Thom, thanks for great hospitality and even greater food (by definition, since the food is a subset, perhaps food cannot be greater than hospitality; I'll have to think about that). Barbeque and home-made bread never disappoints. Tons of great stuff to listen to and people with whom to visit.
@Makiah S brought several interesting headphones and amps, but of particular interest to me (since I wasn't going to upgrade anymore, but now maybe I will) were the Audeze CRBN headphones paired with the Blue Hawaii amplifier, and the Raal headphones paired with their TOTL tube-based headphone amplifier.
@buke9 had two pair of ZMF headphones which I'd never heard, on my setup at least - both were really nice and a change (being dynamic) from my normal planer magnetic listening.
@Cool Jazz brought some more music, which I didn't get to fully appreciate; maybe (certainly) I should have taken a photo of the list when it was displayed on my tablet (while used as a remote) so I could check it out.
I was tied up Sunday due to a thankfully short-lived illness (not mine), but Monday was keen to sit down with my system and (although two days later) listen to a few songs and see what I thought about (how I felt, while listening), compared to what I heard/felt Saturday. Sadly I was careless, or it was just a failure, I pushed in the center pin of one of my interconnects so I didn't get to listen; now it must get mailed back to the "factory" for repair. I've done it once before, and Ron at insound audio is good about getting it turned around quickly!
My conclusion: Well, I really wanted to sit down Monday, for just 20 minutes or so, and see if I was still satisfied with what I have - a system which is a few levels above tolerable and "should" be sufficient... Upgrading to the Meze Elite would be a simple solution, but the Raals and the CRBNs are pretty spectacular. So, I'll have to wait until my interconnect is repaired, to see if I'm going to resist the upgrade bug! Not ruling out the MySphere headphones either, if I'm going to think about a serious upgrade; when I demoed them with my old Pass Labs headphone amplifier they were terrific; maybe I'll have to try a pair again now that I have the LTA MZ10e. Before I do anything rash (like change out my Empyreans for something "better"), maybe I don't need to forget, there's something amazing that happens with an open, "winged", headphone.
Again, thanks Thom for another enjoyable musical day; it was great to see everyone, including some new people from near, and
the far coast, also!