DC area meet impressions

Now that HD800...oh my. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton 

It was a great meet.  I'm very happy about how well my T30 stacked up to the LCD2.  Keeps me from wanting to spend $1000. 

Still not enough bass.

You are the reason 18" subwoofers were invented. XD

It was a great meet - and I could have stayed a couple more hours.  Too bad more people couldn't make it.  I admit I was more interested this time in seeing how things worked and sounded on my own system but I got to play with everything - and there was some very nice gear there. 

So did the happy hour happen?  I left kind of quick because when I was taking my stuff out I got a call that I had company waiting for me at my house (a couple hours before they were supposed to be).  I will probably go back at some point and check the pizza place out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton 

Happy hour happened at the beer garden

Yep a few of us went and had a couple of beers. That place is awesome... I could probably spend an hour or two just looking through the beer selection.

On a head-fi related note, this was my first meet and I enjoyed it. The time really did seem to fly by. I was really happy to get to listen to the hd800s and the stax 404s. I had favorable impressions of both, particularly that the treble of the hd800 was much less offensive than a lot of posts here would lead you to believe and the bass of the stax was much better than I was expecting as well.

Scompton's vintage equipment was pretty cool, as was the leben cs600, and I was glad to get a chance to listen to some higher end IEMs, of which I think the Monster MD tribute was probably my favorite. I forget who had the JH16, but I am trying to ignore the comment that it is basically the LCD2 in IEM form factor...

Thanks to mralexosborn for organizing the meet, and also for lugging your entire desktop computer setup in. 

It was pleasure to get the community together. I wish we had more attendees and a larger variety of equipment but it was still nice. I don't think the next meet will at the same library on account of the cruel librarians. The desktop was a good idea though. XD

Next meet Sept/Oct/Nov? 

I actually thought there was a pretty good selection of equipment there considering the number of attendees. Granted there was kind of an excess of LCD2s (which I helped contribute to ) but other than that pretty much all the major players were represented, except maybe Ultrasone, and there was a nice variety of amps/dacs. 

They were pretty eager to get us out of there right at 5, but other than that I think the room was pretty nice for a meet of that size. 

I thought the location, facilities and parking worked out - of course, I never ran into any librarians.  I thought it was strange that they just kicked us out but I didn't realize the library was closed.  (it denied me the opportunity to check out the ref5/roc) The only thing better would have been to have the meet at the beer cellar.   Sorry I missed the after party - it was my plan to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tme110 

Too bad more people couldn't make it.

I'll have to confess I fell into that category.  

My last week was pretty full in regards to work as i was winding down my 2-week notice period and had my exit interview with HR on Friday afternoon.  Now, it's Monday (early) and I'm awake as I'm starting a new assignment.  Many people asked if I were going to take time off and thought I was nuts for not taking any time - instead, I just sold 60 hours of vacation off to the old company.  I guess those dollar signs get the best of me.

However, this didn't mean that I was free from headphone activities.  I kind of kept moving along during the spare moments on my collection:

1. Sold my SR-325i "Goldies"
2. Received a pair of Alessandro MS-Pro headphones to "Try" out for about 5 days to get some impressions of what this $699 headphone is capable of.
3. Finished my updates to my Alessandro MS-1i headphones with the Sapele cups that I purchased.
4. Finished my updates and corrections to a pair of Grado SR-225i with the burl cups that I purchased.

My ultimate hope would have been to have #3 and #4 at the meet.  However, with the crazy week, I didn't touch the headphones essentially at all during the past week to get them in order.

It sounds like a good time was had by all.  I'll keep my eyes open for future events down the road - and, do intend to make good on my promises to attend.  Then again, I could go through many gear changes, so what I've listed off will probably be changing here and there.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by scompton 

I've never seen a lot of Ultrasone's at meets.  They just don't seem that popular in the DC area.  The brand I'd like to see is a Hi-Fi Man ortho.

 

Yes, I would like to hear the HE-6 or HE-500 at some point. Those along with Stax Sr-007 are at the top of my list of cans I would like to hear.

I'm glad you all had fun maybe next time I won't have to work. Since I can learn a lot being new to head-fi and all.

Other people were taking pics so I only took one but since I haven't seen others, I thought I'd post mine - showing Audio-GD, the Apex peak/volcano and the leben in the foreground.