Not another Florida thread! Ft. Lauderdale Dec 5th, 09 - Page 3

Alex was always good to see you man....im sure we will be seeing each other again in florida mini meets. You Grado collection made my pants suddenly very tight. Not to mention the LUXMAN....ohh hawtness....

Voltron, like wise it was a pleasure to meet you too again! Great hospitality you showed Alejandro & I, thanks also for letting me get to know the great portable amp you got from Todd (TTVJ). I really enjoyed listening to it and btw great pictures you posted. I look forward to seeing the crew again in the future and thanks again everyone!

Form 1 -- FOR THE ATTENDEE TO FILL OUT FEEDBACK ABOUT THE HOST AND THEN GIVE TO THE HOST

Head-Fi member: Tyrion - The Host

1) SATISFACTION

a) On a scale of 1 being worst and 10 being best, how would you rate this entire meet from start to finish? 11

b) Would you do business with HOST again in the future? Who wouldn't?

2) GEAR IMPRESSIONS

b) ATTENDEE must describe his or her mood and state of sobriety at the time of listening. I think I was sober while listening, but I sure wasn't afterwards.

c) ATTENDEE may then give their honest thoughts on the quality of said gear. If the HOST can prove that your praise is a result of 'SHILLING', you may be flogged at a future meet.

JH13: Everyone needs to buy a JH13. They are the ultimate in meet noise-countering. Stick 'em on and meet noise becomes a non-issue, and given how good they are, you can use them to monitor anything! I monitored the Woo WA22 and Luxman P1. Both of them sounded great with the JH13. Though they also picked up some low-level machine hum on the WA22.

Luxman P1: This amp was sweet-sounding with the Grado HP1000, Senn HD800 (even if I don't like the HD800 that much), and even the JH13. It drove them all well. I was impressed. I hope the P-1u sounds just as good even though it has less output power - would be a great amp if it does.

Pico Slim: I'm an unabashed shill for HeadAmp so I thought it'd be best if I didn't listen to the Slim. And who cares about sound anyway? The Slim is an amazing-looking thing. It had sexay written all over it. It's impossibly SLIM and the form factor is OMG awesome. Everyone needs to buy one. I don't like the polished aluminum though. Would be far better with brushed aluminum, amirite?

Senn HD800, yet again: I picked up 1117's set, this one re-cabled with Crystal Cable. While it didn't turn me into an HD800 convert, it sounded quite a bit better than previous HD800s I've heard - though I can't say if it was the re-cable, the amp (the Luxman P-1), or the source (Exemplar 2900). I also tried it out with a Crystal Cable XLR re-cable on the Woo WA22 and it was just as good there, though in a different way of course. Neither setup really blew me away but I did start to better appreciate the HD800's virtues on these two setups - good clarity throughout with good separation. The artificially large soundstage still bothered me though, as did the lack of high treble & low bass quantity. Its portrayal of metal (specifically Epica, Kamelot, & Megadeth) wasn't very engaging either. (Oh yeah, I listen to metal now. I recently became a convert.)

Woo WA22 w/ 7236 power tubes: It's official. This amp rocks. No wait, I mean it RAWKS. I busted out my AT AD2000 to check this amp out on my setup (Ayre QB-9 using the balanced output) and it more than rose to the occasion. It blew my mind. I turned up the volume to deafening levels (who cares about your hearing these days?) to check out the aforementioned metal music, along with some Iron Maiden, Nine Inch Nails, The Prodigy, and The Crystal Method in there too. All that music just about took my head off, I loved it. I love the AD2K and I love the amp. Everyone should buy a WA22 too.

Zu Essence: These speakers were cool. A bunch of us listened to them and they rocked out plain and simple. I can't say anything about the bass or treble though since I didn't get a chance to listen to my reference music other than 1 classical CD, but they did a really good job on the classical CD (Julia Fischer's Bach Concertos). For the price they're probably really good - I don't have much experience with speakers, so I'm guessing. They sounded better than most of the speakers I heard at this year's RMAF. If approx $3K is in your budget, buy 'em! I can't think of a good reason not to buy them! (Even though I personally wouldn't. I seem to have a strange obsession with Monitor Audio for some unknown reason and I'm eyeing their Gold Series speakers.)

So go already! Your membership in the Travel Team was discussed and you are officially on Probation. It was supposed to be Double Secret Probation, but I just felt like telling you. Go. To. Meets!

It was nice seeing everyone again, however briefly.

The highlight for me was my chat about music and life and such with Rob from Zu, as well as listening to the fine system they had set up in a not so fine listening environment. It seemed pretty neutral in terms of tone, with nothing over or under emphasized, yet it still imparted a certain energy in very familiar music (Steely Dan, mostly) that made for a great listening session.

I could hear all sorts of potential, but for some reason couldn't get the room limitations out of my mind. Maybe I needed a couple of beers or something, or just more time with them to better identify what I liked most about them. One thought that kept running through my mind was that these speakers shouldn't necessarily be limited to use as near field monitors in a small room environment. They seemed full range to me.

I've always been intrigued by the Zu brand from the days the Druids came out and had such widespread praise at Audiogon and Audio Asylum. I mean, what a concept: produce extremely efficient and reasonably priced speakers that sound amazing and can be driven by anything! I'm thankful to have finally had a chance to give them a quick listen and meet a couple of the people from the company.

I wish I could have spent more time at the meet (and the before and after parties), but there were logistical problems in finding a place to park my rig and I didn't quite have the courage to try to pull it into the hotel parking lot. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten in, but am 100% convinced that there was no way in hell I'd ever get out! That stupid cement plaza in the entrance area has just gotta go! Oh well, it was still fun while it lasted.

I had done a long drive to get there (900+ miles from Virginia), and then decided mid-afternoon on Friday (while still driving) to opt for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert on Friday night. Long story, but I wanted to take a couple of good friends (who just got engaged) to the show. It was a good time, but my guess is that 80% of the music was piped in and that 99% of the audience had no clue that it wasn't 100% live. I guess if you would like to see an extremely well orchestrated laser light show along with all sorts of jumping/running around air guitar battles (and even air violins) that come through giant speakers with note perfect, pitch perfect brilliance each and every note for 3 hours, then I'd recommend it highly. You'll just need to suspend your sense of reality a bit.

Oh ya, headphones. I didn't listen to much but did get a chance to A/B two pairs of HD800, one stock and one Picadillo'ed (I know, wrong word, but whatever). There was definitely an improvement in sound with the after market cable. I'd say about $200 to $300 worth of improvement, unless I was missing something.

About the HE-5. One of those pairs was mine, and it had exactly 46 minutes of break-in time. I've listened to all of one CD with them. So if that was the pair you were listening to, and if break in is even remotely important for these headphones, then you didn't hear them at their best. Can't speak for Colin's pair, and unfortunately, I didn't think to compare my pair to his to see if there were noticeable differences.

As soon as Telica finds a real job, all with be well again. For now, I have to go to the meets vicariously through all of your eyes (and ears).

However, we did, in fact, exhaust all of my companies frequent flier miles, and we have had our plane tickets secured to CanJam '10 two month's ago.

Probation is better than Parole.

With all the people that showed up, I'm amazed there are not more members here Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio - South Florida Team

Ok, I bit. The "team" thing has always seemed a tad nerdish, but then again, I fit that description rather nicely myself, so I joined and now encourage others to do so as well. It just takes a couple of clicks, and really, nobody will make fun of you...

Ok, you are right it’s a geeky name, let's change it, how about “South FL Locals Only” I know that area of the forums is rarely used, but if all the locals did show up there, it might give an avenue to seek out others with similar interests in our areas.

Edit: Just checked and I have the power to edit there a lot, but not the name :/

I just joined.

Nah, I was just giving you a hard time. Forget all of my joking, and just know that I signed up and am encouraging others to do so as well.

There's also North Florida as well.

Wayne, it was your HE-5s I was walking around with, so my all impressions were with those. I didn't listen to any other HE-5 there.

i like this one.