[devwild]

Sorry Dire, because this was at a private residence I asked that people contact me for information. Don't worry, there is certainly more to come, and I think some great cool new stuff will be appearing in the coming year from several members.

Now, before I forget, the best picture of the meet.... Here we have Remilard sporting the newest evolution of Sony headphone technology. Designed with the idea of true audiophile headphone surround sound, these babies will have your head exploding with 8 channels of hyperdetailed action. We present to you...

The Sony SA16000!

The channel positioning is a little off and the front and rear channels seem mismatched from the rest, but there is definitely some wow factor going on!

 

[Gigabomber]

aww come on guys, is that all you haf to offer? at least make up fake accounts of the meet for the rest of our amusement

 

[remilard]

Well Seeberg's Orpheus sounded great as always. I wish he would let us photograph it but he is so modest he wants to keep a low profile.

 

[Born2bwire]

Ugg... tired... need sleepies... post tomorrow about grueling ordeal in the land of non-flatness.

 

[Gigabomber]

wish we had gotten a pic of budgie's eighty little white boxes

 

[seeberg]

Finally, I've gotten back to the thread. How is everyone?

Yeah, the strippers. Man, everything they were doing couldn't be caught on camera, some rule at HeadFi about the lot of us being banned or somesuch

And of course there was the Drunken Stupor Karaoke Contest, damn that was fun, not to mention imaginary!

I could have sworn I did the entire 15 minutes of Rapper's Delight's lyrics with dead on accuracy, but what do I know?

Oh, and then there was also the SA16000 shootout. Oh man, there was shrapnel flying everywhere and destruction in the wake of the whole fiasco. And that was just to put those freaks of nature on our heads, ha ha!
Too bad I can't remember how they sound...

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone I've got the big O, it's a seeeecret

So is my collection of Qualia, AT L3000's, and Stax Omegas. Oh, and then there's the Baby Orpheus, the R10's, Sensa's, UE10-Pro's, Edition 7's, and my babies, more like bastardized children, the modded Koss plugs. What an unlistenable waste of $15.

Anyway, I think to clarify my stance of Cardas'd HD650's and SA5000's, it was the brightness of the SA5000's that made the 650's seem really bassy. However, with track 3 of the Snake Eater soundtrack, the bass notes on the SA5000 sounded somewhat reminiscient in a very distant way to that of the flapping opening of a whopeee coushion(did I mention the familiarity in sound is very distant?) whereas the 650's pounded out those bass notes with authority, of course they were percieved to have rolled off highs in exchange- to my ears anyway. Also, I was as blown away as everyone else that reacted positively to Dev's M^3 with my SA1000's with the bass boost engaged. That was quite something, no?

Also, I've got to thank everyone for coming out to the meet, it's definitely the funnest and most memorable time I've had in the last few months, and thanks also to Snoopy(was it him?) for the Kilian's, it was good stuff. Also, thanks to Gigabomber for the ride, to Remilard for the killer stand(my flavor of the moment headphones will hang proud!) and the awesome tasting sevchae(I don't know how to spell it) like salsa with the chips, and to those whose music I downloaded, the advice I got, and of course Dev for hosting this get together. Whew... Fantastic!

Anyhow, since things went so well, I'd like to make a proposed team with a corresponding thread, "Team Oregon-Fi", and include all attendees of the meet within that group, and have each member have a link to the thread somewhere in their sig, simply as "Team Oregon-Fi"- and the purpose would be to establish ourselves as one of the more visible groups on the forums, and grow accordingly. Any opinions on that?

,
Abe

 

[Gigabomber]

Team Orephonians...hmmmm

 

[devwild]

Hey gigabomber, quick question but what source were you using for the second half of your portable shootout, the Benchmark? Just curious.

Also, did you ever get the Benchmark vs MicroDAC comparison going? it looked like you were having issues.

 

[james__bean]

We were using the Benchmark DAC1 for the second half of the comparison. (My only half

) Gigabomber and I did do a little bit of a comparison between the microdac and the benchmark, I don't know if he listened enough to be comfortable with impressions. After doing that much analysis with the portables we were both a little worn out. I'll post what I thought later, I'm on a break for my summer term of Japanese. I just looked at the schedule for the next three weeks and I think I'm going to have a heart attack.

I'm gonna go get some coffee, I only got like 4 hours of sleep last night.

 

[Budgie]

A fantastic meet. The only thing missing was the chicken feet!

Each meet seems to be more fun. I can't wait for the next one.

 

[devwild]

I just realized I forgot one short comparison that I did with Zemo's amps that should be mentioned. Actually I got a second shot at it later because they were the two amps available when I was doing music hunting. The first time was with Zemo's Rio, the second with the MicroDAC, but the results were similar.

The pair was a JMT transportable Pimeta and the Z-Audio Mu. They were very, very similar. The signature was almost identical with the Mu sounding a little livelier. The Pimeta was slightly more detailed with the Mu being slightly smoother and more fluid, but in a good way. I think my comment was the Mu grooves better.

Another good amp at a great price and tiny size, congrats, and I look forward to future developments.

 

[Gigabomber]

We were worn out, as Bean said earlier, so we didn't feel like doing a heavy comparison, but what we did notice was that the Benchmark was much richer in the midrange, and decided to, basically, leave it at that until the next meet (oh the shame).

As I was driving Remilard home, I mentioned that I wasn't sure that the Dac one was three and a half times better than the Micro, and he said that the Benchmark has a bunch of extra features that the micro doesn't. i'll refrain from mentioning them cause I can't remember them all, but Rem sure finds them extremely useful in his applications. Maybe he can chime in here and refresh my memory.

~Gigs

 

[devwild]

Yeah, the Benchmark is a true dedicated DAC, and the Micro is a headphone targetted, simplistic dac. Of course, for most people on Head-Fi, that's all you need. One of the biggest strengths of the DAC1 I see is its features/pricepoint for getting into Balanced headphones/gear if that is your interest. There are certainly other features and tweakability that make it fit well in a pro audio/studio/auditorium setup as well.

Maybe I'll have to see if Remilard will let me borrow the DAC1 for a day sometime soon. With the switched input on the M^3 I could do a proper A/B (well, if I dig up some matching ICs) of the two, and without all the extra background noise. I wanted to at the meet but there was never a time when both dacs and myself were free

EDIT: Also, I believe the Benchmark has significantly better locking and jitter correction features on it, which can be important depending on your setup and distances.

 

[remilard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabomber We were worn out, as Bean said earlier, so we didn't feel like doing a heavy comparison, but what we did notice was that the Benchmark was much richer in the midrange, and decided to, basically, leave it at that until the next meet (oh the shame). As I was driving Remilard home, I mentioned that I wasn't sure that the Dac one was three and a half times better than the Micro, and he said that the Benchmark has a bunch of extra features that the micro doesn't. i'll refrain from mentioning them cause I can't remember them all, but Rem sure finds them extremely useful in his applications. Maybe he can chime in here and refresh my memory. ~Gigs

I'm not sure what I mentioned but I see the features as being the balanced out, the preamp functionality, and the two headphone jacks. I think the DAC1 is a great deal if you use some combination of these features, if you only use it as a dac with unbalanced outs then I agree it isn't 3 times as good as the microdac, and maybe not as good as headrooms top of the line dac, but we shall see soon enough.

 

[james__bean]

I'll basically repeat what Gigabomber said, I felt the DAC1 had a more detailed, richer sound in the midrange. I was listening to some California Guitar Trio and I felt like with the DAC1, the guitars were more lively and had better seperation. With the microdac, it just seemed slightly muffled in comparison, although it still sounded quite good.