Just got home after the whirlwind trip with Voltron and if I had it to do all over again (next year) I'd take three days at least.
Senn HD800s, these are the real deal folks and will compete with or eclipse all of the top tier headphones from the past and present. They are really a bargain at $1400. I got about 20 minutes with them in the glass enclosed booth Senn set up and used a demo disc I burned for the trip. What I heard really impressed me. Crystal clear mids possibly some of the best mids I have heard and I have heard just about every high end headphone out there, female vocals were really astonishing. High were clean without every being bright or strident I do not think these would ever induce fatigue with long sessions. They were very dynamic with a fast leading edge, this is a must for me in headphones and where many have failed in the past. Decay was great I use Dave Brubeck's Take Five and the drum solo and listen for the sound of the drum shell decay not just the drum head hit the senn nailed this well. They rocked out well too handling Led Zeps 'When the Levee Breaks and Van Halen's Jamie Crying with ease and conviction.
Other gear fly bys we were able to hit:
Ultrasone Edition 8s, not a bad headphone and on par with the Ed9s. Small ear cups and they are very shiney. Sound was good and detailed and lacked that unnatural sound I often complain about with the pair of ED9s I had. Still for the price I'g do with the HD800 unless I wanted a $1400 portable headphone. They also had an amp there on display the Al listened to but seemed to have a few technical difficulties and was not functioning properly.
Quad Room. They had a pair of the stats up and running with an all Quad electronics package. Suund was nice and organic but lacked any real drive and emotion. Maybe it was they room or maybe it was my expectations but we left after a track to seek out greener pastures.
Hanson Speaker Room, Great rig but missed the bulls eye. They had the Hanson big dogs in here $60k worth of speaker the Kings. The front end was a beautiful Redpoint turntable and DCS digital player that was driven by C.A.T pre and power amps. Nice sound and almost world class but suffered from a top end that could have used a bit of taming. Great stuff but I expect perfection when the total rig price is well over $100k.
TAD has two rooms going, one with their big speakers and one with stand mount larger monitors. In the bigger room they partnered with Ray Kimber who was demoing his isomike recordings. Great sound in both rooms but the smaller monitors sounded better to me but it may have been the music or room set up as I have heard the larger speakers really shine in the past. Both rooms used pass lab amps and the smaller speakers had the berkeley alpha dac in use. The Berkeley dac is one I really want to audition in my rig as everything I have heard about this dac screams home run.
Red Wine Audio, when Al and I spied Vinnie Rossi and the RWA audio room we had to stop by. For those that haven't met Vinnie he is one of the good guys out there in the biz. RWA has the new Isabella pre/dac into a tube power amp (el34s) feeding new two ways from Europe. The speakers were nice but not totally my things and at $4500 I need to be better wowed. I really wish he had the hemp speakers from Omega only because they represent a point of reference and I could have gotten a better feeling for his pre/dac. If you are ever at a show spend some time with RWA great guy and he has always treated me right.
We caught the Steve Hoffman talk at 2pm in the KS cable room. First of all Steve is a class act and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak do not miss the opportunity. His knowledge is without peer and his delivery is down to earth and funny. Other than the three loud and obnoxious members of the well known audio media/MOT that sat behind and talked through a few songs and droned on and on about some cable maker like he was Moses it was time well spent.
Steve covered alot of ground in 70 minutes from Sinatra to Nat King Cole, the Beatles, Art Pepper and more. Probably most interesting was listening to the direct mike feeds from the Sinatra and Nat Cole sessions with the echo chamber treatments that are on the LPs and CDs. WOW sound like you are right there in the room the equivalent of a sonic holograms. He played a clip of I'n So Tired from the Beatles White Album that has such extension both low and high that is just not present on the cds or lps. Lets hope that cataloge get better treatment in the years to come.
