Downtown Chicago Meet (3/18/06) Impressions Thread
Mar 19, 2006 at 3:11 PM Post #16 of 55
First of all I want to thank Randy for organizing a great meet in a great place and Blue Onion for helping out. It was great to see old faces and meet new people. I finally got to see and hear the tiny Hornet ant thank you Ray for letting me borrow one of your personal units and I'm looking forward to the upgrades to my Raptor you graciously offered to make.

Another highlight was the chance to check out the Quailia and R10s. While the Quailia were a big disappointment, thin and hollow the R10s were magical. The sound so clean and detailed, balanced and full. They sounded so good both with the HR2 and the Raptor. If only the price was a bit lower
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Billi's AKG 1000 setup was wild, the tube mono blocks looked and sounded great. I wish I could hear them with a pair of good speakers.

The HF1s sounded very nice and reminded me very much of my old SR225s with a bit of RS1s mixed in.

Ray entertained us sharing his audio wisdom and I spend much of the time listening in.

Unos pizza was quite good, and there was lots of it.

Overall a great meet, Chicago style
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Mar 20, 2006 at 12:24 AM Post #20 of 55
I'll ditto a lot of others thoughts regarding the fantastic venue....and the opportunity to put some faces to the (chicago) head-fi crowd. An all around great experience!

Highlights for me:

- AKG 1000's (WOW)
- Comparing Shure E500's to Ultimate Ears UE5c's
- AKG 701's

Lowlights:

- RaYSaMueLsSoN saying that the Green Bay Packer rubber bands on a H120/Hornet combo had to go
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- Having my SR71 batteries die in the first three minutes of the meet during my first listen session (quickly followed by the highlight of finding a bonafide grocery store two rooms over!).
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 12:41 AM Post #21 of 55
Anyone got impressions of n_maher's Millet I see on top of that Sony CDP? That's yours sejarzo, correct?
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 12:45 AM Post #22 of 55
Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68
........the opportunity to put some faces to the (chicago) head-fi crowd.


Next time, we gotta do name tags with usernames and real names.....I'm bad with names in the first place, and I kept forgetting to ask you guys for them when we met. Now I have a bunch of faces in my head, and a bunch of names, but not a whole lot of them connected!

And I'd certainly be willing to co-host and bring food and drink if there is a "next time" at the Hancock!
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 1:00 AM Post #23 of 55
Quote:

Originally Posted by Thaddy
Anyone got impressions of n_maher's Millet I see on top of that Sony CDP? That's yours sejarzo, correct?


I'll let others give listening impressions, but FYI.....

It was running DuMont label/RCA manufactured 12FK6's (dated 1962) biased at 12 volts. The 12AE6's that I thought I might bring along didn't arrive here until an hour after Tim and I left for the Hancock (of course!)

It came with a 24V wall wart--you'd have to check with Nate to find out the source--and a TREADS inside the main chassis. Alps Blue Velvet pot, Vishay/BC film caps, Black Gates and Elna's where those were the best choices, respectively. OPA551's in the buffer sockets.

I did roll those 12AE6's in today.......GE label/RCA manufacture, ca. 1958. They were not nearly as microphonic as the 12AE6A's that Nate threw in with the amp (we still haven't figured out the manufacturer of those, as the markings don't make it obvious.) On the other hand, biased at 12V, the 12AE6's definitely have more gain than the 12FK6's, but strangely, they seem to clip at a lower overall volume. The DuMont's are back in it today.
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 1:16 AM Post #24 of 55
I was pretty bad about introducing myself to people as well -- I think the one person I actually mentioned my name to was wolfen68. So for everyone else I didn't introduce myself to, I was the ~5'7" 20-something in a blue short sleeved shirt and tan corduroy pants.

Meanwhile...twelve hours of driving in one day is absolutely no fun.

Highlights...

1) Finally hearing those toilet bowls of headphones called AKG 701s
2) Deep dish love
3) Creative positions for IEM placement
4) Chicago at night

If we do have another meet up there, I'd love to do it in the evening, because the lights up there were incredible once the sun had set. The tour of that floor we took at the end of the night was also quite impressive.

Good meet.
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 1:35 AM Post #26 of 55
Thanks to all involved for the gear and the pizza! It was great metting y'all there!

First off, I listened to the new RSA (short for Ray Samuels Audio) Hornet amp. What a great little amp! (Though it doesn't quite come close to the articulation of its larger siblings.) It is capable of driving even my AKG K240DF's that I brought along to the meet - with the gain switch set at High. (Obviously, the High gain position would reduce battery life quite a bit.) And speaking of my RSA SR-71 (which I also brought along), it is the first truly portable amp that I've ever came across which can drive even those particular tough-to-drive AKG's to moderately loud levels.

Next, I got to listen to the new AKG K701's. It made me want to order one as soon as I have an opportunity to do so. I had considered the Beyerdynamic DT880's - but the 2003 model that I've also listened to sounded spitty to my ears (I thought I would have liked the DT880's, until I listened to them at this meet.)

I've also revisited the Grado RS-1's and the Sony MDR-CD3000's. I liked the RS-1's more this time around than I did the last time I listened to them. But at $700, they'd better sound noticeably better than the $400 K701's in order for me to justify their purchase. Regrettably, they fell quite a bit short of that ideal. The CD3K's, however, still left me wanting more, in terms of sound quality: They still suffered from the echoey presentation and bright tinny sound of many of the cheaper closed Sony headphones - or put it this way, they still sounded as mediocre as they did the first time I listened to those headphones. I'd gladly pay about $150 for those CD3K's - but not anywhere close to the $350~$400 a lot of Head-Fiers had paid for them.

My revisit with the Sony MDR-R10's was equally as satisfying as my previous listen to those wooden Sonys. If only I had $3000 to spend for even a used pair...
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I did not listen to the Qualias. Instead, I took Ray Samuels' word for them. And after several people listened to them, I knew I would have blurted out the @#$% word when I would describe their sound quality. (This meant that they aren't worth even 1/25th of their asking price. Sure, I would pay $75 for them. But $2600? Fuggiddaboudit!)

The HD650's and the K1000's need no explanation. I did not listen to either of those, because I had already known what to expect from those two headphones (which meant the HD650's aren't a significant enough upgrade from my current HD600's to justify spending money for, while the K1000's need a HUGE stationary amp just to sound good).
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 1:48 AM Post #28 of 55
Quote:

Originally Posted by bhd812
Not any Deep dish but it was UNO's Deep dish...I think I watched on the food network once that that same UNO's actually created the pizza as everyone knows it today....


I would have been pissed if I drove all the way up there and got that kind of pizza.
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Mar 20, 2006 at 1:53 AM Post #29 of 55
Sorry if this is off-topic, but since you guys were all so great, I thought I'd let you all now about them first rather than posting them for sale.

You all saw that ToddR brought a box and the two of us spoke about this, but I forgot to mention to most of you that I have 300-ish LP's available and would like to see them in the hands of nice folks who would use and enjoy them. The ol' Kenwood KD500 and Fidelity Research arm got traded away a few years ago, so they're all of no use to me.

The used vinyl dealers in the area all seemed disinterested in buying any from me, and selling it via eBay/A'gon was too much of a hassle. A lot of what I now have left is really not unusual, and I'd let it go of quite a bit of it for just the cost of packing and postage.

PM me with the sort of music or artists you are looking for, and I'll let you know what I have. Bulk of it is mid-70's to early 80's rock/pop/jazz.

I have a small collection of well-used but still decent Sheffield Labs direct-to-disc, Phillips/DG classical, and a few Japanese classical and jazz pressings. I'm not 100% sure, but I think there are some Columbia half-speed masters left.
 
Mar 20, 2006 at 2:03 AM Post #30 of 55
Quote:

Originally Posted by bhd812
Not any Deep dish but it was UNO's Deep dish...I think I watched on the food network once that that same UNO's actually created the pizza as everyone knows it today....


Oh ok. There a few pizzarias that I rank above UNO's for deep dish. But admittedly, it's only two spots above the worst that I've had.
 
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