3/18/06--MD/VA/DC Meet impressions

[thrice]

Greetings,
Thought I's get the ball rolling here.

It was a fun meet. Lots of new faces and that's great to see. I enjoyed chatting to everyone, thanks for making this meet a success. I need some sleep, but not before I have another glass of lassi.

PS. If you want me to host some pictures, just email them to me and I'll get them up in the next few days.

 

[NeilR]

Steve, thank you for being a such a gracious host! This was my first meet and I had a fine time and made some new friends. Everybody seemed to have a good time and even the grizzled vets were pleased with the turnout and the equipment available for review.

 

[BrianS]

yes thank you i learned a lot

i was amazed at how the benchmark and lavry sound so similar i could not tell them apart
the only problem was probably due to the settings, the ic's, and the fact that one was driving headphone out and the other was rca out.
that switchbox was really handy

the turn out was great and i really enjoyed those white akg k701s i believe

 

[slwiser]

Thanks for hosting this meet Steve.

Thank your wife for putting up with all of us.

 

[HiGHFLYiN9]

Thanks again Stephen for hosting another excellent meet, I hope we didn't keep you too long and you made it to where you were going afterward.

It was great to see all the new faces. I was happy to finally be able to have a listen to the K701s, they were suprisingly good. I'm not sure when I'll be ready to dump more money on another pair of cans, but they are certainly worth their going rate.

The Benchmark/Lavry DAC shootout was pretty fun, either one is a winner. As Brian said the comparo wasn't quite even due to the difference in cables (coax versus optical), but I still think we have a pretty good feeling of how they stacked up. I found that the Benchmark had a slightly clearer presentation in the higher frequencies, and the Lavry had a bit more emphasis in the lower midrange. Of the two I preferred the Lavry, but only by a hair, and would be pleased with owning either one.

I was also impressed by the Guzzler mini DAC running from an iTunes equipped laptop to the Lorocco Portable Reference. It was hard to pull myself away from that combo

Another nice suprise was Hirsch making it in with his impressive office rig using a 4G ipod with redwine mod as a source. It was an exciting end to a great meet.

The Mango Lassi was an awesome drink and thoroughly enjoyed. For those that were too afraid to try it, you missed out big time

 

[fvoelling]

Stephen,

We'd like to thank you as well for hosting this event, and your wife for tolerating a bunch of strangers all over her house! Just wish we could have stayed longer (that lassi sounds like a fun drink), but I just stumbled across this by chance on Friday and we had a prior commitment for the evening.

This was our first meet and definitely not the last. For those of you who've never attended one, you are missing out on a unique opportunity to try out new gear and to meet some of the fellow head-fiers. Of course, there's a drawback as well, as the lust for new toys increases proportionally with the equipment encountered, but that's part of the fun (just wish you didn't have those K1000s there, already bid on a set last night and lost

).

Frank and Pam

 

[dviswa]

Stephen,

Thanks a lot for the meet. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks again.

I really wanted to try your Balanced M3 driving K-1000. I think K-1000 and meets are incompatible with each other. All those conversations going on around does no good for these open phones.

I really enjoyed your PPA V2 driven by the Lavry. It is clearly better than my Maxed PPA V1 with Glassman DBs.

Benchmark DAC1->PPX3->SA5000 was a heavenly setup. I would love to get one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiGHFLYiN9 I was also impressed by the Guzzler mini DAC running from an iTunes equipped laptop to the Lorocco Portable Reference. It was hard to pull myself away from that combo

Just to set the record right it was Alf's Alien DAC aka Revision B Guzzler's USB DAC. I liked that combo too. Larocco Portable Reference is one sweet little amp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiGHFLYiN9 Another nice suprise was Hirsch making it in with his impressive office rig using a 4G ipod with redwine mod as a source. It was an exciting end to a great meet.

Dang, I missed the fun. It was 5:45 when I left.
What was Hirsch's office rig?

Regards,
Dinesh

 

[jbloudg20]

PICS!!!

 

[slwiser]

This being my first Head-Fi meet I didn't really know what to expect. The sociability of all the people was great, so don’t let anyone think that Head-Fi people are closed to others. You could not ask for a friendlier bunch of guys, laid back enjoying themselves, listening to various components and having various discussions.

I enjoyed listening to the two high end sources, the Wadia and the Meridian. The Wadia was setup to support the balanced phones available. The K1000 is really a weird thing to see. It has its own sound and I am not sure that its sound is for me but it was very different in how it sets and how you listen to your music. The other balanced headphone that I really enjoyed was a HF-1 with PS-1 drivers re-worked by Headphile with a Blacksilver cable (I think all that is right). This was a treat to listen too.

thrice had this neat little box that would allow a blind sound test between the Lavry and the Benchmark. The source was a Meridian CD player connected to the Lavry DA10 via optical cable and the Benchmark DAC1 using the coxial output from the Meridian. The Meridian CD player was setup to upsample all the signals all the time. Having an upsampled signal may not have been the best when comparing the Benchmark DAC1 with the Lavry DA10, but I was assured that any upsample normalizing of the signal would have little if any affect on the comparison due to the quality of the Meridian itself. Another observation I noted while having the Meridian as an input device to the Lavry was that the Lavry DA10 locked onto an 88.2 signal during the playing of one CD at least during the meet. It would have been interesting from a purist viewpoint to have an equally high CD player that was not normalizing an upsampled signal. I do not know the quality of either of these cables themselves for further consideration. Oh!, one more difference in this shootout was that the sound was balanced using the Lavry DA10 volume control which meant that the Lavry DA10’s headphone out jack was being used while the Benchmark DAC1’s used the direct output from the Benchmarks output DA using RCA cables. . For the sound to be balanced to the Benchmark DA signal out the volume required was fairly loud. This meant that the Lavry was not direct from its DA side but the signal went via its headamp. From my perspective, I could tell little if any difference between these DACs using this setup. Both sounded equally good to me. The headphones used during this comparison were the AKG A701’s. Others heard slight differences that were not available to me.

Neilr brought several of his home built amps and I listened to them. His M3 was real treat to listen too as well.

Steveio brought a lot of equipment and it was his Meridian that was the source for the DAC shootout. This is a real nice piece of equipment. His baby tube amp, the Moretto Hap-03, was one of the hits of the meet for how it made whatever headphone listened too have a depth that the solid states failed to produce.

One late entry was, Hirsh bringing his LeatherHead (ATH-L3000). I wanted to hear this one and finally did at the end of the day. He had this setup with his iPOD and is using this as his transportable rig at work, some transportable. That is one phone with real tight bass.

I want to thank all those that came and brought your equipment, I was able to listen to equipment I simply would not otherwise have had the chance to listen too.

Edit 1: I forgot to say something about another headphone that I heard that I was impressed with. I heard for the first time the SA5000 from Sony. This was real clear and fast with the tube amp that I heard it out of. It apparently loves being pushed with a tube amp. For me this was a surprise that it sounded this good.

Edit 2: For those interested the Lavry DA10 had less than 100 hours on it, probably about 50 hours. I had it about two weeks and was only using it when I was home and on the weekends.

Here are some pictures that I took early on...

 

[cycler2]

Thrice,

Many thanks to you and your wife for hosting yesterday's meet. It was my first and I didn't know what to expect. Everyone was gracious and patient with my newbie questions, as were you. In addition to this being my first meet, it was my first time listening to my Senn 600s through a stand-alone headphone amplifier. What a revelation! Special thanks to Stevio for bringing a little tube amp for me to listen to and to NeilR for letting me listen to all his amps: original HeadRoom, current Headroom Micro, a little tube amp, and his DIY M3. To my ears, Neil's M3 was the best of the amps I listened to. I regret I had to leave early, so I was not able to listen to the many other fine amps there, including your M3 set up for unbalanced phones. I also enjoyed NeilR's iPod demo of Kind of Blue recorded at different bit rates and compression schemes. I didn't spend enough time with that; maybe next time.

I was really taken by the camaraderie of the attendies; so much for the idea that headphone listening is a solitary pursuit.

See you next time.

Rich

 

[Akathriel]

Ok guys heres are some pix. Ive had a TON of problems getting these hosted properly and these are only about half of them but I am really busy and I have a paper due tommorrow. As a general rule, if the pic stinks, stevio probably took it.

Impressions tomorrow.

BrianS (Hi Todd!)

Steve, Brian, Lavry DA10, Moretto tube amp, G08, PPA, DAC2

The Usual Suspects

Neil and his homegrown goods (not sure but headroom supreme, M3, millet, HD650, other stuff)

Close up of Neils goodies.

The Living Room (Steve's ibook, old school PPX3, microstack,guzzler usb dac, crappy toshiba transport.)

Slwiser, AT A900LTD, and previously mentioned stuff

Cool guy with a bag full of gear and K340s (sorry dont remember your name

)

Me with PF-1s. i asked steevio to take another one because I looked dumb which was equally as bad. I decided I'm not photogenic. Stevio decided I look dumb.

steveio with Juan's SA5K in the living room

Danny and Brian:Which is better Zu Mobius or Silver Dragon? Oh yeah and Wadia 23, MPX3, balanced M3

Slwiser w/ PF-1s Steve w/ K701s.

Sorry to people who I wasn't able to identify/meet. It was fun. More pics/impressions when I get the time or damned gmail decides to work.
I will say one thing though: the SinglePower solid state Juan brought KICKED SOME SERIOUS ASS! I want one even if the jaded old veterans

think that he shouldn't be tinkering with solid state or that hes never going to actually make it. I prefered it over the MPX3 AND running balanced to the M3. Nuff said.

 

[BrianS]

great pics, i had a blast

 

[Akathriel]

Juan

Remember that bag of goodies?

ROCK ON!

"What is this @$!%...[disdainfully waves around jewel case] Is there any real music around here?" [Dinesh laughs.]

slwiser PF-1s

Glamour Shot

"They sound great...if you can get over looking like a robot." Well said.

Steve K701

Danny PF-1s

Pam PF-1s

Just a few more...

 

[Akathriel]

This is it...

HighFlying!

Me thinks HD580, Cmoy, and littledot but dont quote me.

Steve K701

 

[BrianS]

danny and i agreed that the silverdragon had a tad more detail but the zu had more bass. take into account there is a newer version out the version2 silver dragon and i think someone said this was version 1