[mrarroyo]

Man, there was some very nice gear present. Hope you all had a great time. Look forward to more pictures.

 

[shellylh]

LOL! I am glad you kept yourself from rolling around in them!

Quote:

Originally Posted by s1rrah /img/forum/go_quote.gif BTW ... Just another side note ... Shelly *without a doubt* had the funnest and most intriguing headphone collection of any person at the meet. Seriously ... I had to forcibly stop myself from jumping up on her demo table so as to roll around in them. LMAO. ... ... <sigh> So much more money to spend. Good show, sista!

On a more serious note. I had an absolutely fantastic time at the meet! I can't wait for the next one. Unfortauntely, I didn't have time to try everything at the meet. I really wanted to try the SP MPX3 but didn't have time!

Here are some brief impressions.

Before the meet (based on impressions on head-fi), I didn't think that I would like electrostatics because of a ``lack of bass.'' However, my absolute favorite setup was pabbi1's Cambridge Audio 840c -> Blue Hawaii -> Senn HE60!!! I felt like I was listening to a b-side in the sense that I was hearing details that I had never hear before. I just wish I could have listened to the setup in a quiet room

. Unfortunately, I don't see myself being able to buy/build that setup for some time!

I also really liked the Woo6 SE. It did a great job driving everything I threw at it (including the K340s!) and had something left over.

The MHDT Paradisea+ and Havana were really nice dacs. The sirrah's paradisea+ really paired well with my GS-1. I really wish would have done a Havana/Stello DA100 shootout but alas... next meet.

This was the first time I tried out a balanced setup. Unfortunately, swt61's B22 caught on fire before I could try it out. Fortunately, the Millet Max Balanced dac+amp did not catch on fire. I tried it with some Senn 600 and 650s (with an APS balanced cable I think). It certainly had more power and impact than a SE setup. I wish I would have tried swt61's balanced K340 (in a balanced setup).

That's it for now.

By the way, great pictures!!!! I'll see if I have any that are worthy and put them up tomorrow. Thanks to everybody for coming to the meet and bringing your gear. It was really great to meet everyone.

 

[derekbmn]

Very nice !! Looking forward to more impressions, thoughts etc. on the various stats.

 

[Orcin]

Here we go with some more pics...


My humble rig...

Electrostatic row in all its glory... people told me not to go down there but I did it anyway. Sorry for my wallet.

s1rrah's rig is overclocked and probably illegal in several states, but not Texas!

pabbi1's been listening to my rig for quite a while. I hope he likes it.

kydsid is blogging the meet online using wi-fi that he hijacked from one of my neighbors. Attaboy!

swt61 and luvdunhill setting up the mother of all turntables, while wareagle69 checks out the electrostatics.

shellylh has so many cans she has to hang them off chairs, tables, stands, towels...

wareagle69 has Singlepower covered and then some, plus a very impressive playlist of jazz to go with those K701's. I liked them a lot.

shellylh finally has all of the cans set up. I counted 16 phones and 4 different rigs, but I may have missed some. I learned a lot about headphones at this table. The Paradisea+/GS-1 went together very well and the Singlepower Extreme/Stello DA100 was a really nice setup.

Who doesn't like bass?

s1rrah says, "Oh crap, I really like this Stax too... my wallet can't take much more of this."

luvdunhill is finally going to get to enjoy this turntable... uh but wait a sec...

What's that smell... why are flames coming out of that beta22? pabbi1 photographs the evidence for CSI.

Clearly, this was the highlight of the meet. The fire is out but we are still laughing.

MJM58 takes "rack" to a whole new level. There are a lot of tweaks on this cart. The CIAudio VHP2 sounded great with some modded Grado's and yet another Paradisea.

Marc and Steve have finished burning up amps so they return to tweaking the turntable. Enjoy that vinyl, Steve.

Al's balanced Millet and HD650's was a shocker for me. I had no idea balanced sounded this good. Then Steve brought over the modded Sony CD3000's and wow! I stayed at this setup for quite a while listening to Lou Reed live.

The Woo electrostatic amp was a big hit also. Yes, we had a LOT of tubes at this meet.

Oh yeah, that's a Blue Hawaii and a KGSS right next door. It is pretty scary how good these sound. I learned a new respect for DIY at this meet. It's true what they say about value.

The modded 3000's are modeled by this fellow who walked in off the street. He was wearing ipod buds when he came in. He seems pretty happy about the transformation.

A great time was had by all, and dinner was good too! Thanks to everyone for coming and making our first meet a success. I'll be posting some more detailed impressions about the equipment tomorrow.

 

[s1rrah]

@ Orcin:

This is, by far, the best shot of the bunch:

...

Bet he remembers you at work this next week.

Thanks again for taking the initiative on making this great meet happen!

BTW:

Re: 6385?

It's everything you/we/they hoped it would be.

(rock on)

Best.

.joel

 

[Wmcmanus]

Man, what a great meet! You guys have it all in Houston.

I mean, gear? You want to talk about gear! You've got tons of great stuff there. Everything from vintage to vinyl with all sorts of high end e'stats and almost every possible dynamic headphones set up, over-the-top computer rigs, you name it!

Plus, there seems to be food and beverage aplenty. Always a good thing.

Even old timers! I've never seen such a high concentration of old timers at one Head-Fi meet! Not ever, man. That's cool. We need more old timers in this hobby. Guys who aren't afraid to wear orange pants! Way to go, Al. Nice seeing you again.

No, seriously. About the old timers. I consider myself one too. I've always said that it would be wonderful to get more of the 40+ gang from places like Audiogon and Audio Asylum to crossover to Head-Fi. Not just the long time audiophiles who grew up with high end audio on their brains, but people who are just now (or in recent years) rediscovering the joys of music and digging all of the possibilities that decent headphone-based systems can bring.

It really is, in all seriousness, quite cool to see the diversity in your Houston group. Shelly too! You go, Girl-Fi girl. That's quite an assortment there.

This kind of reminds me of how our Head-Fi group in South Florida get started. At the first ever meet (back in '03, I believe), there were just 6 of us. I brought a bunch of gear as did Gene (agile_one). NightWoundsTime was there as well. Everyone had a great time, and before you knew it, the gang expanded quickly with the likes of tyrion, boomana, jp11801, joining in and becoming "real world" friends. Next thing you know, tyrion decided to take on the task of organizing a national meet! Anything is possible.

From what I'm seeing in these pics, your group is definitely having a lot of fun, and hopefully you'll get together often. Sharing the experience adds so much to one's enjoyment of being an audio hobbyist in general, and to being a member of Head-Fi in particular. So much harder to do with your friends in the speaker world. Can't really lug those around from place to place so easily!

 

[krmathis]

Yeah, and awesome collection of you you guys have there.
Lots of smiling faces as well, showing that you all had a nice time.

 

[ISALULA]

Wow... Great meet !

Congratulations.

 

[Orcin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif Man, what a great meet! You guys have it all in Houston. I mean, gear? You want to talk about gear! You've got tons of great stuff there. Everything from vintage to vinyl with all sorts of high end e'stats and almost every possible dynamic headphones set up, over-the-top computer rigs, you name it!

I want to point out that Houston merely hosted this meet. A lot of this gear, and I dare say much of the really good stuff, came from Dallas, Austin, and Port Aransas. Thanks a lot to these other Texans for coming in to make Houston's first meet really look good.

And I also want to point out that we were the beneficiary of some very gracious sponsors including Woo Audio and MHDT Labs, both of whom sent top-notch equipment to the meet free of charge.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif Even old timers! I've never seen such a high concentration of old timers at one Head-Fi meet! Not ever, man. That's cool. We need more old timers in this hobby. Guys who aren't afraid to wear orange pants! Way to go, Al. Nice seeing you again.

We really did have Team Old-Fi.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif It really is, in all seriousness, quite cool to see the diversity in your Houston group. Shelly too! You go, Girl-Fi girl. That's quite an assortment there.

And she actually has a good reason for owning most of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus /img/forum/go_quote.gif From what I'm seeing in these pics, your group is definitely having a lot of fun, and hopefully you'll get together often. Sharing the experience adds so much to one's enjoyment of being an audio hobbyist in general, and to being a member of Head-Fi in particular. So much harder to do with your friends in the speaker world. Can't really lug those around from place to place so easily!

We absolutely had a lot of fun, and I am sure we will do it again. Right now, I don't want to think about organizing it, but it's clear Texas could support a "super-meet". Perhaps we could have an annual Texas Head-Fi meet in Dallas, Austin, and Houston, rotating to each city every three years. Something to think about...

We were also discussing how Dallas would make a great central U.S. location for a Canjam if we could ever get it off the left and right coasts.

 

[Orcin]

Equipment impressions:

I came to the meet to decide on a dynamic single-ended headphone amp. So I spent a lot of time listening to different amps in my price range (which naturally ended up a lot higher than it started).

Jack at Woo Audio threw a real monkey wrench into my plans when he sent a WA6 and a WA6SE to my house the week before the meet. After spending a few days with these two amps, it became pretty clear to me that I was going to buy a tube amp. Tubes are just too cool, and the sound was exactly what I wanted. So I was a bit biased going into the meet, but I tried to put that aside and listen objectively.

The amp that I zeroed in on first was the Headamp GS-1. Very conviently, Shelly ran out of sources (hard to believe) and Joel loaned her his Paradisea for the meet to pair with the GS-1. This was a real break for me, seeing that I have the same DAC. So I listened to this amp for quite a while and came away very impressed.

It has a very open and comfortable sound, as musical as any solid-state that I heard. It handled all of Shelly's cans really well, and drove my HD600's like they should sound with an amp that has lots of headroom. The bass was well-defined and deep, and the highs were smooth and not the least bit digital. If I were going to buy a ss amp, the GS-1 would be it.

s1rrah was right, I also really liked the Stello HP100. In fact, he is also right that I can't find much, if any, sound difference between it and the Headamp. The Stello is also $300 less. So why would I buy the Headamp for 50% more? I liked some of the features of the GS-1 better, including the gain switch and two inputs. Plus the GS-1 has more cosmetic appeal for me. But if you have $600 to spend and want $1,000 worth of sound from a solid-state amp, buy a Stello HP100. Seriously.

We hooked up the Woo Audio 6 next to s1rrah's HP100, and it was very well received. I personally love it, and I think it is a super value for $600. I compared it to several other tube amps in the under-$1000 bracket at the meet, and I liked the WA6 overall sound quality better than all, including the Singlepower amps until I got up to the Extreme.

Honorable mention goes to the CIAudio VHP-2 and kydsid's Mapletree Ear+. I was pleasantly surprised by both of these amps. They sounded like they should cost a lot more.

The Singlepower Extreme and the Woo Audio 6 Special Edition were the two best dynamic s/e amps in the room, in my opinion. Shelly had the Extreme set up with her Stello DA100, and I really liked this combination. The Extreme was very musical and balanced. The Extreme tube combinations are different from the WA6SE but both are great, and both amps had power to spare. However, there was no tube at the meet that got more comments than the Sophia Princess mesh plate on the WA6SE.

The Woo 6SE has a great sound, lots of tube rolling possibilites, and is backed with outstanding customer service. Plus it was already in my house with 30 hours of burn-in on it, as opposed to a potentially difficult search for a used Extreme or the wait for a new one. Consequently, I am buying the Woo Audio 6SE today and I'm quite happy about it after having heard almost all of the competition. I am convinced that I am getting the best amp for me, at under $1500 including a bunch of tubes and one truly impressive rectifier.

I do agree with Shelly that it would have been great to A/B the Stello oversampling DAC against the MHDT non-oversampling DAC's, but that will have to wait for the next meet. None of us really wanted to break up our rigs, since it was our first meet and we were all just getting to see and hear the setups for the first time.

My last thought on dynamic amps... if you have never heard a balanced setup, don't do it. Seriously, do not let those balanced people put phones with two jacks on your head. Run screaming from them. Because once you hear it, you will be spoiled. You will forever have that image in your head, you know... where the performers are spread across the stage in front of you and every bit of detail is accurately reproduced. Your wallet will hate you for this.

 

[shellylh]

Great comments and pictures Orcin (very funny comments too)!!!

However, I only had 13 cans there and 3 complete rigs (the paradisea+ is sirrah's) - I guess 4 if you count the portable. I would gladly trade everything for a pabbi1's CA 840c + Blue Hawaii + HE6! I don't expect he'll be looking to trade though. "tongue"

I really enjoyed meeting everyone at the meet. It was nice talking to some hardcore DIYers. I have wanted to build a really nice amp myself (and not electrocute myself in the process).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orcin /img/forum/go_quote.gif shellylh finally has all of the cans set up. I counted 16 phones and 4 different rigs, but I may have missed some. I learned a lot about headphones at this station. The Paradisea+/GS-1 went together very well and the Singlepower Extreme/Stello DA100 was a really nice setup.

 

[Orcin]

Headphone impressions:

Another of my goals at the meet was to try as many headphones as possible. The good news here was that we had a one-stop shopping station named shellylh. She could open a store!

I wanted to find a low-impedance set of phones with good bass response at around $200. My personal shopper, Shelly, pointed out the Denon D2000's and by golly she was right. I loved these phones. They sounded warm and pretty evenly balanced, although maybe even a tad darker than the HD650's. And they were really comfortable for me. I must add that pabbi1 warned me about the 2-hour effect on these phones, and that "warmth" might turn into "bottom-heavy" after I spent some time with them. I will probably take that risk and buy a pair used. I am pretty sure that with certain music, these cans will never get old. As your primary set of cans, he might be right.

I was also really curious about AKG K701's, and both shellylh and wareagle69 had some. I loved these phones on jazz, and absolutely hated them on rock. This would clearly be a specialty phone for me, but I find it hard to think of a single-ended phone that sounded better on jazz. The soundstage and clarity was truly awesome.

These two points bring me to agree with another of s1rrah's conclusions. I learned that the source/amp combo, once you get to a certain level, made a lot less difference in the sound than headphone selection. You can spend a lot of money on rolling tubes, changing cables, switching amps, dacs, etc., and not have near the impact of simply trying a different set of phones. Buying a lot of different headphones may sound extravagant, but it's really not when you consider what we spend on cables. You don't have to spend a bunch of money to change the sound while still getting a good quality phone, especially if you buy used. I plan to buy a couple of additional phones before the next meet, and you can probably guess which ones.

HD650's: I am a Sennheiser guy, so it goes without saying that I loved these phones. I still like the balance of my HD600's better, but actually I would like to own both.

I was also convinced that my stock HD600 cable has got to go. I heard a couple of different cable upgrades, and the soundstage improves dramatically with a better cable.

What I didn't like:

I tried a bunch of Grados, and I just couldn't get a comfortable fit with any of them. I liked the sound of the RS-1's, but what good would that do me if I couldn't wear them for an hour? Maybe I just need to get used to them...

Woodied phones... everything, including Darth Beyers, sounded worse to me when woodied. The notable exception was MJM58's Grado 225's, which sounded a lot better than I expected.

I am leaving swt61's SD3000 mods out of this blanket anti-woodied assertion, because there is a lot more to these phones than the wood on the sides. Plus I refuse to admit that these phones, or any other balanced phones, actually exist. They were not real, I did not hear them. Really, I didn't.

AKG whatevers, except for the K701's, didn't do much for me. To be truthful, I didn't spend much time with the many varieties, so maybe there is a gem in there somewhere.

Audio-Technica... Shelly handed me one set, and I didn't like it. So I skipped the rest of the AT's. I have to abstain from voting on these phones in general, but the one set I listened to was too shrill for my taste.

I am leaving the electrostatic and balanced phones out of this, because frankly I never heard any of them and they don't exist. That whole area of the room was not there. pabbi1 did not bring a Blue Hawaii to the event. Stax doesn't even make headphones. Koss ES950's do not sound good on a KGSS with the voltage turned up. Nope. None of that stuff exists.

 

[Orcin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shellylh /img/forum/go_quote.gif However, I only had 13 cans there

Ah ok, ONLY 13!

That still sounds pretty strong for a guy that only had ONE.

 

[pabbi1]

First, and foremost, we all owe big kudos to Ken for organizing this meet, and probably in the nicest setting a headphone gathering has ever been in. Wouldn't have happened without him, though the annual Dallas meet will be in January.

I am seriously in arrears on time for now, but will post a few pics.

First, Stax mafia file photo (BH, Woo GES, KGSS on the one hand, HE60, OII, Koss 950 and HE 1.2b on the other). Disclaimer: Calling that thing a KGSS is like calling an Aston Martin a car - technically accurate, but...

My personal goal was to compare all the electrostat amps and phones across 4-6 songs each and make impressions, but, well, I didn't suceed - more on that later.

Steve, you need this for a base for that TT - my retailer is long gone, but they are sourced in Mexico. It is a species of ironwood, but I doubt you can build this for what I paid for it, even in honduras mahogany.

More later - in short, the he 1.2b need a fairer shake, so I have them for further review with the BH, the Woo can't keep up with the BH / KGSS, but delivers real value in electrostatic, and I would be VERY happy with it otherwise (though it is NOT balanced). Finally, the OII may be great, but I have no interest ever in getting one, given the state of amp technology today, where the Koss will, in fact, be my next purchase - and an amp built for them (next gen BH).

Amp: BH -> KGSS -> Woo GES
Phone: HE60 = Koss -> OII (dark, yeah, better bass, but...) -> he 1.2b (pending further review)

Other random thoughts: As usual, did not get to listen to everything, and me likee Woo W6SE (?) VERY much, especially with Alex's new cable (v4?).

 

[shellylh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orcin /img/forum/go_quote.gif Equipment impressions: The Woo 6SE has a great sound, lots of tube rolling possibilites, and is backed with outstanding customer service. Plus it was already in my house with 30 hours of burn-in on it, as opposed to a potentially difficult search for a used Extreme or the wait for a new one. Consequently, I am buying the Woo Audio 6SE today and I'm quite happy about it after having heard almost all of the competition. I am convinced that I am getting the best amp for me, at under $1500 including a bunch of tubes and one truly impressive rectifier.

I would have a hard time sending the Woo 6SE myself! If you do keep the Woo 6SE (or Woo 6), we should do a mini-mini meet sometime where we can compare the Extreme and Woo 6SE/non-SE using the same source (and in a quiet room

).