[mattigol]

waiting for those impressions, guys...

 

[Glod]

Just to raise the expectations even more, I can say I had a few eye openers,

but my impressions will have to wait a few days I am afraid.

 

[luuk]

My impressions with the phones I listened to(haven't been listening to source/cables), I didn't write the combinations of source/amplifier/cable down.
AKG:
k701(threw a lehmann linear cube and sony cd-player): I think it's a great phone. The bass was less pronounced then on the hd-650 but it certainly was there. The highs weren't as detailed as I expected, but they were very detailed. The comfort/build quality is good, although I like the earpads of the hd-6** more. The design was, uhm, you gotta love it or hate it.

k1000: The first second I got these things on my head I stood perplex, it was so airy, so much of the bass in the upperrange, it was almost an orgasm. After having a break, I listened to them again and after a few songs I didn't found them so special sounding anymore. I can't explain why, but maybe I missed a more detailed sound or something.

waiting for pics
will edit more phones later on.
Luuk

 

[Jahn]

Ah the first impressions are coming in! I find it quite ironic that The Netherlands could hold a meet, but New Jersey's meet got cancelled - on account of Snow.

Pics too please!

 

[mattigol]

Yeah, and let's not forget about Daddy Orpheus, the Scheu analog rig and whatever other goodies Norbert Lehmann and Jan Meier brought along...and do include some pics please.

 

[Lisa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn Ah the first impressions are coming in! I find it quite ironic that The Netherlands could hold a meet, but New Jersey's meet got cancelled - on account of Snow. Pics too please!

How is that ironic?
BTW, It's snowing here.

I agree with the pics. And some more impressions please!

 

[Bobby B.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattigol Yeah, and let's not forget about Daddy Orpheus ...

Just as I expected the Orpheus sounds very unspectacular due to being totally neutral and there was no emphasis in any frequency region. I think there's no way you can't love these phones and be unimpressed. They're very comfortable and their unpronounced sound signatures won't let you take them off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattigol ...the Scheu analog rig ...

honestly, I haven't seen anyone using this rig (unfortunately). I didn't want to try it either because I didn't know any of the recordings on vinyl that were brought along.

Quote:

Originally Posted by luuk k701(threw a lehmann linear cube and sony cd-player): I think it's a great phone. The bass was less pronounced then on the hd-650 but it certainly was there. The highs weren't as detailed as I expected, but they were very detailed. The comfort/build quality is good, although I like the earpads of the hd-6** more. The design was, uhm, you gotta love it or hate it.

I listened to the same rig. Norbert's modded Sony cd-player was quite impressive with it's weight of 18 (!) kilograms. I enjoyed it until I heard a certain sibilance which still remained when listening to lower volumes.
That's what makes me save the money and wait for the new Sennheiser.

Or I could buy a new cable for my HD 650. I think it was Glod's rig with an HD 650 and equinox cable. I didn't really believe that cables could make a big difference until I heard this rig. I really loved it and I seriously think about purchasing one myself in near future.


I, too, can't wait for the pictures. Firestarter's girlfriend took a lot of photos and I'm sure some of them are nice.

 

[machie27]

Hi,

I've uploaded a few pictures via www.upload2.com. So I hope there will be many more to come but here is a start. First 2 pics do have a wrong date and a dutch word for the month but the rest should have a good description above it.

I had a blast of a time there and will attend many more meetings.

but as promised the pics. I will post them here but i will also post the links in case the post links don't work.






















well some of the pictures are a bit overlighted, sorry for that inconvience.

http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...41.jpg&s=7f24b
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...57.jpg&s=0a72e
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...be.jpg&s=4e0fa
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...aa.jpg&s=2a505
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...c7.jpg&s=96343
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...2c.jpg&s=b3b22
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...76.jpg&s=18400
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...be.jpg&s=b7f92
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...f6.jpg&s=e0a2d
http://www.upload2.com/?cmd=_viewer&...88.jpg&s=b2720


that's it for today.

stephen

 

[mattigol]

thanks for the pics. nice lineup!

btw, whose mpx3 is it?

 

[Jahn]

Excellent shots! Did you take any pics of members as well? I'd love to see some Danes, Finns, Dutch, and so on!

 

[luuk]

Yeah, nice pics stephen/machie27!
I also have some pics, I shall upload these later on this week.
Firestarter would upload the pics of his girlfriend today, but it seems that he didn't done that.
Pff to tired right nog to write more stuff.
Tomorrow.
Please give firestarter a pm if you want more pics. I think he's forgotten to upload orso.
Luuk

 

[saint.panda]

Sounds like a great meet! I would have loved to hear that Orpheus and meet up with some of the German and Dutch headfiers. Alas, midterm exams had to take a higher priority.

More impressions and pics from equipment and meet attendants please!

 

[cosmopragma]

First of all I want to thank luuk, Reiner (Richter di) and Jonas ( Glod) for organizing respectively reorganizing the meet.Highly appreciated.

The night before the meet due to some sick peers, a serious computer system crash and work that couldn't be postponed I had to work until 3:30 in the morning.At 4:30 at home I started the last preparation for the meet.I had intended to exchange the usual high bitrate MP3 files on my Iriver for FLAC files in order to get the best quality for the optical out DAC feed.
The damned buggy Rockbox firmware crashed and locked me out.No way to switch the Iriver off, and resets didn't help.

An hour later I had found a tool in the cellar for disassembling the player.These screws are really tiny. I had to use a magnifying glass to identify the inner shape.
I thought unplugging the battery might help, but this trick didn't work.
Somewhat desperate I resetted the player countless times, feeling like an idiot, but for whatever reason after the nth reset the player finally booted from the original Iriver firmware.

The original firmware doesn't support lossless compression, but totally uncompressed files.When I plugged the USB cable in I got a Windows warning that I'm trying to feed a device capable of USB 2 speed with a very slow USB 1.1 connection.What.
A quick look into the device manager revealed an age old generic Microsoft USB driver and an USB host controller based on a Via chipset.Who knows why.A few days before I had a working USB 2 connection.
The Via website was down, so finally I had to give up.

It was already 7 am, no time left for sleep.
What a start into the day.I felt tired.When I looked into the mirror an unknown guy with red eyes and black circles under the eyes looked back.

Under these circumstances I didn't expect much from this day.
Boy, was I wrong.
The meet turned out to be a great experience, mostly due to the nice people I've met, but also due to the excellent gear and a room very well suited for the purpose.

The room
The room itself was quiet, no annoying noise from outside.The ceiling was equipped with simple acoustical treatment.It had just the right size for the number of attendees.The background noise caused by conversations was relatively low most of the time.Christian (Evil dwarf) and me who decided to stay in the room during lunch break even had an hour of silence for auditioning.

The people
Everyone was in good mood and relaxed, a kind of spirit you rarely encounter in everyday's life.It reminded me somewhat of my hippie days more than 20 years ago.Even firestarter, our original host for the meet who nearly ruined it by disappearing and refusing to answer mails was treated friendly.
The delicate gear was generally treated with care by everyone, and the thought of damage or theft didn't come to my mind at all.
Meeting people in real life formerly known as screen names was fun.
I was involved in some very interesting audio related discussions, no one tried to impose his preferences or opinions.
Both attending manufacturers, Jan Meier and Norbert Lehmann, although knowing much more about audio than us consumers didn't show the slightest signs of arrogance and were always very helpful.From a marketing point of view attending such a small meet is probably a waste of time, but nevertheless both seemed to have fun, too.
Jonas (Glod) is one of the kindest people to meet, and he did impress me by his excellent english.
I've met Reiner (RichterDi) many times in virtual life before, and I've always enjoyed his balanced posts.In real life he is even nicer.
I had a weird little conversation with Jan's sister when she entered the room during lunch break.Wearing the Orpheus I assumed she might be a hotel guest that lost her way and entered the wrong room.A quite extraverted girl (in a good way).Her funny vibes drawed my attention within seconds.Congratulations to your sister, Jan.
Last but not least Marco (Sisyphos) and Christian (EvilDwarf), the boys from my hometown which picked me up for the ride.It was a pleasure to meet them.After the meet we spent the evening together, and I'd surely like to meet them again from time to time.

The gear

Even at such a medium sized meet it's impossible to audition everything, so I concentrated on the gear I was most curious about.
Disclaimer : The high spirit of the meet might have influenced my impressions.
Frankly, nearly everything I've auditioned sounded good, more or less.
Maybe it's due to the fact that simply no total crap was around and my brain is able to adjust to a different tonal balance and different headstage within 30 seconds anyway.I don't know if the latter is a flaw or a talent, but I like it since therefor I'm able to enjoy a wide spectrum from HD 650 to Grados.I generally only detest headphone systems that are totally weird like Darth Beyers or Shure E5s (too bassy) or the old Grado SR 325 (too bright).
All what I'm writing has to be seen in this context, some gear sounded good, some better and some excellent.

Okay, cliffhanger, it's 2:30 pm and I have to sleep now.

 

[EvilDwarf]

Hello guys!

I can only fully agree with cosmopragmas posting. The meeting was very much fun and all the people attending it, were very nice. I enjoyed meeting so many people from the forums in real life, most importantly of course the two guys living in my hometown Dusseldorf, Uwe (cosmopragma) and Marko (sisyphos). Special thanks to everyone involved in the organisation.

I didn't have much equipment with me and honestly could only follow about 50% of all conversations, since I haven't yet delved into headphones so deeply. For me it was the first opportunity of hearing many famous (or infamous) cans for extensive time and from good amps/dacs. I was very impressed by the HD 650 . They sounded very sweet from all amps, especially from Jason's (glod's) tube amp. For the first time ever, I had the opportunity of hearing the AKG 1000 and was very impressed by them (in fact most of all headphones, even more than the Orpheus). The are so lightweight and sounded so nice from Nobert Lehman's new amps (unfortunately I forget the amp's name

) - it almost made me want to discard my Grados.

Here are some photos, showing more of the room, where the meeting took place:







The photos also show Norbert Lehman and Jan Meier involved in a discussion and cosmopragma in one photo with the K701, which seemed to be glued to him that day, and on the other photo critically listening to what seem to be my HF-1.

 

[Elephas]

So much gear, and so few people! Looks like it was great meet, I wish I could've been there for the Lehmann vs. Meier matchup.

Please excuse this intrusion and continue...