Hey all, I know I'm a little late writing up for the meet but you know how life gets. Anyways, I got there and met Trevor and his girlfriend who are two of the nicest people I've met in a long time. All the guys were cool and it was comforting to know I'm not the only headphone noob out there. Trevor showed us his Dynahi and explained some of the details about building amps and how the dynahi differs from previous generations of amps (ie. ppa, pimeta etc.)
Having only owned the senn 600's for about 2 days before going to the meet and not owning an amp, I got spoiled QUICKLY. Trevor had an absolutely sick setup. He had a cheap-o CD player used just as a digital out to a Benchmark DAC1, then using these $1400 interconnects he was borrowing to the TrevorNetwork Dynahi with Stepped Attenuator. Carbonman also brought out his maxed out PPA. As for cans, we had the R10's, w2002's, senn 580's, senn 600's, beyer 831's, and beyer 880's and the Baby O.
Now before I describe my impressions of the headphones I was using, I should again qualify this by saying I'd only listened to my senn 600's for the last couple days before that through a home stereo receiver and before that I was using cheap-o $5 headphones my girlfriend grabbed in hong kong.
I only brought over a DVD of mp3's which I never got a chance to listen to cuz we didn't have the setup for it, so I was stuck using other people's music. I tried the R10's outta the dynahi first because they were the most expensive of the bunch and I pretty underwhelmed by their total lack of bottom end, as many young head-fi'ers such as myself have claimed. Having listened a little longer I started to hear the amount of detail in the upper end but I was pretty underwhelmed for $3000 headphones. I also tried the Baby O and felt pretty much exactly about them as the R10's except that the decay was unreal! I'd read about decay before but never really experienced it until listening to the Baby O's. I went back to the Dynahi and tried the w2002's and was totally blown away. The w2002's had a very full sound and were so musical. When I listen to music, I tend to listen for lower-mids/upper-bass if that makes any sense... not 20-30Hz pounding bass, but a warm sound signature. Through the Dynahi, the sound was so alive and listening to anything became this incredibly engaging and emotional experience. Switching between the Dynahi and Carbonman's maxed PPA (valued at approx $1000 new) was night and day. The PPA just sounded lifeless, flat, and the emotional almost religious experience was gone when compared to the Dynahi. I mean so disrespect to Carbonman and his gear but this is just my personal experience. When comparing the Senn 600's withe the AT-w2002's, I immediately heard the Sennheiser "veil". Compared to the 2002's, the Senn's didn't sound nearly as warm, withdrawn, but also like they had no musicality to them. I could hear each of the seperate instruments in the music, but they sounded just that... seperate. However, the w2002's brought all these elements together and with more detail than the 600's. To the senn's credit, when they're used with the dynahi I'd say 90% of the senn veil disappeared and made them very very significantly more like the detailed, warm sound signature of the w2002's. If you are a big senn's fan you OWE it to yourself to try these with the Dynahi, I can simply not overstate how incredible they sound in comparison even with a maxed out PPA.
Considering Trevor was selling his 2002's, I tossed and turned about spending so much on cans, especially after just buying the 600's but in the end my girlfriend told me I should buy them because I made her audition them with the dynahi vs. ppa and also 2002's vs. senn 600's. When your girlfriend tells you to spend 900 bucks (US of course) on cans, that's when you know the w2002's are some of the sexiest cans ever made. Props to my gf for getting me to buy these and reminding me what the world's sexiest cans really are.
Anyways, much love to Trevor and Lee-Anna for hosting such a great event and it was great to meet people in the head-fi community. It was way way way more fun than either I or my gf expected and I find it really sad that TrevorNetwork has been banned from the head-fi community (so I heard from Trevor anyways). Truly the head-fi community's loss.
P.S. Food for thought for all you dynahi buyers out there, it's really odd to me at least that Veda Audio can sell a Dynahi with Stepped Attenuator for 949 (
http://www.gurushankar.com/14255/14349.html). I think Trevor's selling them for around 1600 (prices not up there anymore but used to be up at
www.dynahi.com). And HeadAmp is selling a Dynahi with a stepped attenuator for 1799 (
http://www.headamp.com/dynahi.shtml). I mean, I'm no builder, but based on simple economics, we could theorize that Veda Audio's product must have significantly lower product quality, or he's building the same product quality as the other two builders but doing so somehow at a ridiculously lower cost level... Or the other two builders are ripping everybody off and Veda Audio is providing the true bargain... just food for thought...
