[whitefang]

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I loved the sound of the TH900 and am really grateful for the owner bringing them to the meet for others to hear. This was the first time I had heard them. Best closed headphone currently made in my opinion.

I am glad to meet you there Donald, your Stratus is very impressive, one of the best amp to drive my TH900.
It is unfortunate that I can listen only for two minutes, I should have gone to your table earlier.

 

[tiberiuspv]

The Leben CS600 had Russian 6P3S-E (6П3С-E), Raytheon Japan 6CS7 and NOS GE 6CJ3. I'm definitely not a tube roller, as my audio memory tends to be extremely short and I find it very difficult to compare gear half an hour apart. The 6P3S-E were recommended by Jeff Day, google "6P3S Leben". The others were suggested by Jim McShane. I make no claim whatsoever that this is an optimal combo - just works well enough for me, both on speakers (O/96) and HD800 (stock). I had a 10dB attenuator between the Leben and the HD800, which I use to get rid of a small residual fixed hum (you actually could not hear it at the meet - too much ambient noise - but it bugs me at home).
 
Late in the day, I realized that vitok33, at the next table, had an HE-6 and we decided to try it on on the speaker outputs of the Leben. That worked out very, very nicely as judged by several listeners (as far as one can tell in a noisy meet environment) and got me to hear the real potential of the HE-6 and why people insist on feeding it lots of power. The CS600 (30W) was really overkill (9-10 AM volume was about as high as you could push without risking deafness), but that was what we had at hand... Definitely a combo worth checking out in a quieter environment.
 
The meet was great - all my thanks to purrin and friends for the organization. It was very nice to see in person quite a few people I knew only as (sometimes prolific...) online headfiers. Lots of very nice gear to listen to - although I spent far too much time at my table and missed out on quite a few things I wanted to hear. The Electra/009 combo sounded great, and I look forward to comparing Electra/BHSE on 007Mk1/009. The ECBA/HD800 combo also sounded excellent. I missed out on the DNA Stratus - spent too much time at my table and got distracted...
 
This was my first time running a table and it was really interesting. The Leben CS600 is relatively unusual, and we (rubenpp and I) had a decent set of old Lambdas (early 1980s to late 1990's) to give headfiers a sense of how the Stax sound evolved, and show that really old headphones can still sound excellent... One lesson learned - keep the setup as simple as possible, and then simplify it a bit more

 

[cclragnarok]

Many thanks to purrin, Questhate, CEE TEE, shipsupt, and Anaxilus for making this great meet possible. 

The Stax SR-009 (thank you jazzfan for letting me try them in my rig

) was the highlight of the meet for me.  They were a bit brighter and more open sounding than the SR-007 mk1, but they do not make sibilant recordings sound worse to me.  They did sound a bit harder and not as smooth as the SR-007 mk1, but I think I prefer the sound of the SR-009 overall. Just as importantly, they are probably the most comfortable Stax headphones I've tried.

I had high expectations for the Eddie Current Electra, and the Electra certainly delivered.  Like the BHSE, it provides a significant improvement for the SR-007, making it sound more effortless and liquid.  I also really liked how easy it is to bias the output tubes in this amp, with the integrated meter and knobs.  Unfortunately, there was no BHSE or DIY T2 for comparison at the meet.

Purrin's modded Jade sounded great out of the Electra.  They were so much better than what I remembered, I figured they must have been modded before Craig told me that they were purrin's.  I didn't spend too much time with them, but they sounded world class (SR-007/HE-60 level) to me.

I didn't like the SR-007 mk2.5 (SZ3 serial number) as much as the SR-007 mk1.  It's like Stax tried to make the SR-007 sound more like the SR-009, but they didn't get it quite right.  They also sounded a just little bit sharp/shrill to me.  Still very good headphones though.
 
TMoney and Horio's KGSSHV builds looked great and sounded great too.  I wanted to try my SR-007 mk1 on them, but I didn't get around to it.

The Ferrari headphones sounded surprisingly nice, especially the active noise cancelling model (since active noise cancelling headphones don't usually sound good).

Ringingears' Project Sunrise amp looked very cool, but I didn't listen to them since time was running out, and there was no good way to get my music on the system.

I wanted to try the Gungnir->Mjolnir->HD800/LCD-3 rig, but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to add my music (which I had on a USB drive) to the iTunes playlist. 

 

[particleman14]

Hey all, Big thanks to everyone who helped organize and put on this awesome event. Of all the meets I've attended, I would say this one had one of the best selections of high quality gear. In every room there were awesome rigs setup and all the people were very friendly. It was great to sample the Electra and EC certainly did not disappoint with their latest offering. I brought a kgsshv and a b22 that I hope people enjoyed but I probably only spent 5 minutes at my own table throughout the day. (thanks horio/tmoney for watching the gear!)
 
I had a good chance to sample some stuff I've never heard before but am bummed I missed out on the th900s. The Mrspeaker's Maddog headphones sounded pretty darn good and they are quite a good buy at their price too! The other standout for me this time was the UE vendor booth. In my years past I never sat down at their table and really listened to their iems. Well, this time I decided to listen to the whole lineup and ended up ordering some UERMs before I left the meet!
 
It was great to see all the familiar faces as well as meet some people who are just getting into the hobby. I remember it was a bay area head-fi meetup that really got me going in this hobby a few years ago. I hope some people came away inspired and motivated to get more involved. Big thanks again Purrin/Ceetee (and Questhate!) who really helped organize and run this meet. Was one of the best ones yet!

 

[Horio]

Big thanks to all who helped organize the meet.  It was definitely a big success.  It was great seeing many familiar faces, and meeting some new ones as well.  Like particleman, I did not sit down at the UE table at the previous meets.  With the strong recommendation of CEE TEE, I finally did sit down and spent some time listening.  Long story short, I've got some UERM's on order now and I can't wait until they arrive.  I had never listened to the higher end custom IEM's, and needless to say I was very impressed with what I heard.  The UERM's just blow away the universal fit Shure's I have, and I'm not one to liberally throw that term out there like some.
 
I'm most likely moving up to Seattle later this year, but I'll do my best to fly down for next years meet!  I just won't be bringing a bunch of gear next time...

 

[tdogzthmn]

Really had a great time chatting it up with folks and trying out others headphones on my own rig. It was also one of the first times I've not felt compelled to upgrade after listening to some of the more exotic rigs. I had auditioned the Balancing Act at previous meets and had been greatly impressed with its performance however in listing to it again this year with several of my headphones and some owned by others I was much less compelled by what I heard. Stax are always a pleasureable to listen to but I felt their abilities are best suited for classical and acoustic genres. After re-auditioning the HE400 and HE500 I felt they are too un ergonomic for me to have a comfortable listening experience despite their pleasing and full body sound. The LCD2 were more comfortable on my head but still far from being on the same level as the HD800 or one of my AKGs. The sennheiser HE60 is still one of my favorites for tonality, performance, and comfort. I just wish they weren't so rare or complicated to drive.

All in all it was a great success and there was plenty of nice gear to see and hear. I think a follow up mini meet in a few months might be in order!

 

[purrin]

I'm not in the Bay Area anymore, but I would encourage many of you to organize mini-meets or micro-meets on your own. I became friends with TMoney, particleman, Horio, CEETEE, epochs, RD, etc. from a meet two years ago. We had common interests and went off on mini-meets of our own. If there's anything that interests you, you can always PM particular people and ask. I know the NorCal CHANG-gang folks will always leave a seat open if anyone asks. And there's always stuff going on all the time, which isn't necessarily posted here publicly.
 
I may be up in the Bay Area in April again, possibly with some new or good stuff. Doubtful I would indicate anything publicly, because the last time I posted a thread about a "mini" meet, it grew to over a hundred people.

 

[HiFiGuy528]

pt. 3/5
 

 

[HiFiGuy528]

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Many thanks to purrin, Questhate, CEE TEE, shipsupt, and Anaxilus for making this great meet possible. 

 
+1  Thank you!!!!  

 

[oblique63]

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SRM-3 + Lambda. Methinks the older STAX Lamdba setups are better than the newer stuff.

I kinda regret going straight for the 007/9's and not trying out the lambdas. The Koss ESP 950 was easily one of the highlights for me there (oddly enough), but I didn't realize that some of the lambdas were supposed to have a similar sound signature at the time, otherwise I would've loved to compare them. Oh well.

Anyways, definitely grateful to everybody for such an awesome meet with lots of great, chill people! And we should definitely consider purrin's suggestion to set up mini meets more often up here (*cough*inSF*cough*). 

 

[Maxvla]

Grats to the newbie UERM soon-to-be owners. I love mine.

 

[Mark-sf]

Thanks for all of the pics and videos! Wish I could have been there and will definitely keep an eye out for the next one.

 

[warrenpchi]

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I think he's talking about the organizers, the men working on the Chang gang.

 
Wait, who's talking about huh? 

  Was there a post deletion?
 
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P.S. - To everyone who posted pics in the other thread, is there any chance of reposting them here?  We'd get to collect them all in one thread... and hopefully comment on a few of them as well.

 
Sure...

 
Thank you sir!
 
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Hey Oblique, thanks for bring in excellent selection that seemed to read my mind... particularly the HE-5LE and the D600.  They answered some questions I've been having for a while now.
 
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And now with people in it:
 

 
A no-handed, twin-canned selfie with your eyes closed?  What manner of sorcery is this? 

 
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Note to anyone who may ever come across this modded T5p:  you owe yourself a listen.  If for no other reason that to be very, very surprised, 

 
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Woo WA6SE. With that rectifier tube, it is one of my favorites from Woo.

 
SanJoseCanJunkie's marvelous rig.  Glad I had a chance to give it a go.  Mass in B Minor was glorious (as it should be).
 
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On a personal note, I'm finally glad that my Pioneer SE-A1000 got some attention.  At the L.A. meet, I couldn't get people to give them a listen to save my life.  This time around, even Anax gave them a try!

 
LOL -- Anaxilus came to our table in the front with those Pioneer's and said "holy ****, these aren't that bad at all". You only hear Anax say that maybe once or twice a year. 

 
At first I thought he was messing around.  I always found them too intriguing to let go of personally, but that's just me.  It never occurred to me that someone else would concur, much less Anax himself. 

  Validation feels nice.
 
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I want to be sure everyone knows how big @Questhate stepped up for this meet.  He organized the table layouts, printed the cool name and table tags complete with avatars, manned the door ALL DAY, and was generally one of the key reasons this was an exceptional meet.  BIG THANKS to QH!  

 
Thanks Questhate!  Like pretty much everyone there, I had a great time.  And thanks to you to shipsupt for flying all the way over from the UK (even if it was a layover). 

 

[wolfetan44]

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SRM-3 + Lambda. Methinks the older STAX Lamdba setups are better than the newer stuff.

I kinda regret going straight for the 007/9's and not trying out the lambdas. The Koss ESP 950 was easily one of the highlights for me there (oddly enough), but I didn't realize that some of the lambdas were supposed to have a similar sound signature at the time, otherwise I would've loved to compare them. Oh well.

Anyways, definitely grateful to everybody for such an awesome meet with lots of great, chill people! And we should definitely consider purrin's suggestion to set up mini meets more often up here (*cough*inSF*cough*). 

I should've tried the ESP 950.. I was right there at the time, but didn't have enough time.

 

[Donald North]

I told my wife about the TH900 and she offered to buy them for my birthday. Too bad it's way out in December...

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DNA Stratus. Wow! my favorite rig with the TH900 (not pictured). I think Donald's convinced he needs to shell out some serious cash for the TH900.