Northern NJ July 25th Meet Impressions and such
Jul 27, 2009 at 5:28 PM Post #46 of 67
Quote:

Originally Posted by jinp6301 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Short Impressions:

O2 + WES = very very good
800 + balanced m3 = very good
800 + b52 = very good
hifiman dap = very very good
hifiman iem (re-3?) = very very good
hifiman dap + iem = very very very good
hf-2 = very good

uhh thats it



Could you keep it more concise please. It took me forever to get through this wall of text
tongue.gif


Sounds like a great meet. Glad you all had fun
smily_headphones1.gif
 
Jul 27, 2009 at 6:40 PM Post #47 of 67
I spent some time at the Head-Direct/HiFiMan table and was impressed by all the things I listened to there. I listened to their ortho cans briefly and was impressed by what I heard. I also listened to their two clip-ons, I think the G1A/G2As (?) from their new player and was surprised at the sound quality from them. I can see myself replacing my Koss KSC-75's in the future with a pair.
 
Jul 27, 2009 at 9:53 PM Post #48 of 67
Yeah, I was also really pleasantly surprised by the G2A's. I think they'd have a hard time against the KSC-75's, though, honestly, just because the KSC-75's are so darn good.
 
Jul 28, 2009 at 3:32 PM Post #49 of 67
Thanks for having me out there folks (I'm the big blob of blue in all the pics). Its nice to get to try a lot of new gear but I think its even nicer to finally have a direction in upgrades. I've been mulling over stax and balanced for a long time. And I think I finally made my choice to go with stax. Thanks again head-fi I'll be back after getting a pair of omega 2's and whatever amp WooAudio had driving them... sooo awesome.
 
Jul 28, 2009 at 11:00 PM Post #50 of 67
Looks like your meet was a good as ours. If Jack Woo is reading this, thanks for the WA22 prototype loaner, and everyone thought my maxed GES was fairly close to the A-10 with O2/Jade/Lambda and sounded great!
 
Jul 29, 2009 at 12:21 AM Post #51 of 67
Finally getting around to putting down a few impressions.

Meet was a very nice one in a location that turned out to be great. Thanks to the organizers.

Woo Audio WES

This one sounded much better here than I remember at CanJam. Sounded good.

Woo Audio WA22

I listened to this with the HD-650s but never got to try it again with my HD-800s. Sound was good and I was glad to see the 4-Pin connector.

Audio-Gd

This one sounded alright with the Denon, actually much better than I remember the LA7000s sounding at the last NYC meet so maybe there is a good match-up between these two. The HD-800s sounded pretty sorry out of the Phoenix, it did not appear to give it the juice it needed as it sounded very different than I am used to. I was also surprised hearing from Yikes that the HiFiMan orthos required the Phoenix to run at full volume to get close to normal listening levels while the little EF1 drove them pretty well at CanJam. A bad match there I guess.

Nikongod's Creations

I listened to the Grado RS-60 and this proved to be a great sounding frankenphone. They sounded great out of the unnamed Nikongod amp but not the same as an RS-1. Mostly listened to these and his Ultrasone/Ortho hybrids that sounded good but also seemed to need more juice to sound their best than his unnamed amp was providing.

HifiMan Planars

I listened to these at CanJam and was impressed with them out of the EF1 amp but I did not get to try them with my amp and the only time I heard them they were really under driven on someone else's amp and did not sound as good as a I remember.

Good to see everyone again and really enjoyed the meet and after meet dinner.
 
Jul 29, 2009 at 8:43 AM Post #54 of 67
Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif
i asked the head-fier about it. he told me, but i didn't catch all of it and forgot the rest. the vinyl to CD sounded very good though. hopefully, he will chime in.

i wonder if any companies sell CDs like this?




The archiving setup I use for my vinyl LP collection is:

Analog playback (front-end of my hi-fi system):
VPI HW-19 mk4 turntable, Zeta tonearm, Grace silver interconnects, Koetsu Rosewood M/C cartridge, Audio Research PH-2 Phono amp (balanced), Audio Research Hyper-Litz w Neutrik XLR interconnects.

LP cleaning: Nitty Gritty, VPI, etc. record cleaning machines - essential to remove dirt & crud from old records.

Digital recording:
MacPro quad, Edirol FA-66 & MOTU 828 mk 2 firewire audio interfaces, Soundstudio software (tracking), Parallels 4 PC emulator, Win XP, Adobe Audition software (audio file clean-up)

[MacOSX audio drivers are much more stable than Windows drivers and far less flaky]

Headphones: HD-600/Cardas, Grado SR 80 & 225 stock cables

Headphone Amps: Edirol, MOTU & Mac built-in (for recording & cleaning)

I record at 192/24 bit sampling, clean the archive audio files, and audition finished archive files using a direct balanced line connection to my Audio Research VT130 (110W/channel) tube amp driving Mirage M2 speakers.

In my experience, I've found that a well-recorded (original) LP pressing yields a FAR superior sound to many CD reissues for several reasons:

1) Many CD reissues were sourced from the original old master tapes (if you're lucky) that have degraded over time while an original vinyl pressing (in good shape) retains more of the 'juice' of the music since the vinyl does not oxidize over time like the magnetic tape particles and carrier. I like to use the analogy of the million year old fossil perfectly preserved in amber - the music (fossil) is preserved by the vinyl (amber) much better than the old acetate magnetic tape - time does not degrade vinyl to the same extent as magnetic tape.

2) Most CD's reissues (with the exception of the most recent) were digitized with earlier A/D converters and electronics and the A/D and D/A converters and associated electronics are the most critical part of the audio chain - assuming you have a good amp driving your headphones/speakers.

3) Digital audio playback from a properly configured & stable computer system sounds better (than all but the most expensive CD/SACD/DVD-A players) since a hard disk can deliver a more stable flow of data to a D/A converter than the typical optical disk drive found in most mechanical players.

I've digitized many of my LP's (very time consuming if done properly) and the results are almost always indistinguishable (to my aging ears) from the LP. The obvious added benefit is that you have preserved an irreplaceable recording, many of which are not available in digital form, and you can sit on the couch and select from thousands of tracks instantaneously using an iPod Touch without rummaging thru a pile of 'jewel cases.'

Let me know if you have any further thoughts/questions.
 
Jul 29, 2009 at 11:29 AM Post #55 of 67
Quote:

Originally Posted by Listens2tubes /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Who's setup was this?
88db.jpg

He was right next to me and I really liked his rewired HD600's compared to my Cardas wired pair. What rewire is this?



That's 88db's rig. He has one of my favorite HD600 setups I've ever heard. Those are Channel Islands amps. I forget what the CDP is, but the CDP has both a tube and a solid state output section, of which I prefer the solid state.
 
Jul 29, 2009 at 2:02 PM Post #58 of 67
Quote:

Originally Posted by hearjam /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The archiving setup I use for my vinyl LP collection is:...


Thanks for the info, and for making this your first post.

Welcome to Head-Fi!
 
Jul 29, 2009 at 11:05 PM Post #60 of 67
Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif
these 2 sites covert vinyl to CD, but they are expensive partly b/c you have to buy the LP.

cdBBQ - your source for professional vinyl to CD conversions

ALL VINYL RECORDS




On-line LP conversion services are not only expensive (time = $) but require you to purchase the source (or own same) for obvious legal reasons. Beyond that, however, they typically are using [ahem] shall we say, 'less than audiophile quality' analog & digital conversion equipment and then compound the felony by converting the final product to redbook CD (44/16-bit) format which defeats the purpose of archiving to begin with! Most services don't offer saving digital archive files in other than CD format (or horrors, maybe that's what they originally sampled the LP to begin with!) With modern computer-based playback, there is no reason (disk drives are cheap) to decimate a perfectly good 96/24 or 192/24-bit archive file down to CD quality unless you're never going to listen on anything better than a CD player.

A couple of other observations:

1) Professional audio recording studios have been using FireWire (IEEE 1394) audio interfaces for years because of FW's stability in heavy-duty data I/O applications while USB is used primarily in consumer and portable applications. The fact that most current 'audiophile' interfaces use USB is NOT because it is better for this purpose (hardly) but because USB is cheaper to implement and almost universally available on personal computers today -- thus the potential market for USB devices is much larger. However, in a recent article in 'The Absolute Sound' regarding computer-based audio playback, the author came to the conclusion that while USB DAC's varied widely in sound quality, FireWire based DAC's were sonically superior. In my experience that appears to be true - especially if you are dealing with recording and playback of 192/24-bit audio files.

2) The ultimate sound quality of an LP transfer is, in the first place, determined by the quality of the analog front end [no surprise] but using anything but the best quality gear that you can afford IS A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME! There are many cheap turntables and USB interfaces available - some even include the 'phono preamp' which supplies the necessary RIAA equalization. It would be better to purchase a separate USED high quality turntable, phono preamp and firewire audio interface than the cheesy new 'all-in one' USB turntables advertised online. The difference is 'night and day!'

The archiving of vinyl-to-digital is time consuming but should be viewed as a labor of love for good musical performances [on the other hand, you could argue, many LP's should not have been released at all, let alone archived!]

Regards, Hearjam
 

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