Orange County Meet Impressions: 1/30/2010

ESL 57s?

wow!

awesome gear.

Looks like that was an awesome meet! Thanks for the pics and impressions.

I just would like to thank Shaizada and his family for being wonderful hosts. The snacks were first rate.
Such a wonderful time. Such great vibes. Something I will never forget. It was so cool to hear the Sony R-10s.
So many interesting rigs to hear.

This was my second Head-fi meet. I may be now getting old and jaded after just one year in Head-Fi and only two meets. I have very little interest in hearing new equipment (except the Sony R 10s}, buying any equipment or even finding out anything new. I know my rig does not sound the best, could maybe sound better, but at this point I'm happy with it's high and low points.

So why would I attend such an event? I guess it's fun to meet people who are into the same stuff as me. The silly part is we had a number of photographers at the meet and had some pretty cool off subject talks about photography. So imagine if the next meet had pens, watches, headphones, cameras and a cooking class? I know it is crazy enough with just headphone amps. Heck, this meet had one big dog and two even bigger HI/FI set-ups. Really though, what more could you ask for? Dancing girls? OK, yes maybe dancing girls! No we didn't have dancing girls. But I could not make it to dinner with everyone so who knows maybe they had dancing girls with dinner?

All fun aside, there was a huge choice of cool rigs. I had never teamed up my Woo Audio standard build 3 headphone amplifier with Sennheiser HD650 headphones and it sounded great. I know it is standard understanding that the HD650s go with the Woo 3 but I just had never heard the combo. I had never heard the Woo 3 sound that good. Somehow the HD 800s did not get enough juice out of the Woo 3 to make them perform. Everytime I get a chance I demo the HD800s with my WooAudio 5LE rig on the chance that someday I will like them as much as my fellow Head-Fi friends. I am still waiting.

Ray Samuals Protector portable headphone amp proved once and for all that size doesn't matter. I am getting a lot of sound out of a Nuforce, but Rays Protector has such a big sound that it had me looking for some extra device that may be out of sight. I could not fathom how that much sound could come out of a little square 1/4 the size of a pack of cigs.

This time the Staxs table arrived again looking even more so like a museum of the history of that company product output. These units are all connected to one really cool Moon CD player so you can go round from set to set right in the middle of the song and do a kind of A/B-A/B or would that be A/B/C/D/E, anyway we have a wealth of stuff to test. The Stax sound is so polite and perfect, I see how people hold them in such high regard.


We also were able to hear a Quad electrostat speaker set-up that had a close sound signature to the Stax. Funny how their owner was one and the same! That is the great part of headfi, everyone has their own little perfered sound signature which is to their taste. No one is wrong, everybody is right{ well maybe part right?} and a big number are getting pointers for what they will purchase or will not purchase in the future.


Shaizada's Killer VPI virtural live entertainment time machine rig was the end of the road where there is very little left to want after hearing vinyl or digital! Somehow that set-up makes a memory for me everytime I hear it. How many times do you walk away with a quality life experience everytime you start up your rig? That is our goal right? After the time, money, research and luck he put into that project, he seems to be someone who has earned the right to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labor. Shaizada has reached a special place in his goal of perfect sound, and who better to hold such an event?

wow. dang, missed the whole thing, again. though I was close! (well, dumb story - earlier in the day I fell off a sailboat and got soaked, then sailed on for a couple hours, and did not feel like going out again after I got home) - thanks for the gorgeous pix!

I apologize to those who listened to my K1000/Stingray/Peachtree Nova rig as I had accidentally reversed the left speaker wires on the amp resulting in a very messy/unfocused/terrible sound. And I thank Don for spotting my mistake.

Just got home from this wonderful meet. What can I say? Head-fi'ers continue to be among the best and friendliest people one could ever hope to meet! Before I post anything else, I would like to thank Shaizada and his family for being wonderful hosts. The snacks and hospitality were first rate indeed!

I have been to many meets, including two national meets. I now go to meets in order to talk and share rather than expect to be impressed by anything new. That changed a bit today with two things.

1. The Quad ESL57 electrostats were phenomenal. Almost everything I threw at them sounded damn near perfect. I can only imagine how great they could sound in a treated room with a matched sub. I was so impressed with these that I will be looking to find a pair...hopefully for cheap.

2. The Protector. I don't need a Protector. I certainly don't want one. I want TWO! One to drive my HD-600's and one to keep for a portable rig. I didn't have time to listen to The Protector through my UE-10's but it sounded phenomenal through a pair of balanced HD-600's. I played some tricky demo material and The Protector was nothing short of amazing with the HD-600's. I didn't like it that much with the HD-800's due to lack of bass but I think that mostly has to do with the HD-800's. The HD-800's were underwhelming to me with The Protector. The solution was simply to switch back to the HD-600's. If you own HD600's, stay away from this little amp as it will be tempting you with a purchase. I trust my ears and my ears tell me that this combination is a real winner. Seriously people...listen to it if you get a chance.

Jasper994 got a chance to really dig in and listen to The Protector with his myriad of IEM's so any of those IEM questions should be directed towards him.

Dinner with the crowd was fun as ever and the banter was a good as the waitresses or that girl who was pretty in pink outside of BJ's.

Thanks to all those who showed up! It was blast hanging out with you guys!

I don't know what the heck you said in your post. The bolded part was all I was able to understand.

LOL!!!!

Weren't you the one who hated the Protector's volume knob?

*inside joke*

Wow! All that electrostatic gear in one place.
Sure hope you all made the most out of it!

Thanks again shaizada for being such a great host and inviting us into your home. I think we're all jealous of your man cave. One day I'll get my room treated to take the Quads to the next level.

I really didn't listen to much of anything at this meet. I spent almost the whole time talking to people (mostly about electrostats, vinyl, or music) and didn't feel like listening to gear. Outside of my own rigs, I listened for a bit with 3 setups:

That little Chinese square amp -> ATH-M50: I didn't think I'd like this headphone since I usually don't like closed headphones, but it sounded surprisingly good! It was a tiny bit muddy, but not as bad as many closed headphones on the market. Bass extension was nice, there was a bit of bass emphasis, treble extension was below average, and imaging was nice. Midrange tonality was also nice, somewhat similar to the AKG K240DF. Good deal for the money IMO.

RSA A10 -> HE90: I didn't care for the HE90 at CanJam (out of the A10 and ES2) and wanted to see if my opinion on it changed this time around. It didn't. It's not a bad headphone by any means, I just don't particularly care for the sound signature. The Jade and HE90 sound pretty similar to me, and I think they might be overly smooth. I was trying to figure out what I didn't like about the HE90 while listening but couldn't quite put my finger on it.

DNA 2a3 amp -> K1000: This sounded really nice. I have the K1000 and run it out of a cheapo Chinese speaker amp and don't really like it, but this was a huge improvement. The sound isn't nearly as thin and the highs are much much better. I'm not sure whether I liked the K1000 more out of this amp or mike1127's Audio Note Kit amp from the last meet. Both are high end for sure though. I tried for a while to tell the difference between the balanced and SE output with the toggle switch, but couldn't say anything definitively. I would probably have to sit down in a quiet room and rewind a lot to tell.

I want to also thank Donald North for helping me get the Quad rig running. I made an unbelievably stupid mistake that caused all the trouble with getting the Bedini to play nice. I spent most of my listening time listening to the Quads outside of the sweet spot and thought they sounded pretty darn nice just plopped down in the room like that. We had to adjust the speaker positioning a little bit but the end result was nice. They only get better too (little more space from back wall, little more space btwn speakers and listener, stands, room treatment, etc).

Dinner was fun as always and we had some good laughs. Hopefully BJ will post soon. I had a lot of fun seeing familiar faces and meeting new people. You guys are all very nice. Really great meet.

Milos

edit: Luis, I can definitely help you look for a local pair. I'm on the various gear selling sites a lot and often do searches for Quads just out of curiosity and because it's fun.

With the vinyl spinning, does anyone know if the Nighthawk phono preamp made the trip with Ray and if so did you had a chance to compare it with the Einstein phono preamp?