Seattle Summer Meet - July 26 Impressions

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First off thanks to the organizers of the meet, Dan Lavry for his presentation and use of his dacs, and everybody that brought there equipment and knowledge. The presentation by Mr lavry was very informative. He was talking about if properly implemented how analog and digital should sound the same. In the presentation he broke down how a digital signal is produced and converted into a analog signal and the benefits of oversampling and the downfalls of upsampling to high due to the greater chance of error the faster the sampling rate is. Thank you Optional for the use of your compass so I could test out my laptop output.I was surprised when I found that the tube amps (wa6sa and darkvoice) did a good job at driving my d7000 better than some of the ss amps. The compass did a good job too which helped bring out the bass on my d7000. I was able to try a sacd player but the gilmor lite wasnt strong enough to drive my d7000 so I wasnt able to tell the benifits of sacd vs cd. I didnt get to try to much else since I showed up late and the presentation started a hour after that. Other than that, the room was perfect sized and fairly quit from any other noise except the noise within the room. Nice meet. When is the next one? I didnt get a chance to ask Papa about that.

The next one will be at Resolution Audio on either September or October.

I agree with Mike. HD800 is technically great, but it doesn't have things can make my body move. With my setup - WA6SE it sounds thin and somehow lifeless - no body, no richness or smoothness or whatever it 's called. It might be good for calsical since its sound stage is really great - the only one point I like about HD800.

This was my first meet, and it was really great! I enjoyed listening to everyone's rigs and meeting all of of you. Here's a couple short impressions:

HD800: Wow! I really wasn't expecting to like these very much, but they ended up being my favorites. The soundstage was absolutely massive, and the separation between the instruments was superb. I thought that I would think they were boring, because I love the punchy/forward sound of Grados, but to me they were anything but. The mids sounded incredibly natural and effortless, the highs were excellent, and the bass was deep and defined. The only thing that could really make these better in my opinion is if the bass had more punch. It's definitely present, but it really isn't enough to get your feet tapping and your head bobbing. Still, the soundstage and mids more than make up for these small problems.

L3000: These were easily my second favorites. The first thing you notice when listening to them(besides how comfy they are) is the massive bass. It's punchy, full, deep, and doesn't at all get in the way of the treble. Definitely the best bass that I've ever heard in a headphone! A lot of closed headphones tend to have relatively honky mids, but not these. The mids were extremely smooth, and were a joy to hear. These are super fun 'phones! I think that they're very well suited for rock and metal, and pretty much any genre that benefits from a forward and involving sound. The only problem that I had with these is that they're closed, and although they're the best closed headphones I've ever heard by far, they still sound like a closed headphone. I prefer the airiness of open headphones, but that's just personal preference and really isn't the fault of the L3000. I think my dream would be to own both a set of these and an HD800, as they both do different things very well and seem to compliment each other.

I'll try to get more impressions up later. I can't wait until the next meet!

Sorry for the double post - is anyone planning on posting some pictures? I think I saw you taking some Wittyz .

Yes we need pictures!

x2. Especially since the HD800 made Bruce Springsteen sound so much like Bob Dylan.

In all seriousness however, I felt the amount of detail and accuracy of presentation almost overwhelmed the music itself. It's definitely not the best way to spend $1500.

I have lurked for quite a while on head-fi, and I now own a modded x-fi card with a pair of AD900s. This was my first meet and more importantly, the first time trying really high end stuff like the RS1, Phonitor, etc. I'm a college student now and is too poor to even try equipment, so the meet was really eye (life savings) opening in a lot of ways.

Anyways, a few thoughts:

• The Compass really is the best deal in its price range. Extremely good for its price, and performed very well with all the phones that I tried it with. I wish I had jumped on the hype when it was cheaper.
• The Apogee Duet really surprised me with its performance, especially sitting next to the high end Corda. It's really too bad I don't have a mac. That would have been a great solution.
• The SR325 deserves less flack about its highs. My impression with it was a very positive one.
• L3000 paired with its own amp was my favorite setup of the whole meet. It performed outstandingly with every song I listened to. The L3000 even did well with classical music. I was surprised by the separation of instrument that I heard ("I can't believe it's not open!"). With every other genre, I felt that the bass was heavy, but never overwhelming. Regardless, the sheer quality of of the bass was just astonishing. The soundstage was a little small, but it did little to subtract from just how fun the headphone sounded. The presentation was so in your face good. I listen to a lot of genres, so its important to me that a headphone is well rounded, and the L3000 was all that and more.
• The Gilmore Lite is really small, but in no way sounded small.
• Larry's talk was incredibly interesting. It's good to see someone with such an uncompromising attitude towards his work.
• The Woo 6 amp was very very good with Grados, and easily one of the best tube amps I've ever heard.

Thanks to everyone for bringing their setups! I enjoyed meeting everyone and trying out their equipment. Can't wait for the next one. Hopefully I'll have something worthwhile to contribute then.

He he
I had just finished listening to the HD800 so my audition disc was still in the player. Two of the tracks I have on my audition disc are from Bruce Springsteens Seeger Sessions CD. I find them to be good acoustic tracks to try on various headphones. They were also the tracks on my CD that I feel best demonstrated the HD800. I figured I'd give you a taste of something that made the HD800 sound alive and really good rather than a rock track that didn't demo the HD800 so well. Just be thankful I didn't put it on "Rock You Like A Hurricane" for your first taste of an HD800.

It was a treat to get a listen to the HD800. Now I know what it sounds like to my ears so I have a base of reference for other peoples comparisons.

Sounds nice!
Some pictures might help sharing the joy though...

I definitely agree with that.

My friend took a few pictures with my camera, but they didn't really feature much gear. Here are the most illustrative:






I really liked Extreme's Lisa III setup. I remember hearing it three or so years ago and loving it for its elegant simplicity and unbelievable performance - was glad to see that it's still rockin. And the Phonitor was just gorgeous.

I have to agree with Wittyz and iamoneagain about the 800's; I found them to have almost too much separation between instruments and I found the high end to be very fatiguing.

Dan was awesome.

It's funny, but the thing I came away from the meet most desiring was an iMac. It was so nice browsing through iamoneagains iTunes on that big gorgeous screen.


oh and the location was killer. would love to have another meet here soon. would anyone be up for something more focused on music? a listening party perhaps?