[kwkarth]

The Portland area Head-Fi'ers enjoyed a day of awesome sounds on Sunday 12/9/01. Our meet was hosted by a local audio shoppe. IMHO, the most awesome Hi-Fi store in the Northwest! Our hosts Craig and Rose Finer of The Art of Audio are true HiFi affecianados in every sense of the word. Check out their website! [size=medium]The Art of Audio![/size]

I'll post some of our pictures today, but due to time constraints, I plan to post more later as well.

We had a great time and were treated to not only our own room to set things up in, but also treated to some awesome sounds made by a minimalist sixty five throusand dollar system, which consisted of only speakers, amps, pre-amps, and CD source.

If you missed your chance to hear these critters for yourselves, this time, make sure and join us for our next meet!!

Well, let's get to it, here are some pictures of our get together:

One real treat we had was hearing Budgie's newest home brew head-amp which was definitely 100proof! Sweet sounds and outstanding construction!

Craig treated us to some great source CDP's, one of which was the Linn Genki, under which you see the mighty Max from Headroom Corporation.

Do I really need to say anything about the sound of the mighty Max? (In an upcoming review, I will, whether you want me to or not!

)

We were also treated to some great sounds by Neruda's new CHA-47. He's had this baby for a few weeks now and it has had a chance to burn in and let me tell you the sound is impressive!

We also had on hand kwkarth's SAC amp with adaptor so we could listen to not only the K1000's but also conventional headphones as well. Providing source for it was a sweet and punchy sounding Classe' CDP w/ HDCD.

To the right, you see the requisite (according to kwkarth) sub woofer for the K1000's. In this instance, Craig and Rose provided a REL for the job. It wasn't quite loud enough for the K1000's, but we made do.

There was plenty of time for some great dialog about projects and sound and .......

Here we see kwkarth trying to explain to budgie how to turn the Wilson Watt/Puppies into headphones...

Anybody remember the cheap speaker cable we discussed here about a month ago? We had a chance to listen!! Now how to make a better set of replacement cords for the HD-600's out of those to improve the deficient bass....hmmmm

gotta jet to the office...more to come later!!
Happy listening!!

 

[KR...]

Thanks for posting that!

I'm looking forward to seeing more pics and reading reports of this meet.

 

[Neruda]

yes, there is certainly more to come. We musta taken two hundred pics!...okay, I'm exagerating, but it felt like a lot.

by the way, for anyone who doesn't know, those cables in the last pic cost $20,000. They were probably the weak link in that system

 

[MooGoesTheCow]

thanks for the pics! man, those Opus speaker cables look like firehoses!

now, for some impressions. out with it! chop chop!

 

[Neruda]

hmm, impressions...

well, I did a lot of critical listening to the HD580's vs. the K501's, and I guess I'll relax on my anti-senn campaign and just say apples 'n' oranges. they're both good phones, no, very good phones, and I guess I can see why some people would prefer the sennheisers. However, I'd still choose the K501's over them any day. The senns sound to me like the bass is elevated, and the treble also sounds veiled slightly. This sound may appeal (and DOES appeal) to a lot of people. Hoever, I personally find the K501's to be slightly more neutral across the spectrum, as well as being a little more transparent. These differences are very subtle! I certainly must admit that the senns are not bad headphones, and will cease saying otherwise. But for me, the AKG's are the way to go.

I also love my JMT amp! I got to compare it to the Max and the SAC and was suprised at how much of a fight it put up. It certainly wasn't the equal of either of those super-amps, but it's a great little amp in its own right. It's certainly much more portable!

I'll post a mini-review soon.

As far as how the max compares to the SAC...both amps are very good. I enjoyed listening to both. I seemed to notice that the Max had a slightly boosted low end and high end, so the bass and high frequencies were more noticable. VERY subtle differences. The SAC sounded both thin and muffled in comparison, however I don't think this is because of err in the SAC's part. I think the Max offers a tiny bit more of a "wow" factor than the SAC does. Also, the Max's soundstage is a little bit less 3D than the SAC's is. the SAC offers more of a front/back soundstage; both amps had a great left/right soundstage. Again, very subtle differences. I'm not knocking the Max in any sense! it's a spectacular amp. Lastly, I wasn't too impressed with the crossfeed. I didn't expiriment with it too much, but it very noticably exagerated the bass even more. So, when using the HD580's, I have the slightly elevated bass from the ehadphones, the slightly elevated bass from the amp, THEN the elevated bass from the crossfeed. Okay, we have waaaay too much bass by now!

So I left that off. The Max certainly had plenty of power, and it really made both the sennheisers and the AKG's come to life. All in all, both the Max and the SAC are great amps.

Also, regarding the Sony F1: I didn't like them

. It's main problem was with transparency; I couldn't make out sperate instruments very clearly at all. the bass was good, as was the treble for the most part, but the midrange was thick. I basically ignored them.

 

[Neruda]

well, I'm happy to see that soooo many people are interested in our meet!

 

[neil]

Very cool. Its so cool to see these get-togethers actually happening and the plans not falling apart. I think I would have really liked to pop in my phones into some of those amps and sources. BTW, Neruda, I dig that red power switch. Its so Star Trek!

 

[Neruda]

haha, don't look at me! The red switch was all JMT had on hand!

But yeah, I'm also pleased that we did this meet. we'll do more, for sure. maybe more people will make it to the next one!

 

[Budgie]

The F1's are lite on the bass and thick sounding in the midrange. I am hoping they may sound better after a longer break in time. They are, however, the most comfortable phone I have yet to wear. And they do offer a feeling of room space that only the K1000's can beat. I am not ready to give up on them yet. Hopefully a longer break in time will provide some improvement.

The little SAC amp was quite a surprise! I would recommend it to anyone. It drove any phone we threw at it without strain and they all sounded good on it. Very nice!

The use of the subwoofer with the K1000's worked wonderfully! It filled in that bottom octave and did not seem detached from the music at all. You would swear that the K 1000's were reaching into the lowest registers all by themselves. Well worth experimenting with.

Neruda's 47 amp really did sound good. Allthough it is portable, I could not fit it into my pocket. (At least not before Neruda came back into the room.)

I had alot of fun and look forward to our next get together.

 

[Neruda]

Quote:

Originally posted by Budgie Neruda's 47 amp really did sound good. Allthough it is portable, I could not fit it into my pocket. (At least not before Neruda came back into the room.)

LOL! trying to steal my amp, huh?

 

[joelongwood]

Thanks for posting. Nice pics........but I have one question: What the hell happened to your ears K? They shrunk!

 

[kwkarth]

Well Joe, at cruising altitude you have to pull the flaps in!

Check out Neruda, he really did listen to the 580's!!

"All right, all right, so I'm listening to them already, but do I have to say something nice about them too?"

 

[Neruda]

yeah, but I sure as hell didn't enjoy it...

man that's a lousy pic!

 

[kwkarth]

Hey man, what're ya complaining about, your hair's longer than mine!!

 

[Neruda]

true!