Made it home as well, and a wonderful meet it was!
Here are some of my most lasting impressions:
dailydoseofdaly's LCD-3 paired with the V200/V800 combination was very good. I enjoyed it more than I enjoy the HE-500 + La Figaro 339/HRT MSII+ setup (Which is saying a lot). I found the bass to be very precise, and the music to flow very well. It was able to correct some weaknesses that I did not like about the LCD-2... For example, the comfort issue I had of the squeezing of the cheeks no longer existed with the LCD-3. Also, I felt like the vocals were portrayed in better, in the sense that they were close enough to the listener. Also, to top it off, the extra amount of detail that the LCD-3 is able to gather, as well as the amount of additional resolving ability makes it a winner over the LCD-2. Sorry Defiant00, while I'll agree that the LCD-2 is a top notch headphone, it just is not for me
, no hard feelings.
Leaving Electrostats out of the picture, I can now confidently say that my favorite higher end headphones that I've heard, go like this (Also
dxanex's HD650 paired with the Bottlehead Crack is an awesome pairing! I once owned a pair of HD650s, but sold it far before I built the Crack, so this was also my first time listening to the 650 on crack (har har har). This is the Crack without the speedball too... It's just super clean sounding, with a tighter, well-controlled bass, and much faster than the generally sluggish HD650 is able to muster. We both listened to this pairing and found it sublime!
DannyB's setups were incredible, to say the least. It would take me days to comment on everything that I heard, but I can definitely say that the one that left the lasting impression was the HE Audio Jade (Danny can comment on what it was paired with, Moth 2A3 and Woo Wee?). The Jade felt like an even more detailed, dynamic version of the HD800 with a much punchier, juicy bass that is very like-able. I originally thought that something was rattling with the bass of the Jade, but then found out later that it was actually
part of Danny's recording, which the HD800 was unable to pick up. I think the Jade was able to fit the bill of "Genre Master" as I didn't hear any type of music that it did not particularly excel with. One thing I totally forgot to try was the K1000 and HE-6 on his EF-6, so hopefully someone else can leave some comparison impressions of those headphones on the EF-6 vs. on the integrated amps that were available as well.
ardgedee's HE-6 with the hk670 vintage receiver was a phenomenal pairing. With the HE-6 being my favorite pair of headphones, I had never heard them sound so good before. It was just a mixture of pure relaxation but at the same time involvement in the music. Instruments sounded realistic, and voices sounded intimate, while avoiding the 'veil' effect. I'm typically very picky about bass, but the HE-6 never seems to fail when it comes to impressing me with its bass presentation. I also feel like a well driven HE-6 (Like it was driven by ardgedee's amp) can pull in micro details nearly as well as the HD800 can (For all of you HD800 fans out there, please don't flame me. I own the HD800 too and love it). All in all, I'd say this pairing sounded better than my Sansui pairing with the HE-6, which I consider my favorite pairing that I own, as of today.
Both fatcat28037 and DannyB's K1000s were something else. This was my first time hearing them, and they definitely sounded good. The soundstage rivals that of the HD800. Even though it lacked some technicalities at its price point, I still found it very very enjoyable, and regardless of what I've read, they were fairly comfortable to me. By the end of the meet, my mother exclaimed that she wanted me to buy her that pair (If it came in a wireless version)... Oh mothers...
Stevtt's Rogue Audio amplifier is a monster. It seemed to make any headphone paired with it sound wonderful. Even my least favorite high end headphone, the LCD-2 was able to sound surprisingly good on this beast. I wish I could've tried the HE-6 or K1000 out of the speaker taps of this amp... If anyone did during the meet,
please post those impressions!
ken weitzen had this wooden box at his table, which tickled my fancy. It was a headphone amplifier built by his friend, and Ken gracefully put together the exterior. He asked me to try the HD800 on it, so on I went to try the HD800 with it. A fairly refined amp, that was able to drive the HD800 and take down that nasty treble spike. I estimated the amp to cost roughly $600. Ken shocked me with the price (Lets just say lower than $50) of the amp, which was able to drive a very amp picky headphone, like the HD800. It even had its own EQ... What the heck?!
Finally, the last two pieces of equipment paired together made an impression that will not fade easily. Fatcat28037's WA22 paired with..... *drumroll*.... ardgedee's Sony CD3000!!!! Being oblivious of the price, I plugged the CD3000 into Alex's WA22, expecting to be underwhelmed, to be honest. I was completely shocked. With the selection of music (I forget what it was), the CD3000 sounded amazing paired with the WA22. I later plugged in the HD800 to the WA22, and while the CD3000 was not 'better' so to speak in terms of technicalities, I can very honestly say I still preferred the CD3000's presentation over the HD800 for that selection of music. I'm not even sure what it was that made me like it more. Perhaps Alex waved his hands and mumbled a few magic words, which mesmerized me into believing it sounded better, but there is no doubt in mind which one I preferred. Folks, that's saying a lot, especially after I was informed that the CD3000 costed ~$350! While it's rare and out of production... Sony has made a killer pair of headphones...
I have a lot of pictures, should we just load them directly to this forum, or use some type of photo site, like photobucket?
(EDIT) Nvm, I'll follow the precedence.
-Vernon
