Official: New York Area Meet, Nov 20, White Plains, NY - Page 3  

Part 2

Picture time - not the greatest pictures I've ever taken, but the light wasn't great and I didn't bring a shoe flash.

El Doug's LCD-2/DA11/GLite combo.

The beautiful balanced RS1s from the auction.

Ari's (Nikongod's) SEX.

Headroom Home Balanced

Scottsmrnyc approves of the Floats. (Sorry about the focus!)

Ari's (Nikongod's) Denon CD player. Very nice.

Great shots guys!  The light was challenging, that's for sure. I tried shooting entirely without flash.  Even if I could keep the camera steady enough, people just wouldnt' stand still! 

My impression is: NYC is the greatest city on the planet, and NY meets are the best Head-Fi meets on the planet too! What can I say, I love the NY crowd. My first-ever meet was in NY, it was you guys who broke me in!   Thanks to erikzen for organizing it and Vinnie at RWA for buying lunch for everyone at the meet. It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces and meet new ones too. I almost went through the meet without listening to anything but fate had other plans and I wound up listening to a few things. (Gear impressions will follow later.) Dinner at the nearby diner was good too and I had both a scotch and a rum that left me reeling by the end.

If only I lived in NYC so I could attend every single meet, and enjoy everything in the city too. 'Twas an overall fantastic weekend. My favorite moment at the meet was when folks were bidding in $1 increments during the auction, that just did not get old. My favorite moment in NYC: standing at 6th Ave & 42nd at 1 AM on Saturday chowing down on a lamb gyro (bought fresh off the street of course) while watching a few folks get arrested right after some type of car accident. Oh there was a crowd watching along with me too. Only in NYC, eh?

I'm looking forward to the next NY meet already so I can go back yet again!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ak622 

Region2/Charles:  Awesome chatting with you about Stax and how storing (aka hiding) your gear at the office! haha  Keep me up to date with your progress on your builds.  I'd love to check out your builds when they're done and give them a listen.

 

doompigeon/Carl:  I love the work that you and your dad did with the eXstata SS and Hybrid and the KGSS build.  I especially love the wood casework on the exStatas.  Absolutely amazing and it was great seeing your dad "in the zone" with the O2.  I really enjoyed how the KGSS worked with the 404LE but I regret not having asked to hear the O2s from them.  You got a PM coming over your way soon.

Thanks, Andrew.  I knew I was mixing up doompigeon's name.

It was great meeting you and you'll find out about the progress of my builds or read a story about an audio nut that kills/blows himself up.  Either way the story will reach you 

Hopefully by the next meet or the one after that I'll have some other gear than headphones with me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Towert7 

She single?

Very pretty girl.

Down boy!  Brittany is married to Jerry Harvey (JH Audio).

thanks to Erik for organizing yet another great meet! unfortunately i missed most of it as i worked the night before and had to sleep in the morning.  when i got up my back went into spasm and took a bit to calm down. then when my friend showed up to head over to the meet he got into a lengthy conversation with my wife.  nonetheless i enjoyed what i did see (mostly some old pals, and a few new ones).  i listened a bit to the sr71b impressively driving hd600s and he6s, and got brief listens to a few other things including Jude's senn 598s (which looked like pop art versions of the 595s (uh oh - is skullcandy influencing senn design?), and the head direct re262s (interesting iems).  Fang had he6s being driven out of a specially wired 801 player. considering that the he6s were driven so well from these small devices it makes the squawking going on in the he6 threads about the difficulty of amping them seem comical (they apparently need a lot more juice than most headphone amps can provide to fully strut their impressive stuff). the generosity of a number of folks was incredible!   i'll only single out a couple, though there were others. Vinnie of Red Wine sponsored lunch at the hotel and that bill could not have been pretty!  InnerSpace donated several pricey cans from his personal collection to the auction to help pay for the space.  as others have mentioned some of the other mots were also quite generous wrt the auction, as were some of the non-mots.  it was great seeing the usual suspects, as well as some folks who haven't been there lately, some newbies, and the out of towners who were willing to travel to participate (eg. Steve came in from colorado, Jude from michigan, Ray from illinois, Brittany from florida and upstate).  it was also cool that cnet's Steve Guttenberg brought a couple of audio guys i haven't seen in a while - Mike Trei and David Chesky (who you might know form his high quality recordings).  this was Mr. Chesky's first regional head-fi meet and he seemed to enjoy it and was impressed with our little scene.  there's always some impressive diy work at these gatherings, and folks bring lots of cool kit for the hords to listen to, as the pix show.  this is a great crowd.  as usual the post meet socializing was a fine time too.  i look forward to the spring meet (however local or not it turns out to be) as well as mini-meets between now and then.

This was my first meet and I really enjoyed it.  I was there in the morning but had lt leave at noontime.  I really like the WA2 amp from Woo Audio, it is on my short list to get.  I also liked the Peak amp and Volcano power supply from TTVJ. 

I want to thank Scott for letting me try his HD-800's with the WA2.  They sounded great.

I was not impressed with the Beyer T1's, they sounded too bright to me.

I was amazed at how many SACD players there were at the meet.  The next time there is a meet that I can attend I will bring my Sony DVP-S9000 ES, it is a very nice player and not as heavy as my main player (a Sony SCD-1).

I wish I could remember who it was, but someone brought an old MAC CD player which was really cool and sounded very good.

I also wish there had been more vendors there (like Senn, AKG, etc.) 

Thank you Eric for putting this meet together and I am looking forward to the next one.

This was a fun day!  Thank you so much Erik for setting it up!  And Kudo's especially to Vinnie and Ray who contributed both financially and personally in spending time chatting with all the geeks.  Vinnie, thanks so much for lunch!  

I enjoyed meeting everyone and putting faces to names.  Special moments for me...

* A warm welcome from Scott (Warrior05), and help getting set up.  First time I've brought gear to a meet.  Later I got to hear his special dark wood RS-1's hooked up to my Mapletree Audio amp and was blown away by how good they sounded.  I guess there really is something to the supposed synergy between the RS-1's and the MAD amp.  Listened to the Rodrigo y Gabriela "Live in Japan" recording and thought the RS-1's really delivered a great guitar tone.  On some of the angry girl singers they delivered a front-row vista (you could almost feel the spittle).  Scott had assembled a fine system with the Squeezebox Touch and the green hard drive, very compact.

* Best sound of the day for me was hearing the HD-800's on Dave's balanced Headroom desktop amp.  Regina Spektor sounded bloody fantastic.  Huge air and a wonderful presence.  Best I've heard HD-800's sound.  In that setup, I liked them better than the balanced LCD-2's.

* listening to Chris's (CFCubed) different matchups of amps and headphones.  He's done a nice job of finding the synergies between what his different amps to well versus the signatures of his different headphones.  Impossible to hear a lot at that noisy spot in the room, but sounded very clean and crisp to me. 

* Thought the auction was outstandingly well run.  I was surprised at how enthusiatically the five items I donated were snapped up.

* Chatting with Vinnie about the benefits of being "off the grid."  I remain a huge fan of his stuff and liked what his Isabella does with the LCD-2's.  I brought mine over to listen for quite a while, and to compare the silver and copper cables he had on his to the stock.  Unfortunately, too hard to form any clear impressions in that chaotic environment.

* getting to the lunch line at nearly the beginning of the line (aced out by Ray Samuels, who moved like lightning when lunch was announced) so that I could take advantage of the quiet time to really listen to some setups back in the conference room.  Best time to listen, by far!

* having the table next to Brittany and chatting with her about skiing (she's deprived, living in Florida).  Those JH's are quite impressive sounding, even though I can't stand stuff in my ears.

Too many other quick hits to mention.  Nice that everyone shared their passions and demonstrated that there is no one true way to get great sound!

Frank

I made a mistake previously regarding the E7/E9.  I mistakenly called it the F7/F9.  Those are actually keys on my keyboard not an amp/DAC combo.

I also wanted to give my impressions of the JH13 and higher end Beyerdynamics. 

The JH13 were phenominal IEMs.  They had the biggest soundstage of an IEM I've ever heard.  I can only imagine what the JH16 sound like and with custom inserts.  It must be jaw dropping.  Too bad they are way out of my budget.

Also the T1 and T5p are way out of my budget.  Still, I did compare the two.  I didn't bother comparing them to the regular premium line phones so I really can't say if the high price is justified but they're out of my budget anyway.  Something to strive for.  Anyway, between the two I prefered the TP5.  It sounded more intimate and musical.  I liked the comfort and build quality better as well. I'd love to spend a few days/weeks with that headphone.

One housekeeping note: a non-working pair of ATH M50 were left behind.  One channel seems completely shot and the wire is loose so the other channel keeps cutting out as well.  Actually judging by the sound of the working channel, that might be shot too, unless these headphones are supposed to sound really muddy and distorted.

Anyway, if anyone left them behind and wants them back I'll be glad to ship them to you.

very fun meet.

the room/location was great. Erik did a fantastic job organizing and the MOTs (Ray, Fang, Beyer, Red Wine, JHA) donated graciously to the event.

i didn't do much listening but i did spend some time with the HE6 on my G08/HR Bal Home. was very impressed. think i will be adding this headphone to my collection. my only complaint is the earcups seem a little small and the lack of a two 3-pin XLR. comparing to the HD800 the sound stage was noticeably smaller but the clarity/detail was as good with added sparkle and the bass was of better quality.

also, i won at auction an RS1 with balanced grado ultra-wide reference cable -- very nice. was great meeting and talking to everyone as well.

vcoheda

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveDerek 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Towert7 

She single?

Very pretty girl.

Brittany is married to Jerry Harvey (JH Audio).

Curses.

As usual, I had the time of my life. Erik is the only person I know that can hold a meet that's almost as good as mine .

Spent some time with Vinnie from Red Wine and end up buying a 30.2 that will be ready after Christmas. I try to give my money only to geniuses and not the big corporations and I always wanted one of Vinnie's creations. It is going to be a speaker-only amp to drive my brand new Harbeth's, with his new incredible output stage. Other geniuses who have sopped up my money are Fang, Ray, Ken (ALO), Kerry, Jerry Harvey, Old Headroom, etc. 

I believe in giving back to the community, and I want to include my purchase of my T-1's only because Peter Carini (Beyer Salesman) is such a wonderful person.

By now, everyone knows my wife and son (they are at every meet and are always made to feel like gold whenever they are in attendance). My son won some Fiio computer speakers and a wireless Sennheiser Headphone set graciously donated by Yikes. 

I enjoyed the McIntosh CDP (love that vintage gear), full Audio G-d setup including Phoenix 2 box and amp/dac 2 box. Loved the D7000's with the "holey moley" mod, but I got my 7000's as my only closed headphones, and they are going to stay that way, although the mod did remove the known wobble in bass department.

As always, loved bozebuttons Cary 300SEI, once he figured out what the problem was and of course the biggest hit of the show was the Head-Direct HE-6 "prodos". Fang generously donated a $1000 pair of the original protos, and Ari or Larry (whichever one really won it) is very lucky to have something that there might only be 4 of in the whole world.

Not sure if people knew it, but lunch cost Vinnie $1600, yes, that's $1600 ($25 per head). In the old days I wouldn't have minded paying $25 for head but I got married, which cost me a hell of a lot more. The hotel charged as if each sandwich was "room service". Vinnie's the type of philanthropic person that would never speak of the cost, but I feel that people need to know what he did for us.

Erik chose a place that was a 1000 times nicer than in Harrison (which we outgrew, anyway), and as always, anyone who couldn't come for dinner missed half the meet, because that's where it really "all goes down".

I know I'm leaving a lot out, but I'm and old fart with these meets (according to Mr. Slacker  ) so everyone knows how I feel about this twice a year event. It is an integral part of my life. 

I was nice to have Jude in attendance. His infectious smile and never ending look of happiness shows how commited to the hobby he is, and how much he gets out of it.

Thanks to all those who shared their electrons with everyone and Erik, Vinnie and Yikes for all of the reasons previously stated. This is a wonderful group of people who know how to have a good time.

It might not have been as much fun as the "Cat Writing Expo" going on next store, but it came pretty darn close 

Quote:

Originally Posted by immtbiker 

As usual, I had the time of my life. Erik is the only person I know that can hold a meet that's almost as good as mine ....

 

It might not have been as much fun as the "Cat Writing Expo" going on next store, but it came pretty darn close 

I learned from the best!
 

Actually I think the International Cat Writers were envious.  Three of them came in to see what was going on and one even bought a bunch of stuff from the auction!

Quote:

Originally Posted by immtbiker 

Not sure if people knew it, but lunch cost Vinnie $1600, yes, that's $1600 ($25 per head). In the old days I wouldn't have minded paying $25 for head but I got married, which cost me a hell of a lot more. The hotel charged as if each sandwich was "room service". Vinnie's the type of philanthropic person that would never speak of the cost, but I feel that people need to know what he did for us.

Is that how much he paid?!  That was more than generous of him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by immtbiker 

Thanks to all those who shared their electrons with everyone and Erik, Vinnie and Yikes for all of the reasons previously stated. This is a wonderful group of people who know how to have a good time.

It might not have been as much fun as the "Cat Writing Expo" going on next store, but it came pretty darn close 

Is that what was next door?  I kept seeing author or writer on their badges and was curious what it was about.  I know the other group were a group of Japanese tourists visiting NYC to watch some shows and were staying at the hotel to save on costs.