[Maxvla]

Impressions on the Hifiman HE-6?

 

[ak622]

[size=x-small]Thank you for everyone who set up such a great meet! I have a great time trying some gear that I've been reading about for a while (Ari's Silver Ghost, Doug's Stax/Woo setup, Ethan's assortment of gear (Exemplar modded Oppo, PWD ,Phoenix and the much talked about Schitt), the assortment of Woo Audio offerings and all sorts of cans that everyone brought. I really enjoyed Kerry's amp that made the Lambda's sing, that set up is amazing. Also, it was good finally able to a face to the user names here and everyone was so friendly.  [/size]
 
[size=x-small]Frank and Ross: it was great talking to you guys.  Thanks for letting me try some of your cans on my amp and talking about audio gear.  [/size]
 
[size=x-small]Vpvinylspinner: Those are great pictures you took and you had a fun portable rig set up. Woot, you even snapped a pic of me listening to the HE-6 off of the Dared.monoblocks [/size]
 
[size=x-small]Thank you Larry and the rest of the NJ crew for setting such a great meet and well worth the hour long wait trying to cross the GW Bridge going home! [/size]

 

[Frank I]

Quote:

 
[size=x-small]Frank and Ross: it was great talking to you guys.  Thanks for letting me try some of your cans on my amp and talking about audio gear[/size]

Hey it was my pleasure and glad you did spend some time with us and hope you enjoyed the T1 and the decware. It was an awseome time.

 

[Frank I]

Quote:

Impressions on the Hifiman HE-6?

I liked it with the NAD amp. I am looking forward to some time with it. Warm midrange decent bass and very nice highs. Nee some hours to give a full review. Nice cans if priced under 1K. Can get congested with low power amps. The sound stage was nice and open with the NAD. My feeling is it will perform better on solid state as they need hi current.

 

[wavoman]

ka24 and vpivs -- great pix! 
 
vp -- The shot of Nikongod holding the record jaket is priceless (and one Ari could not have shot himself)!   Plus the equipment photos are very special!  At dinner, when I was getting lessons from Ari and Listens2Tubes (Neal) on gear photography you should have chimed in ... you've got that art nailed!  (I think you were talking to Tom at the time -- yea, I bored everyone -- that'll teach you to sit next to me!).
 
Thanks everyone (kerry, baka, ak etc.) for the kind words -- John (MD1032) helped organize too, and I really did very little except bribe the hotel engineer for more air conditioning, and we see how well that worked out (not).  My bad, probably needed more cash-in-the-palm.
 
Of course without Ethan (Yikes) we could not have paid for the meet -- he sold everything but his underwear (did some one bid on that?) to raise money, and a alot of people paid extra -- Doug, Aaron, Jack, others I am probably forgetting -- so we ended up even (I announced we were over, but I forgot the tax on the room).
 
Jack (and his Dad) Woo of Woo Audio were -- as always -- so super professional and nice -- and their gear is amazing.  I bought some.  Doug's rig with the Woo amp sounded amazing.  You must consider Woo products next time you are amp shopping. 
 
Attendance was a tad disappointing -- only about half of what we expected.  I think the heat kept people home ... but the hardcore was there, and the equipment beyond all expectation. I listened to the live version of Hotel California on region2's O2 Mk1's with kerry's bh ... remarkable!
 
Thanks to the NY movers-and-shakers for driving all that way and attending!  Very, very much appreciated. 
 
Shout out to Sparky22 for figuring out what was wrong with the B&O system -- MD1032 and I were stumped!  Got it off eBay the Thursday night, picked it up, left it in the car and took it right to the meet (I had a lot of flying time with that model years ago, so I knew more or less what I was doing, but without help it was DOA).  BTW, the magic is in the MMC2 moving iron cartridge, one of the finest ever.  SoundSmith and Mapleshade still sell it, in the sense that Peter Lederman of SoundSmith obtained the rights from B&O to continue manufacturing it (now called the SMMC3).  Listening to the half-speed master LP of Carole King makes it clear why vinyl is so special.  Using only the built-in HP-out of the B&O receiver (tap off the speaker outputs, no doubt) with Senn 600s and HF-2's we still had thrilling sound.

 

[ka24altima]

It was a long day at work which gave me a bit of time to gather some thoughts.
 
But first I'd like to thank Larry, Ethan, John (not in that order) for organizing a wonderful meet.  I'd also like to thank everyone from Woo Audio for bringing their amazing products.  And lastly I'd like to thank everyone who donated.  I'm currently using a pair of the AK5W tubes that Ross donated in my LD I+.  I already had a pair but one of them has a really bad hum.  These are dead quiet, sound great, and throw off some great glow!
 
A few of you got a chance to listen to my car stereo.  I hope those of you that did enjoyed it.  To me it's more then just nice equipment.  It's a work in progress, trying to always make it look and sound better.
 
So impressions:
 
The Asgard: This will be the next amp I buy.  Especially with the B-stock discount.  People weren't kidding when they said it generated some heat, but I'll be honest even my modest Little Dot was getting very hot that day.
 
HD650 vs K701: These were on my list of cans to buy and I'm glad I got to listen to both cans on multiple setups.  I just wasn't a fan of the K701s.  I really did prefer the laid back nature of the Senns.  Not that the 701 is a bad can, I just liked the 650 better.  That said, I plugged the 650 into my Little Dot, and it struggled.  Maybe with the higher gain setting it would have been better, but I'm thinking for Christmas of getting an Asgard/HD650 combo.  Or a new flatscreen, who knows
 
Stax:  They ruined me.  What an unbelievable experience.
 
The Woo amps:  If I have the extra money I'm going to get a Woo instead of the Asgard, but the Asgard is such a great deal!  Decisions...
 
Vinyl: Yesterday was my first time listening to a record, and I loved it.  It's so intimate and relaxing and spacious.  My buddy has a TT laying around that he's going to give to me.  I don't know if it's any good but I'm going to give it a shot.
 
Well I think that just about does it.  School is starting up again so making the next meet might be tough.  But we'll see.
 

 

[nikongod]

I went to this meet, and it was great!!!111
 
As usual I didnt listen to much, but had a great time chatting with people.
 
I did get a chance to hear the D7000 which sounded better than I remembered, but would not "go" with my amp. Larry's TT setup sounded quite nice. 
 
Many thanks to Listens2tubes for brining his awesome little preamp. It sounded quite nice with my Vinyl rig.
 
Photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nikongod]

More photos:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wavoman]

Great photos, Ari.  Especially the last closeup of the tubes!!  You are true to your handle.
 
We have a lot of fine photographers here, don't we??

 

[baka1969]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ak622  
" Thank you for everyone who set up such a great meet! I have a great time trying some gear that I've been reading about for a while (Ari's Silver Ghost, Doug's   Stax/Woo setup, Ethan's assortment of gear (Exemplar modded Oppo, PWD ,Phoenix and the much talked about Schitt), the assortment of Woo Audio offerings and all sorts of cans that everyone brought. I really enjoyed Kerry's amp that made the Lambda's sing, that set up is amazing. Also, it was good finally able to a face to the user names here and everyone was so friendly.  
Frank and Ross: it was great talking to you guys.   Thanks for letting me try some of your cans on my amp and talking about audio gear.  
Vpvinylspinner: Those are great pictures you took and you had a fun portable rig set up. Woot, you even snapped a pic of me listening to the HE-6 off of the Dared.monoblocks
Thank you Larry and the rest of the NJ crew for setting such a great meet and well worth the hour long wait trying to cross the GW Bridge going home!"

It was great fun. I enjoyed listening to your rig. It was an adventure. LoL

 

[immtbiker]

My family and I had a great time and our thanks go out to Larry, who is a wonderful host and a man of many philanthropic values.
 
My wife, son, and I were driving down Route 10 in Hanover, NJ, looking for one of those newly established "cooling centers"
I've seen on the news for moist and sweaty days in the Northeast, and we stopped off at a Ramada and had a choice in going into a Conference Room where there was legalized gambling, or this thing called a "Head-Fi Meet". We chose the Meet and
since I always carry around a pair of 300B quasi-monoblock speaker amps in my back seat, I figured "what the heck!
 
It was a good call. I broke out my Britney Spears and Celine Dion collections and tried to see if anything there could beat my
Coby stereo system at home. Well, was I in for a surprise. There was a cheap set-up that consisted of a Woo Audio WES and some headphones called Ulysses...no wait, I think it was the Orpheus. I was very surprised how good it sounded! Even better
than my Radio Shack tape deck and my Koss Pro 4AA's from the '70's.
 
Then I moved on to some nice woody headphones that were called Denon 7000 something that was attached to something
electrical made by G-D (so I figured it had to be good). Then I tried the same shiny wood things on an electrical thing that
sounded nice, but was hotter than it was outside.
 
Moving on, I saw something that I was familiar with from my younger day, which were circular black discs made from
petroleum.There were 2 of them, and these people must be rich because I heard it takes a diamond to make them create
good sound. The first one was by Larry and Garfield, but they had out complicated manuals and were both scratching their
heads so I moved stage right to Neal's round circular discs and enjoyed some Stan Getz, but I'm not sure how he fit in the box
under the spinning black disc (with a saxophone, no less).
 
I finally got to meet Ross and Frank, but I think they both had something wrong with their teeth because they needed
"orthodynamics" in order to listen to music, although I didn't see either one wearing braces.
 
Some guy was brewing tea in the middle of the room and another guy had and amp that he made, but I think it needed work 
because they tubes were flashing green lights that just couldn't stand still. Luckily, they were both friendly.
 
Towards the end, they had something called a silent auction, which I had never heard of 

, which confused me, because there was this really tall, handsome guy screaming out during the whole thing. Not so silent, in my opinion.
 
Then, at 6 PM, the back door opened and I was sucked out of the room through reverse osmosis, and my family somehow
ended up with 16-17 other people at this restaurant called "The Macaroni Grill" where we ate great food and received
Italian lessons in the bathroom. I now know that wine in "Italian" is called "Vino".
 
Well anyway, I'm pretty sure that I had more fun in that room than the gambling room, and I didn't see anyone from the
gambling room getting Italian lessons.
 
Oh, and by the way, there were these 2 mad scientist type guys named Ari and Kerry that seem to enjoy making sliver
boxes with light bulbs sticking out of them that produced some music that definitely topped my Magnavox AM transistor
radio, that I use mostly for baseball games and oil rig disaster updates.
 
Thank you good people. Let's do this again, sometime. I need to brush up on my knowledge of electrical thingies (in case
nobody noticed!).

 

[NaturalMusic]

I really appreciate all the time everyone put in to make this meet happen.
 
It was great to meet and talk with everyone who share this passion/obsession.
 
To be able to actually hear what I've been reading about for all these months was like a full day visit to head phone heaven.
 
Thanks for dragging all that great gear in the sweltering heat.

 

[bpj87]

I'd like to chime in and thank everyone for a great first meet!  I enjoyed speaking with the wonderful head-fiers I met and listening to some setups that I can only dream of for the time being.  The only 'downside' was that I learned a lot which will help immensely in deciding on a few future purchases--purchases rendered more expensive and given greater urgency as a result of my attendance 

 
Thanks to all the organizers!  I hope to join you again soon...

 

[daveDerek]

grrr, i'm bummed that i couldn't make it - too much else going on, too many other obligations blah blah blah. i hope to see some of youse guys at some mini-meets prior to the next maxi-meet. it looks like it was fun (aren't they always?)!

 

[jpelg]

Funny post, Aaron - thanks for the morning chuckle!