[IMPRESSIONS] UK Head-Fi Meet September 15th 2012 - Cambridge - Page 3  

WoW!! I want to go to the next one! Hope you will meet someday in Barcelona 

Quote:

Originally Posted by shinex64 

WoW!! I want to go to the next one! Hope you will meet someday in Barcelona 

Is that near Blackburn?

First of all also from me big big
thanks to ANDY for organizing such a thrilling meet !!!

It is good to know to have a real friend around.
 

Its was a long way to come to Cambridge but it was worth every single mile.

Unfortunately I was too busy to browse around to see most of the other exiting stuff displayed.

Also thanks to John for the photos – may I use some of them ?

I never have been outside of London when I was in GB but I promise that I will come back.

Would be nice if somebody could secure this outstanding weather for my next visit 

Fried

Another impression:

At the Arcam table, they had a new DAC (full size I think), which took the digital output of an ipod/iphone and allegedly sprinkled some extra special magic dust on it - to turn the ipod into a high end source.

So I plugged in my ipod touch and listened to a 256k AAC track ripped from my Laura Veirs CD and directly compared that track to the self same CD on Arcam's top only CDP.

The two were very close, so looks like mission accomplished. Anyone who wants to get the very best out of their ipod should give this a try - or borrow Dave's BHSE :o)

Fried,

Thanks again for attending and bringing the Violectric range, as everybody enjoyed your engaging company and listening to such excellent sounding equipment. 

Cheers,

Andy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fdg 

First of all also from me big big
thanks to ANDY for organizing such a thrilling meet !!!

It is good to know to have a real friend around.
 

Its was a long way to come to Cambridge but it was worth every single mile.

Unfortunately I was too busy to browse around to see most of the other exiting stuff displayed.

 

Also thanks to John for the photos – may I use some of them ?

I never have been outside of London when I was in GB but I promise that I will come back.

Would be nice if somebody could secure this outstanding weather for my next visit 

 

Fried

TheAttorney,

Do you know whether the `fairy dust' DAC was a production model (i.e. available to purchase) or a prototype? Also, did you get a chance to listen to their prototype headphone amp? 

Cheers,

Andy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheAttorney 

Another impression:

 

At the Arcam table, they had a new DAC (full size I think), which took the digital output of an ipod/iphone and allegedly sprinkled some extra special magic dust on it - to turn the ipod into a high end source.

 

So I plugged in my ipod touch and listened to a 256k AAC track ripped from my Laura Veirs CD and directly compared that track to the self same CD on Arcam's top only CDP.

The two were very close, so looks like mission accomplished. Anyone who wants to get the very best out of their ipod should give this a try - or borrow Dave's BHSE :o)

Surely you are referring to the D33,  Arcam's full sized DAC in the FMJ size case.  It is the device they lent me for an hour or two.  I had been mightily impressed when I first heard it briefly at Bristol, but did not entertain notions of owning such a costly DAC.    Now having heard the effect in my own system, well the result is as as I said on page 1 of this thread  "Those who were near me at the time realised I was drooling for an Arcam D33.   I can’t stop thinking of it.  This is a dangerous obsession -throw a bucket of water over me, someone."

PS Thanks for the super photos John

headinclouds,

Thanks for identifying the D33.

If you're interested there is a boxed `as new' D33 on eBay for £1,495 - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ARCAM-D33-DAC-/271060978806#vi-content

Cheers,

Andy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by headinclouds 

Surely you are referring to the D33,  Arcam's full sized DAC in the FMJ size case.  It is the device they lent me for an hour or two.  I had been mightily impressed when I first heard it briefly at Bristol, but did not entertain notions of owning such a costly DAC.    Now having heard the effect in my own system, well the result is as as I said on page 1 of this thread  "Those who were near me at the time realised I was drooling for an Arcam D33.   I can’t stop thinking of it.  This is a dangerous obsession -throw a bucket of water over me, someone."

 

PS Thanks for the super photos John

 

 

 

I really enjoyed myself at that meeting which I'd like to thank Andy for organising. If there is another one then I might end up taking the Aristaeus. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by headinclouds 

Surely you are referring to the D33,  Arcam's full sized DAC in the FMJ size case.  It is the device they lent me for an hour or two.  I had been mightily impressed when I first heard it briefly at Bristol, but did not entertain notions of owning such a costly DAC.    Now having heard the effect in my own system, well the result is as as I said on page 1 of this thread  "Those who were near me at the time realised I was drooling for an Arcam D33.   I can’t stop thinking of it.  This is a dangerous obsession -throw a bucket of water over me, someone."

 

PS Thanks for the super photos John

 

 

 

We did have to get the mop and bucket out a couple of times to clean up the mess. I did look over at you a couple of times and it did look like you was in headphone heaven.

I was quite impressed with your system from the beginning, but when they added the Arcam it really did make a difference, had a good listen myself for a while and was very impressed.

You had about 2 or 3 amps connected to your PC as a source, where they also using the Acram as the source?

Cheers Frank

I would like to hear more impressions of the BHSE vs LL with the 009 or 007 headphones as well.

Regarding the Arcam DAC, sorry, I wasn't taking notes because I was not expecting to buy anytime soon, but I understood from the Arcam man that it is very, very new, with a specific extra iPod connection added. All I saw was the usual white ipod socket/cable, with white cable disappearing down the back of a set of full size black boxes.

Regarding more BHSE/LL comparisons, the only 2 people who directly compared them with the same source were me and the mysterious TMWNN. Hopefully, he will turn up at some point on this thread, but I don't know if he's even a headfier.

One other thing he did say that I haven't mentioned before: He's traditionally biased towards valve-based systems, and it was the BHSE that more reminded him of the "openness" that good valve systems have. That doesn't stop the LL from being better in other situations - all I can do is report what I heard at the time.

I did see loads of people trying the LL/009 combo at the dealer's table, but when I tried that myself with the particular music they had on, I found it impossible to relate that to my own BHSE system - the music and sources were just too different.

Many thanks to Andy for organising this event.

I am sure that for lots of effort went into making this a really enjoyable day - Dave ("David1961") and Andy (not a HeadFi member as far as I know) and I had a great day even though it was a two hour journey from Yorkshire.

Conditions at shows make it difficult to make judgements on specific components and, in any event, we are each satisfied with the kit we already own. The role of such events, in our view, is to meet other headphone users and industry dealers/distributors and it fulfilled that role well. It was a pity that more users did not come along - at most I counted 50 attendees and 15 of those must have been from the trade - and we were there most of the day. Perhaps next time it needs publicity on fora wider than HeadFi since I'd guess that, had they known, many attendees would have been sourced from readers of HiFi Wigwam, for example.

Great meet well done to Andy for all his hard work , roll on next year !

I, apparantly had a wedding to go to in the Cotswolds, so I missed out,

more photos please or could someone put text next to photos so we know what we are looking at please?

were there any new DAPs there? or portable amps?

thanks

"well jell"