3's good company for this truely MINI-meet. Germania has it goin on w/ all her cable mods, hdph mods and DIY Millet amp mod. I urge anyone to give her Millet mod a good listen. Additionally, her Sony CS1000 mod was quite nice and just made my Sony F1 snd like crap with acoustic music. I've heard about the F1 mod but haven't tried it yet.
We made an interesting discovery at the 11th hr. I was first comparing 2 prs of IC's she made w/ subtle differences, then for grins A/B my modded ASL w/ matched pr of Mazda BQ5's and rare Mullard 12AX7. My ASL seemed like a good small tube hdph amp when sourced by iPod listening to jazz and acoustic tunes but suddenly I felt the OUCH as the modded Millet was full, spacious, and detailed. More shocking was when I A/B the Millet w/ my MPX3 Slam, but I kept it to myself and simply asked Germania to give a quick listen as she was wrapping up stuff. YES, in a ball park sort of way, THEY SOUNDED SIMILAR. Sure there's finer points to argue like silkier top end, bottom punch and forward sndstage from Snglpwr, but the overall presentation was remarkable alike. (I should have done the same comparison w/ different hdphs and see if the consistency remained, next meet).
With all the special tricks and trims Germania altered into the basic Millet DIY design, I would say she unknowingly voiced it to be a lighter version of the MPX3 SLAM and I was even using the Ken Rad VT 231 for output. The air and articulation were spot on and even the gain on her smaller amp was remarkably high, due in large part to her beefed up pwr supply. Everything had P2P wiring and true audiophile caps and resistors. The styling was good w/ some room for improvement, but I think the screws that stuck out on top versus being flush had a DIY charm factor.
I finally got my 1st listen to STAX thanks to Keithpgdrb and realized how unspacious I thought my HD650's really were, however, the HD's made up for what the STAX lacked in bottom end and punch. This comparison forces one to choose what one prefers regarding air, articulation, focus, speed and staging, notwithstanding a huge price point difference. I would add that the modded CS1000's have similar qualities to the STAX7 in air and mid detail yet offers a little more bass and relaxed presentation.
Finally, I liked Germania's direction w/ cable wiring, copper/silver single core combo w/ stranded copper grnd in a teflon dialectric which I think mirrors what Stephan Arts does w/ their HD cables. Plus, her fabric housing was better that Stephan's nylon jacket in durability and microphonics.
I couldn't believe how late we talked shop and how far down the Head-Fi rabbit hole we went till I got a call from my girl returning from work and asking me to bring the dog down for his night walk. Thankfully there was no mess to clean up but not feeding him put me in the dog house for the night.
Here's pics from the event.
