[markm1]

Maybe CAF?

 

[jthom320]

  I'm in Reston too, I will let you know next meeting and maybe we can share the ride. I believe there's one coming up on April but it's mostly gear display, not so much greet and meet as far as I could understand. I'm new to these circles.

It did have wifi. It was just trickier to setup because in every Fairfax library you have to authenticate your connection and comply with their terms via browser, even if your wifi connectivity says that it is active. And even if in the first try you didn't get any website showing you the terms of use agreement.

I know this because it happened to me a couple of times while dual booting OS and I noticed people with the wifi connection active but their tidal/spotify was not usable. 

That'd be awesome.  I'd love to attend something like that.  Let me know!

 

[schneller]

For those who visited my place to audition equipment back in mid January, you may recall listening to some music from my wife's band. Well, her band is a finalist in the DC Edition of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert. If you feel so inclined, please vote for MENAGE A GARAGE...
 
http://bandwidth.wamu.org/vote-for-your-favorite-d-c-tiny-desk-contest-video/

THANKS!

 

[yage]

My vote's in... hope they win!

 

[schneller]

  My vote's in... hope they win!

Thanks!

 

[GrindingThud]

Done!

 

[Barry S]

Voted!

 

[sheldaze]

Best of luck! I voted too!

 

[Billheiser]

Some of you went to the event in Maryland this weekend, I reckon.   I think organized by Gary Gill?  How was it?

 

[gandhisfist]

Gary put on a really nice event this past weekend.  Got to hear the final tuning of the Dharma, some stuff from Aqua Hifi including the La Scala and La Voce dacs and the Wells Audio Headtrip headphone amplifier.
 
ENIGMAcoustics Dharma
 
Overall a very interesting headphone.  From the last time we heard it at CAF 2015, I believe they have adjusted the crossover between the electret and the dynamic driver some more.  It seems now that the dynamic driver basically kicks in at the top of the mids, so the electret really only handles the treble.  The electret driver is really a very different sound, giving the treble more impact and dynamics than I'm used to.  Unfortunately I felt it was a bit overdone and unpleasant at times, notes from pianos were sort of splashy and over emphasized in their attack.  Otherwise it had pretty clean and detailed highs.  The mids were clean and sounded pretty good, decent amount of detail there, though the lower mids seemed somewhat emphasized compared to the upper mids, which may just be their attempt at warming up the mids.  I felt the mids were a bit incoherent with the difference in empahsis, but still pleasing overall.  The bass however was disappointing.  I felt that though there was some midbass, that the bass peaked and rolled off rather quickly and sounded quite woolly and distorted.  I think they did this in an attempt to add some warmth to the headphone, but it just didn't work out in its favor.  
 
Unfortunately I had a hard time getting my head around the Aqua Hifi stuff and the Wells Audio Headtrip because I was generally testing with the Dharma and everything was too new for me.  I did bring a couple of items with me for comparison (my HE-500, HD800 and NFB-15), but with no way to hook up my dac or amp to those units, I wasn't really able to get an impression of them alone.  The Headtrip is quite interesting though, seems to be built as a speaker amplifier that only has headphone outputs, it does a whopping 25W into 32ohms when using it balanced (dual 3pin configuration).  Most of my time however was spent socializing and listening to the speaker setups upstairs which sounded pretty fantastic.

 

[Billheiser]

Tell us about the speakers!

 

[TimeLord]

Tell us about the speakers!

Ditto. I'm all ears.

 

[gandhisfist]

I didn't catch the name of the one pair I did hear, but from what I gathered, they are planar magnetic speakers with a small box with a sealed woofer at the bottom. The room wasn't treated so I am sure they affected the sound, I recall there being a lack of midbass due to the room acoustics. They used a couple different amplifiers I can't recall the names of, but all of them were hooked up to the Aqua Hifi La Scala DAC. Take my impressions with a grain of salt, as I am sure these speakers would perform better in a treated room. I thought the speakers were really smooth and impactful with good but not great dynamics across the range and that imaging was rather good. I still got a little bit of the hard panning that was on some recordings and didn't feel that the speakers staged all that well. They sounded pretty intimate and a bit lacking in dynamics to me.

 

[Billheiser]

Free vinyl if anyone wants it. Am emptying out a family member's house. 60 or 70 records, mostly classical and folk. Some very old ones too, including a couple of 78 rpm.

 

[yage]

Free vinyl? I'll take it all!