People impressions: This was my first time meeting people from Head-Fi. A nice group of folks, they were. It was nice to finally interact with fellow Head-fiers and headphone geeks in real life.
Headphone Impressions:
AKG-K1000: Not as good as I thought it would be. Technically, it
is good, extremely neutral, fast attack, great detail, very wide soundstage, but a little too wide for my tastes; it kind of takes away from the headphone experience. They were also fairly dry-sounding and not very impactful. What really turned me off was that because they're pretty much flat all the way to 20khz and probably beyond they sounded very bright and harsh, at least to my ears. I have no problems saying I preferred my HD650s to these.
W5000 - Stock: Definitely a strong upper midrange emphasis here, but otherwise somwhat flat and uninvolving. They were only moderately comfortable, and had that somewhat tubby sound I've come to associate with closed headphones. For the record, I liked these more than the modded ones.
W5000 - Modded: Very tubby sounding; the mod strongly dampens the upper midrange and increases the prominence of the "closed" headphone sound.
A900: Much better balanced than the W5000, IMO, and slightly more comfortable. Still has that darn closed sound though, almost like some kind of reaction from the enclosure.
STAX Lambda: Now this one I liked. It was very natural sounding, ever so slightly tipped toward the bright side, very fast and detailed, and not too uncomfortable. I preferred these to the K-1000s.
AKG K340: Very tubby sounding, somewhat hollow in the lower ranges.
HD600: Not that much different than my 650s. Slightly less bass and a small peak somewhere in the upper treble, but other than that, nearly identical.
HD580: Very similar to the HD600.
HD595: I didn't listen to this one very much. The soundstage is more forward than the other Sennheisers that were there.
SR325: Not as bright as many say. The bowl pads were very uncomfortable. Sounded very similar to my old SR-60s.
HF-1: My next favorite after the STAX. Sort of like an SR-60, but less harsh with a slightly warmer overall tonality, at least to me.
DT770: Oh my, the bass. Dished midrange, although not as bad as the K81s. Tipped trebble. Holding them in my hand, I could feel their toughness.
Alessandro MS-1: Very similar to the SR-60. Based on my memories of how my SR-60s sounded, they sound almost identical.
AKG K-501s: Just as mediocre as I remembered. Bass-shy with a strong treble emphasis, giving a delicate, whispy kind of sound.
That Sony Headphone: Extremely shrill, NO bass.
Amplifier impressions:
Dave's PPX3 SLAM amplifier was awesome, my favorite there, by far. I loved the way it sounded. Now I need to get one. The Darkvoices also sounded great. I am happy to say that listening to these completely dispelled any misconceptions I had about tube amplifiers, especially tube amplifiers coupled with Sennheiser headphones. I
will be getting a PPX3 as soon as possible.
One thing I learned from this meet is just how good my HD650 are, and how good they can be. Speaking of HD650s, I had a chance to compare my stock cable HD650s to Dave's recabled HD650s. I could not hear any difference.
Pizza Impressions: The pizza was very good. It was the first thing I had to eat today, so I kind of pigged out.