NorCal 8/8/09 meet impressions - Page 5

Looks like another great NorCal meet! Look forward to more impressions.

Wht dosent anybody ever post comments about the wa 5's that I keep seeing at all these meets. Is it just average that it doesnt get any attention or is everybody trying to just try the new stuff thats out.

vcoheda,

I listened to all of them both here and in LA (including the Thunderbolt in LA) and with all the 'stats I tried, the BHSE came out on top. I still can't say it knocked my socks off with anything in particular,.. but maybe that's a good thing.

I've owned two K1000s, but have never heard them sound better than they did out of the WA5. As for single-ended with "normal" headphones, I think it sounded very good. If I was looking for an all-out assault of tube dynamic amps, I'd most likely choose the Eddie Current ZDT, although the Woo was also terrific and not far (if at all) behind. If I had a K1000 AND other single-ended headphones, this amp would be easily my #1 choice.

I wish I could be more help. If I had to choose an amp just based on what I heard yesterday, I would probably take the Woo. But there are two caveats. First, the Woo was run out of Berkeley DAC, while the BHSE I heard was being run out of a cheaper SACD Sony player. Not only does the Berkeley sound better, but the placebo/psychological effect of seeing the Berkeley/Amarra setup is hard to measure. Second, I liked the look of the Woo better, but that's completely subjective and irrelevant to sound quality.

I only heard the Omega II and the Omega I with the BHSE, while I heard those two plus the HE 1.2, the 404, and the 4070 with the WES. The Omega I sounded better with the WES. The Omega II was a wash -- both great. The 404, a headphone I don't like, sounded as good as I've ever heard it with the WES.

If I was going to with an electrostatic setup (which I've pretty much ruled out at this point because I liked the HD800 and the JH13 so much) and had unlimited money (which I don't), I would probably go with the Woo. Having said that, my favorite electrostat so far is the HE60 (well, the HE90, but that doesn't count) so I would want to see what goes well with the headphone because both sound great with the O2.

Just a quick note here. The "404" that was at my table with the WES was actually a Lambda Signature.

Thanks! I don't know why that entire Lambda line is the "404" in my head (probably because I owned the 4040 Stax setup before I owned all the other Lambdas), although the earlier Lambdas sound better. Apologies for the confusion.

Based on the posts previous to this I suspect there may have been a little confusion here. Frank brought the gorgeous multi chassis lacewood and copper with mercury vapor tubes and vintage meters amp - which drew me like a magnet as soon as I saw it. It's a beautiful piece of audio art.

I brought my single chassis lacewood faced with hammered copper powder coat chassis amp that we have unceremoniously called the Big Amp for the past 6 or 7 years (it's not nearly as nice looking as Frank's). That one is my personal rig. If it was mine you are referring to, I'm sorry if we didn't hook up with you. We had kind of a large spread wrapped around the corner and we were sitting on the other side of the tape recorder, by our "little amps". So it may have looked like we were a different group. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I think an archive search might turn up some photos of the inside that I posted a few years ago.

PB and I want to say thanks to everyone for making us feel so at home at our first meet. Unfortunately I didn't get to listen to many other setups, but there certainly was a lot of very cool gear there. Ironbut's rig was really sounding good. Those stats were doing a great job of making some minor flaws in one of our recordings sound less flawed - really speedy and clean.

Thanks in particular to JP#s - great job of organization!

Thanks for the impressions guys, looks like a fun meet.

What's the word on the very colorful collection of battery powered tube amps? Doc, is that one of your creations? If so, please post more info.

Thanks!

More pics. We had a great time as usual. I briefly tried the JH13's. Not enough time to make an accurate assessment. I wish I had tried more amps. ASR's Blue Hawaii kept it's adoring fans attention constantly. Even Justin took great interest in it. Great job JP for a great meet. I was certainly glad to be in the "cool" room.


ASR's

Blue Hawaii tubes


Cooter glow


Fallen Angel's


Eddie Current's


Cool room

More pics:


Woo Hoo


GuzziGuy's


Blessingx's

I was the lucky winner. The PPAS sounds excellent! The build quality is also great. I actually prefer this casing/design to my previous amp, the minibox-e+. Thank you again FallenAngel (I am sorry, but I cannot remember your name. You even fixed the cables on my headphones not too long, and I still forget your name. I am terrible with names...)! I am sorry I didn't talk more with you at the meet, but I was a bit embarrassed/excited from winning... I wanted ask you more about the amp. Would you mind telling me a little more about the specs on this particular build of the amp?

Thank you very much sir. I cant remember the name, but I do remember you had the awesome Grado headphones, and you worked as an animator (completely jealous and impressed). I was glad to meet so many exceptionally kind people as well.

Those were ours and I am happy to oblige - but I'm not sure about the rules here regarding discussing our products, and I don't want to take advantage of this forum if the rules don't allow my talking about it. I can discuss the product on our Bottlehead forum if it would be improper to discuss it here.

Doc, if you can't post here, please shoot me a pm with more info. I looked on your site, but didn't see anything like this. Thanks.

You know, I've been hanging around this forum since 2004 and I don't know what the rules are for members of the trade either!
But I do know that I've never seen a non-MOT censored for passing on info so here goes,

Here's a quote from a thread from the Bottlehead forum over on Audio Asylum;

"Doc and I are heading out next week to SF for the HeadFi meet there, and in the spirit of HeadFi we will be bringing the first few headphone converted Quickies out there and making them available for those who attend. Of course, this is completely unfair to those of you who can't make it, so we are graciously offering them here first. Do note that these are well designed for higher impedance/efficiency headphones (Beyerdynamic 250/600 ohm models, Senn HD580/600/650/800, etc.) It will work pretty well on lower impedance/higher efficiency headphones. What it will not do is drive K701/702's very well, nor K1000's or HD595's.

I have 10 available, and you can pretty clearly see the colors in the photos. The upper far left Quickie is silver acrylic mirror (the finished Quickie on the far right is not for sale). These will all be built out as dual purpose preamps/headphone amps, with steel enclosures beneath. I am painting these steel enclosures in a few colors such as: textured white, textured black, textured brown, hammer tone black, clear, etc.

These are priced at $200+shipping, get them quickly as the kit may not be out for quite some time! (Also, the kit will be preamp-only with the headphone conversion an aftermarket item)

Call Eileen for more details at (360) 697-1936 "

The ones we saw were pre production so there's nothing on the Bottlehead web site yet. I know that Guzziguy bought one so if you're interested, give them a call to see what's left.