joining the thread late, sorry. First time I volunteered for a meet, it was *really* fun: lots of chatting and smooth sailing, thanks to the amazing prep work of our Great Organizers,
@warrenpchi and
@third_eye! I was impressed by the array of exhibitors (new and old) they managed to lure, felt like being at a major trade show! I hope next time we will have more headfi-ers bringing their rigs: new toys are great, but only a system like this
assembled with love and labour by
@Crashem, can produce this kind of enrapturement
(or was it fatigue from all the work done?). BTW that is
@SanJoseCanJunkie enjoying a Chesky recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that sounded spookily like being there next to the players.
I did not have time to listen to a lot of gear but here are a few notes:
- like everybody else I was impressed by the Pendulum bluetooth phones. I had them playing Rebecca Pidgeon "Spanish Harlem" that I have heard on quite a few rigs and the Pendulum had a very "high-end" sound: balanced and very spacious, particularly for a closed can. Only thing I noticed was some sibilance on the highs (s-es sounding like tsshh) but that could have been the mp3 encoding or perhaps some bluetooth interference. Regardless. if the earpads had been just a bit larger I would have bought one on the spot. The Pendulum rep (a very nice guy who come looking for me since I had left my phone at their desk...) said they are looking at round-the-ear cups for future releases.
- I was stunned by how good the Light Harmonic Geek Out 450 sounded when driving @SanJoseCanJunkie Beyer T90s and even my T1s. I see a Geek Out in my future
- I was not very impressed by Oppo new Head Amp. I thought the headphone out of the Oppo BDP105 next to it sounded at least as good when driving my Beyer T1s. BTW I had read that the BDP105 headphone out was not powerful enough to drive high impedance cans, but that was certainly not the case with the T1s, and that was in a very noisy room...
- I spent some time listening to the Woo Audio DAC through a WA6 and the usual T1. The room was again very noisy but the character of the DAC was rather clear: fast power I think summarizes it, a very audiophile sound.
Well that's it, three days have passed, and I can't wait till the next San Francisco meet!