was the most comfortable of the series, it is also bulkier and therefore IMO less portable. It was more detailed than the SRH440 and did not have the lack of extension.

Jude is right, these are built like tanks and even use METAL in the construction. Despite this, they weren't all that heavy. They were a bit lighter than the Ed. 9's that were there.


BTW: Jude, if you ever want to get rid of those K340's.......

It was a special meet for me. Actually I would call it a Super mini-meet. We had display of big gears like Ray's new A-10, B-52, Apache, Dark Voice, Luxman, HE 90, HE 60, HD 800, R10 (balanced), HD 600 (balanced w/military spec), HD 650, Denon D5000, GS1000 etc. I was longing to hear HE90 for years. Thanks to Jude and Ray, my wish was fulfilled on Saturday.


HD 800

I had listened to this phone already at Jude's place in Feb. This time I spent approximately 30 minutes listening to only HD 800. I was overwhelmed when I played Patricia Barber with it. It sinks me into the music everytime I listen. Being a Classical /Jazz listener, my auditions were based on only my music tastes. I haven't tried HD 800 with any other genre of music. I'm very sure any Classical/Jazz person would certainly love this headphone. HD 800 is the best of its kind.


R-10

I had my WOW moment when I listened to R-10 (balanced) w/ B-52. What a wonderful headphone it is !! Sad it's not in production anymore I really really love this headphone. Without having B-52 and balanced in first place I don't think it will sound this good. I played only Jazz with this setup. I should have played some classical pieces and also should have done A/B listening of HD 800 Vs R-10. I missed a wonderful opportunity.


HE 90 & HE 60

To my surprise I was not floored by HE 90's sound. Please don't flame me. May be I dreamed too much about HE 90. It's great headphone, it doing everything right. It reminds me of an unveiled HD 650 to some extent. A-10 does superb job driving this monster. I somehow like a dynamic phone rather stats. I was showing more interest to listen to R-10 and HD 800 all the time during the meet.


CARAT-TOPAZ DAC/AMP

Jude gave his HD 650 (Silver Dragon recabled) for me to listen for a while. I played Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #3 from his iTunes and there was a noticeable difference in sound. I do have my own HD 650 but it never sounded full like this. Two things could have attributed this difference in sound 1) Carat-Topaz and/or 2) Silver Dragon cable. I don't know which one it is.

Carat-Topaz is a portable DAC + Amp made in Korea. It has a universal power supply, accepts USB as well as Optical input. It also has RCA audio output and 1/4 headphone out. It so compact and looks nice. Great space saver. It's DAC supports 24-bit signal. It drives HD 650 with so much ease. I'm planning to order one for me.

Germania,

Are you suggesting Meanwell PSU for Style Audio's Carat-Topaz?


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Jude, your slide show is really amazing!

Great reading the impressions. Sounds like a great time!

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You didn't mention the HE 60

I felt the same way about the HE90. I think it's the best headphone from a technical standpoint. I actually put it on the top tier all by itself, but I also know exactly what you mean by the HD650 type of sound and the stat sound as well. That's what led me to prefer the K-1000. You are not alone. But it's a monster in what it can do right - there's no doubt about that.

Yeah, it is also a switching, but with probably much better tolerances and it has worldwide voltage acceptance. You could run this PSU anywhere in the world. It would probably be easier for mass production and the MeanWell PSU's are pretty well regarded.

Who knows, it might make a difference?

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I spent much of the day listening to the FET-A (that's it sitting on top of the tower of Wadia 830's, next to the iTransport). I have to tell you that it's a damn fine amp.

I used a variety of cans with the FET-A, including my own Denon D5000 markl modded cans, Sennheiser HD600's and HD 800's, and the new Shure SRH840's. I found it to be both resolving and warm, with a distinctly detailed bass signature and gobs of fine detail and soundstaging.

When I started out using it, Jude said two things about it:

1) It needs to "warm up" for a few minutes, and

2) It is good with lower impedance, but great with higher impedence cans.

I'd have to agree with both of these things.

It DID take a few minutes to really warm up and open up. It's a class A amp, which means it's going to throw some heat when it's in operation. It did run warm - though never hot - to the touch. Once it had warmed up for a few minutes, I noticed that it did open up substantially.

I spent most of my time listening to my own HD 600's and modded Denon D5000's, and thought that it did a very nice job with both. The Denon's have an interesting sonic signature, and I find that they don't behave so much like lower impedence cans as some others I'd had (e.g. Grado's) with most amps. I liked them a lot with this amp. Maybe it was because it had sufficient headroom to power them correctly...dunno. It also made the HD600's sing nicely. I've always felt like these cans need a LOT of juice to really sound great. In fact, I think that's why I like them so much in balanced configuration, but not so much unbalanced. I've heard it said that there's nothing that one can't do balanced that can't be done single-ended if one has sufficient power. The TTVJ FET-A, and some other amps I've heard recently (like the Luxman P-1) have convinced me that's mostly the case (though there's something that I sure do like about balanced termination regardless).

Then I had a chance to listen to the HD800's...and the FET-A handled them very well indeed. I did notice that I had to crank the volume up substantially, though never so high as the 12:00 position. For anyone who is concerned about the cost of matching these admittedly pricey cans with a sufficiently powerful amp, the FET-A handled them very nicely indeed.

Oh, and I listened with my AKG K240 sextets - they've never sounded better.

I also spent some time with the new Shure SRH 840's. I thought it did a nice job with them, but not so much as with other cans. It presented similarly as Grados do when there's an impedance mismatch - a little on the bright side - though nothing that I couldn't live with. I didn't find the same signature when I subsequently plugged them into the RSA Apache. So if all you listen to is lower impedance cans, it's worth giving the FET-A an extra close listen. Not a deal breaker for me, but worth noting.

The only other wish I would have is that Todd would offer some kind of upgraded casing. The casing is nice enough, but is frankly not up to the standards of RSA or HeadAmp in terms of finish and overall appearance.

In summary, it's a very nice amp. An excellent value IMHO.

Great meet !

Thanks for the pics and impressions

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I listened to HE60 only for about 5 minutes. It has more similarity to HE 90 but HE 90 is way more refined. We were A/B/C (?)' ing HE90 Vs HE60 Vs HD800 at one point. I liked HE60 then. But the HE 60 we had in the meet was modded by Ray Samuels. He actually put the driver side out and still it sounds nice.