NYC Spring 2011 Meet March 19th Impressions and Pictures

Such a great meet, I had such a great time.  Will post more in-depth impressions later on.

Meet was awesome!  It was my first too.  sphinxvc, you've got a great desktop setup going, thanks for letting me listen!

D'oh! I can't believe i missed this :-/ maybe next time! 

looks like a wonderful time!! 

Just wanted to thank all the people involved in making this meet possible. I had a wonderful time listening to all the different setups. Made my wallet cringe a little . I thought the Red Wine Isabellina was the best amp for the LCD-2 BY FAR and the Woo-Audio 22 made my LAs sing. My concerto was put to shame in comparison . The Woo-Audio 22 is definitely my next purchase.

It was nice to see so many new faces and make so many new friends. It's also nice to see old friends. Too many didn't make it to this meet, and there seemed to be fewer people than we're used to. Nikongod stepped up and played auctioneer. I brought about a dozen old cans (I mean really old, like telecom and WW2 aviation style) and about 2 dozen horror movies. One lucky member took home the complete Planet of the Apes on DVD for a $10 donation, and another member donated $15 for Dark City that retails for $8, but it's all for a good cause. I took home a tv that fang (head-direct) donated, and a huge pile of Telica's brownies. The highlight of the meet was the Spanish Gypsy Funeral Marching Band playing bagpipes and chanting acapela. That and dinner. Didn't get a chance to do much else, since I got there so late and immediately went to work setting up the for the auction.

Thanks to Nikongod for calling the auction. Thanks to immtbiker & family for preparing, hosting, and baking. Thanks to fang for the ride. Thanks to all the members new and old that helped make a fun and interesting meet.

LiqTenExp, cool pictures. (And nice to meet you.) Did you know there was a second room? All the pictures seem to be from just one room.

School got in the way this time around, but I'm determined to make the next one!

Thanks for making this happen!  I had a great time and learned a lot.  Impressions to follow when i've had a chance to digest, but Top Sound at the show was definitely between the Red Wine Audio and the Woo WA22. 

Some pics...

More Pics!

And one more set...

Excellent meet as always.  Thanks again Aaron!

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I normally do, but I'll post up a few later on after I edit them.

My meet impressions:

LCD-2:  This was my goal, to hear these little gems.  Short answer, yes they are worth 950$us.  ^_^

Leesure was nice enough to let me try them in my setup for a good while near the start.  A similar sound signature to the O2, but a little bit less airy sounding in my setup.  I would certainly need to take home a pair to come up with any solid comparisons.  I was debating purchasing a pair.  After doing a short A/B comparison I've decided to stick with the O2 mk1's.

I will also say that I've read quite a few people saying "ohhh, you need massive amounts of power to drive them properly".  Bull.  I heard the LCD-2 out of Dougs G-lite combo, and they sounded great.  Either that's a testament to the G-lite, or a confirmation that I think some people get paranoid over the last 1%.

Mike from UE was nice enough to let me try the UE 7 and 18 customs with universal plugs.  The UE7 were very non offensive, but I found it lacking the clarity I've become used to.  The step up to the UE18 fixed that, being a pretty much solid improvement all around for me.  At my current situation I could not personally justify the price for them (content with my little 30$ RE2's), but I am glad to see that IEM's have made great leaps and bounds over what was available just a few years ago in the audiophile community.

HE6 sounded nice on the Woo Family's setup.

I'm reminded that the HD800 do instrumentals amazingly well.

Ari was nice enough to let me try his 14mm F/2.8 lens.  What a fun lens!  I've always wanted the nikkor 24mm prime for landscapes, but 14mm is quite unique as well.  Perfect field of view for today's meet.

Douglas of ECP audio had some impressive looking products.  Looks like some time was put into creating them.  Very interesting.

And lastly, it was always fun to meet other people who share a passion for music.  My apologies to all those I met but can't specifically recall the names of.

Yikes and Ray were dearly missed.  The meets were literally half as quite with these two omissions. 

Fun fun fun!

PS:  Thank you to all those who commented on the headphone stand I built.  I really appreciate it.

Lee those are great shots. Unfortunately I didn't seem to find myself in any of them :(