Theogenes
Headphoneus Supremus
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- Mar 28, 2010
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Welcome to the Fifth Edition of the Music City Meet of Spring 2016!!
This is the Official Thread for the fourth and latest incarnation of Music City Meet™ in (or around) Nashville, TN-- welcome!!The Basics:
- The event will be held on April 9th, 2016
- The venue is the Looby Park Community Center (2301 Rosa L Parks Blvd, Nashville, TN 37228)
- The hours are 11am until 5pm
- The pre-meet festivities will be on April 8th at 5:30pm at Cool Springs Brewery
To get an idea of what to expect, please feel free to check out the threads from our previous meets:
Music City Meet Official Thread - Spring 2014
Music City Meet Pictures & Impressions Thread - Spring 2014
Music City Meet - Fall 2014
Music City Meet Pictures & Impressions Thread - Fall 2014
Music City Meet - Spring 2015
Music City Meet - Spring 2015 - Pictures & Impressions Thread
Music City Meet - Fall 2015
Music City Meet - Fall 2015 - Pictures & Impressions Thread
Frequently/Never Asked Questions:
Who Is Welcome?
Anybody!
How Much Does It Cost?
Not a thing. Just show up, be friendly, and bring gear if you have some to share!
What Can I Bring?
Besides a love of good music well reproduced and a friendly demeanor, you don't need to bring anything at all! If you have some personal audio gear that others might like to hear, though, we would love it if you'd bring yours down (as that's one of the key elements to making the meet great for everyone)! Let me know what you decide to bring by posting below. If something changes, no worries-- just post in the thread and I'll try to keep the gear lists updated so people have some idea what's going to be present to check out.
I Don't Have Any Cool Headphone Gear, Can I Bring/Do Something Else to Help Out?
Sure! We can always use extension cables and power strips, and the more the better-- we won't know exactly how many outlets we're working with until we get the venue locked down, but as always, we really can't have enough of both! We ended up lining tables along the walls last time and had few enough attendees for it to work with the strips and extensions we had, but if we have a significant increase in attendees this time, we'll definitely need more. Basically, if you have 'em, bring 'em!!
Also, if there are any shutterbugs among the group (like Eric was previously) who are kind enough to bring along cameras and share their pictures with everyone, that would be greatly appreciated!! Because if there's anything that's almost as great as awesome headphones, it's awesome headphone pictures-- a fact which has been scientifically proven for decades. Don't look it up, just trust me here.One other thing we're going to do differently this time: I'd like to have someone staffing the check-in table for the entirety of the meet to help people get situated, etc, so if you want to volunteer to help out at the door, please let me know below! I won't have anybody at the door for more than an hour, and depending on how many people we have helping, I'd like to keep it closer to 30 minutes or so per volunteer. Duties involve basically sitting at the table at the door, having people sign in, and helping people either get comfortably situated somewhere in the room; going over some brief procedural notes with everybody to make sure everyone's gear is treated well; and generally being a warm and inviting presence for all our friends and attendees!
What About the Eats??
Unfortunately, we won't be able to provide snacks or food for everyone. (Although I do have to give Dan Clark a huge shout-out for getting a truckload of pizzas for everyone last two times... That may have saved my life.) Generally, it seems wise to grab a bite to eat before coming to the meet, and then give yourself a break at some point to duck out and grab something through the meet itself. Just make sure you thoroughly scrub those mitts if you get sticky ribs for lunch
. Are There Any Additional Festivities?
Now that we're onto our fifth of these suckers, I think we can reasonably start using words like "tradition." And it's become a tradition to have a meet up for drinks and dinner the night before the meet (April 8th) at Cool Springs Brewery (600A Frazier Drive No.135, Franklin, TN 37067 USA) at 5:30pm. Additionally, after the last meet, a few of us went out for steaks and beers, and given that there won't be SEC football going on during the meet (or ever again... that was massively unwise on my part, given my rapid devolution into my most troglodytic self when UT is playing Florida, as they were during the last meet), we might be able to more effectively plan out something fun to do that doesn't include me moping around after another nonsensical #$%^ loss to the Gators... I should probably stop now. :s
Will There Be Any Vendors There?
You betcha! I'm going to reach out to a few, including several that wanted to attend the earlier meets but weren't able to for various reasons. We've had some pretty great companies show up in the past (see the previous Impressions threads), so I'd guess we stand a great chance of seeing some more this time too. As I get vendors on board, I'll post the updates here, so stay tuned!!
What Awesome Gear Will Be Present For Me to Check Out?
That depends on what awesome gear you bring! I'll keep a running tally of who's bringing what in the second post, so if you are just dying to hear the new KochleaKrusher 4000, you can see if someone plans on bringing one down to share. I can say that each time we have had some pretty stellar gear available (see the links from the Impressions threads above), and I think everybody got to hear a lot of stuff that was new and interesting to them. Just don't bring your next mortgage payment with you when you come-- you might be draining local ATMs and buying stuff before you know what happened. Which would be Sad Mac. Except for the person selling the stuff, I 'spose.
Do I Need to Let You Guys Know I'm Coming?
Technically, no-- you can just show up! However, I'd like to have an idea of how many people are coming, and what gear they're bringing, so that I can make sure I keep the logistics of this sucker under control. Should we have too many people show up and not enough chairs, for example, we might have packs of stiff-legged audiophiles roaming the hapless streets of the city... which would definitely be bad news bears.
So When Is This Whole Soiree Going to Be Happening?
We've generally gone with a 10am through 7pm schedule, but it seems like people are generally ready to go around 6pm, so I'm toying with the idea of making it 10-6 instead. We may have other options or restrictions based on where we end up landing for the meet itself as well, but a 10-6ish look is what I'm going for at the moment. Lemme know your thoughts on this one!
Other Thoughts:
Gear to Sell: If you have some gear you'd like to sell and plan on bringing, let me know and I'll make a note that it's for sale in the gear listings. This seems to be popular in some of the big meets in the Northeast I've read up on, and I don't see why we couldn't do the same thing. Plus, if Jay attends, there's a distinct possibility he would buy every single headphone in attendance and resell them before leaving, and that's a spectacle I couldn't possibly bear missing. (Hugs, Jay!!
IEM Section: I'm thinking it would be interesting to have a separate table or area for IEMs and portable equipment in general. After speaking with a fella from the former Aurisonics (now Fender IEM) before an earlier meet, I picked up a bunch of alcohol wipes that can be used to generally clean/sterilize IEM tips. There weren't a lot of people who tried IEMs other than the Aurisonics stuff that was there (which were excellent, btw), but I'll have the wipes here again. Pro Tip: if you plan on listening to a particular set of IEMs somebody mentions bringing, it would be wise to order a set of tips for that IEM in your size prior to the meet, so you can listen to it precisely as you'd hear it with your own two ear-holes-- and you get the bonus of avoiding sharing ear-related heebie jeebies with somebody!! Win-Win FTW!!
Vendors to Invite: I'm already planning on reaching out to the guys who were kind enough to attend our previous meets and a few others who haven't yet stopped by. Who would you like to see here? If you have any contacts or compromising photographs that could compel a manufacturer with great gear to attend, please let me know!
Your Thoughts/Ideas: After attending a grand total of seven headphone meets in my life (including the ones I set up), I'm willing to concede that there are probably a significant number of great ideas out there I haven't stumbled across yet. Got a great idea? Holla at me!! I'm sure we won't be able to do every awesome thing anyone thinks of, but I'm definitely very interested in making this as great an experience as humanly possible for everyone involved, so don't be bashful-- this is the internet, after all! I'm going to dig through a few other threads for good ideas too, and if I find anything brilliant I'll bring it back for the trial by groupthink.
Standard Demo Tracks: One thing I thought of after attending a previous meet was how nice it might be if there was a standard album (or track list) of 10-20 songs that were loaded in the same format, bitrate, etc on each setup at the meet. This might make it easier to compare multiple setups, but it also might be a pain in the mule. Whaddya think, is this worth doing? And if so, what tracks should we shoot for having everyone use? (No flame wars here, please-- no matter how much you feel the need to convince everyone that Bieber really is the Mozart of our generation).
UPDATE: Okay, so we've decided on The Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc from Chesky Records. You used to be able to get 20% off by using the code UHDD20 as a Head-Fi member, but I don't know if that code still works. You aren't required to get this, by any means-- it's just an attempt to make your comparative experience more valuable by providing a common ground for many of us to use when evaluating different gear. Also, you're a dork if you don't get it. (Just kidding. Dorkiness seems to come for free with each download on this one...)
Signature Line Advertising: Since few people seem to come to the meet threads, it would be great if those who know about the meet could get the word out to others who might be interested in attending. Besides the normal methods of doing so (posting in boards, sending PMs to members in the area, showing up unannounced at the homes of various members), a few of us did links in our signature lines to let people know about the last one. A few examples might be:
- See You in NASHVILLE at the Music City Meet on April 9th!
- Putting the MUSIC back in Music City, USA -- Meetup this April 9th!
- Music City Meet - Nashville - April 9th
- The Grand Ol' Swap-ry -- Nashville Meet - April 9th
Feel free to copy any of these and put 'em in your signature line-- we don't want anybody who would enjoy this to miss it, and you might help somebody find out about it!
Closing Thoughts:
I can honestly say I've learned more about my own tastes in gear and how I wanted to set up my system from meets than all the reading I've done on the internet-- and that's a lot of reading on the internet. If you've never been to a meet before, GO TO A MEET!! We'd love to have you at ours, but even if you can't come to this one, getting to any meet would definitely be worth your time. And if you're an old hat at these meets by now, why, where have you been while Nashville has needed a meet all these years?? Why am I stuck doing this???
Seriously, these meets succeed or fail based on the quality of the people and the gear that show up. I genuinely look forward to seeing the guys from the last meet and meeting some new people at this one!! SEE YOU IN NASHVILLE!!!!
