Fukuoka, Japan Micro-meet: STAX, R10, HD650, ESW10JPN, MD5000, but only two of us!
Nov 7, 2008 at 3:18 AM Post #16 of 28
I am now thinking of getting the koss esp950s instead of the md2000s
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I do remember them being much better than my headroom/hd580 combo before
 
Nov 7, 2008 at 5:09 PM Post #17 of 28
Quote:

Originally Posted by purk /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I don't think that this is the first Japan meet though. jjcha orgainzed a meet awhile back in Japan, maybe couple of years ago. Ayt999 is also a japanese headifier with the most impressive headphones collection.


May well be.
But then the information about it is close to no-existing in the "Meets, Get-Togethers, Factory Tours" sub-forum.

Anyway, it was about time they had another one..
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Nov 7, 2008 at 8:19 PM Post #18 of 28
Nov 8, 2008 at 1:48 AM Post #21 of 28
Gentlemen, I should like to attend your next meeting and to subscribe to your newsletter. Thank you sir.

-Doug.
 
Nov 10, 2008 at 11:36 AM Post #23 of 28
Thank you for sharing the meet impression.
Good to hear the Japan based headfiers get together.

> jjcha orgainzed a meet awhile back in Japan

Yes, they've made several meets and I've joined the last one. That was almost two years ago, but as far as I know, no official headfi meets has been take place since then.
Off course we made many meets among Japanese headphone fanatics including some of them has headfi account, but those are not arranged headfi meets and we did not report for sharing.

> It would be awesome to get some of the Japanese
> nationals like Sasaki and the like involved. Perhaps we could even organize an event sometime down the line with visiting Japanese
> manufacturers.

Yeah I am thinking about this as well, but there is a language barrier. Arrangements for both Japanese and other nationality headfiers would be hard..


By the way, this coming weekend, we will have a haedphones festival at Tokyo.
I uploaded the details on my headfi blog.

The headphone show 2008 fall at Tokyo

This would be a good chance to meet other Japnese headphone fans as well as some manufactures
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Nov 10, 2008 at 12:48 PM Post #24 of 28
Quote:

Originally Posted by Duggeh /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Gentlemen, I should like to attend your next meeting and to subscribe to your newsletter. Thank you sir.

-Doug.



You have to bring your Jecklins if you still have them though.
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Sasaki: DAMN! I wish I'd known about that meet long enough ago I could have arranged to attend. Maybe in the future. I might be in Tokyo for a day or two though soon though... we'll see. There's a shop in Akihabara with every full-size dynamic headphone imaginable which I want to spend an hour or two in again.

I've posted about our next meet, though I don't imagine it will suddenly attract loads of attendees.
 
Nov 10, 2008 at 4:45 PM Post #25 of 28
Hey all, first post! Glad to join the ranks.

I'm an Australian expat currently living in Osaka. I'm only a fledgling head-fier at the moment (fighting the urge to move to desktop equipment, seeing as I'm not planning on living here forever), so I don't know how much I can contribute in terms of gear. I'd love to pick you guys' brains and test out your wares though!

Fukuoka is a long way to travel though....But oh-so tempting....

And, to all Japanese head-fiers: where do you get your equipment? I'm trying to get my hands on some vintage stax, but have no idea where to look outside of yahoo! auctions.
 
Nov 17, 2008 at 12:46 AM Post #26 of 28
Welcome Bat King.
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Save your drinking money if you want to get into STAX gear. You'll need a decent DAC, and then decent interconnects, and yeah, did I say save all your drinking money?
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Jul 19, 2009 at 1:44 PM Post #28 of 28
Ok, today was micro-meet #3 (we didn't get very far with #2).

The purpose this time was for LobsterSan (Craig, whom I hope doesn't mind me using his real name) to compare my HD-800 rig with Stax and his HF-1 rig, as well as trying a few headphones on the Phoenix, including some Audio Technicas.

Mine: Audio-gd Reference 1, Audio-gd Phoenix, HD-800
Craig's: Benchmark DAC1, Yamamoto HA-02, Grado HF-1 (stock).
Cables: Van Den Hul The Orchid RCA & XLR, VDH and Canare digital. My DIY CryoMaxIII power cables. DIY CAST/SATRI cables using CryoParts OCCC cable for the Ref 1/Phoenix connection.

Usefully, my PCLink II, which I use to convert optical digital to coax for the Ref 1, will output to any and all its outputs at the same time, so I could listen with one rig while Craig listened with the other. The Reference 1 will also output on both XLR and RCA at the same time, but it wont output to either if CAST/SATRI is being used, which indeed I was using it for the Phoenix. This allowed us quite a bit of flexibility in how we listened.

Craig had brought along a collection of unusual but interesting music, including quite a bit of it odd Japanese rock. I've noticed quite a bit of rock and pop is quite strongly treble-oriented, which can easily make even dull headphones sound good, not so great for evaluating gear in some respects. However, the one excellent recording we both were familiar with was Chesky's The Body Acoustic, a dark, latin jazz album that sounds good because it is a phenomenally high quality recording.

I hadn't listened to my rig at all up until Craig and family arrived. Making sure that wives and babies were comfortable (this is very important!
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) and discussing the usual about our kids' eating, sleeping and other habits, we got stuck into listening.

I had been previously impressed by the HF-1 with the Yamamoto, after being less pleased with it directly out of the Benchmark, Compass and C2C. I gather the Yamamoto is fantastic with the low-impedance Audio Technicas, so it was no surprise the HF-1 was a great match. Since my last listen to his rig was after I had received my HD-800s, and before the Phoenix, listening again wasn't as good as I remembered. Plugging the HF-1's into the Phoenix revealed why. If I had not my rig, I would be mightily impressed with the DAC1/HA-02/HF-1 combo with its surprisingly wide headstage sweet treble and mids and awesomely punchy bass. The Ref 1/Phoenix combo was a considerable jump, even when the Ref 1 was the source for the HA-02. I had worried, after my previous experience, about solid state gear sounding too, well, "solid state" for the Grados. However, as it had removed the unpleasantness with the HD-800's treble that I experienced with the C2C, there was simply more of everything good with the Phoenix and none of the bad. My first thought was, "The HF-2's are better than this? I can't wait." I would say the DAC1/HA-02 combo is an example of a more edgy DAC with a more warm and relaxing amp, resulting in good synergy, but one caused by balancing out their weaknesses to a degree, with the saving grace being the Grados and their wonderful punch and synergy with the amp.

Next up was the comparison with Stax. For this, we had two amps, a 717 and 007t (original with normal bias and pro bias sockets). I wanted to see if Craig shared my impressions of the Lambda Nova Signatures and SR-5NB Gold compared to the HD-800s. We agreed that, after the HD-800's soundstage, the LNS sounded rather collapsed and the bass more bloated. What I felt though, was that the SR-5NB's were less of a disappointment than the LNS, in the same manner the HF-1's were, when coming from the HD-800s. Though you don't get the same soundstage/headstage, they are very fulfilling headphones, very comparable to the Grados. However, my pair revealed their temperamentality, which is possibly the protective membranes over the drivers getting stuck, causing the bass to drop out entirely.

It was an interesting example of how electrostats have a superior treble, yet are weakest in the bass, with dynamic headphones the opposite, struggling to have a pleasant treble without being fatiguing yet capable of having the best bass tightness and punch. I hadn't believed before owning the Phoenix that it was possible for dynamic headphones to have a strong treble without such a big drawback. That, of course, is as much a reflection of my lack of experience of high-end headphone amps as anything.

I also tried out Craig's rather battered W10VTG's and W11JPN's with the Yamamoto and Phoenix. This confirmed the good match they are with the Yamamoto and the Phoenix, but most of all reminded me why AT's just aren't my kind of headphone. Though I felt my Senn HD-600s had to be pushed very hard to get a good soundstage, nothing seemed to want to push the AT's to sounding, as usually, tonally correct but rather collapsed and dull. I regret I've already sold my A1000X to compare, which are noticeably more bright than the W10VTG's and W11JPN's, yet didn't have the nice bass of either.

I forgot to spend some more time comparing the DAC 1 to the Ref 1 using the Phoenix, however, it was the source for the various times I've been round to Craig's place to try out Stax and other gear, so I'm fairly familiar with it's sound. It's still not as detailed and natural-sounding as the Ref 1, but with my chunky DIY power cables didn't make me want to tear my hair out when I listened to classical, which digititis with violins and pianos makes me want to do.

I'm sorry we were too distracted to take pictures, despite us both having cameras there. We do have some video of our kids throwing toys at each other though....
 

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