[Gigabomber]

About a week ago, I took my car to the local, Junction City Wax shop Blue Rose (real nice work for cheap) then took my car next door to get my tires rotated.
As I pulled out of the driveway earlier that day, my mother noticed that a sizeable trail of oil followed me. I inquired about it at the tire shop and the guy said that it didnt look too critical - just keep oil in it - then he charged me two bucks for the quart we put in it.
So I get up this morning, take a shower and nibble down two pieces of toast; taking my time, yet still in a bit of a rush as i decided to take my mp3 player and had to un-pack my books from my backpack for later convenience.
I placed it and my trademark beyer container - containing around a thousand bucks worth of goodies - behind the drivers seat, as the stumpy Seeberg would be sitting behind the twiggy James__Bean.
I drove down to Eugene via Highway 99, found the Seven-eleven we were supposed to meet at, parked, used the facilities at the kitty-cornered Starbucks and waited.

We met up and found I-5 north just fine, but I noticed that the engine felt a little odd and that there was a bit of an odd smell wafting into our windows.
"That smell is just the remnants of the oil burning off from earlier: there was a lot of oil left from when my car sat for a while." I said to James as I glance into my rearview mirror and notice tiny white puffs of smoke coming out of my tailpipe; damn that grease-monkeys advice.

As my mouth opens to tell James "i'm going to pull over", I don't get through the "I", for the oil, temp and engine lights come on and I lose my steering. I get the car to the side of the road with no problems and say to James, "It's not on fire, at least," as I grab for my miniature fire extinguisher.
I pop open the hood and steam semi-billows out. I say while peering into the billows, "just like in the movies."

I call my mom (who wouldn't?) and i get her machine at work - great.
I can barely hear anything over the trucks rushing by, yet I try to call her cell (who wouldn't?) and the same - double great.

Time to wait and see if i can figure out what the problem is. Radiator cap is not too hot, the water level is fine, and the oil is still full, yet the cap where the water blew from is mysteriously missing.
I take the last of my drinking water and pour it in, something I later relected on as being a waste of time, called Triple A and wait.

Mom calls back and says she will be there soon, I call Triple A again and they say the truck will be there in ten minutes max (lies), and we discuss wether or not we will make the meet, and how soon Seeberg will go crazy (speaking of that, I had better drop him a message right now as this post is getting rather long)

So my mom shows, peeks under the hood, and spies a coiled belt, with its four internal cables snapped.
"At least it wasn't the oil," I say.
I decide to let James off the hook and let him do his homework instead of drive as his Language class is tomorrow at eight a.m. and doing work 'til three would just suck, and ask mom to take him home.

Looks like all it needs is a dollar twenty in a release valve and two belts,
and my hands are still sticky from the anti-freeze, boy that stuff tastes nasty,
~Gigs

 

[devwild]

Well, me Tyll and iSleipnir are here... so many car troubles and work troubles holding people coming back... well, at least everything's set up, and we got wireless... so I'm going to do some listening!

 

[deadlierchair]

A friend and I ended up stopping by for about two hours I think and I know I had a great time. I really enjoyed listening to some AKG headphones towards the end of the meet, they were so comfy and the sound was pretty nice. Maybe I'll still go with some Grados, maybe I'll try out AKG for something, I'll have to read into it more.

It was great to talk to Tyll about HeadRoom and some of the various products, definitely reaffirms my desire to support a good company that cares about its customers. Anyhow, things were fun, I hope to do it again sometime and I'll bring some more of my stuff too

 

[seeberg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabomber ...as the stumpy Seeberg would be sitting behind the twiggy James__Bean.

Hey, I'm not that short (5'7"-5'8", not sure)

And not to worry. The only thing I'm going crazy over is my HD580 upgraditis(I so want to try a pair, it's annoying). Similar situations have happened to me, so it's not at all surprising. And hey, it's not anything like my July 4th plans that got shot to hell. That was clearly intentional, and I still have no respect for my cousin for that.

I sure hope your car gets fixed, Gigs! And of course, best of luck doing so. In the meantime, it's time for the imaginary side of the meet

There were 30% more strippers, and 60% more obnoxiousness! It was insane. I brought my corrogated frame based Stacks 'boardphones, paired up with my O-o-o-orrfeus, and I must say, the sound was truly a study in gullibility

And OMG, the Bose Triports..... That's all I can say

But of course was the Bizzaro HeadRoom free refurbished cans giveaway, it was sooo cool that it didn't even happen. How cool is that?

Oh, and I won't forget about the Ninjas. I sure showed them what happens when you try to take the O-o-o-orrfeus by force- you get to keep it and the carrying case it comes in, which for uniformity is also recycled paper based.

More false impressions soon.

,
Abe

 

[devwild]

Well I feel kinda bad that we ended up with such a small showing for Tyll (and my wallet a little because I didn't feel up to asking for room contributions from so few people, but hey, other details about the day make up for it

), but I guess it can't be helped. Next time Tyll makes his rounds I'm sure we'll make a better go of it. I think the location worked well at least, so maybe we can make use of that again. We could have fit a lot more people, and even could have overflowed into the next room. Not to mention if I would have known about the full kitchen at our disposal, real food could have been had on the cheap.

I got a decent amount of listening in though I didn't listen to all of Tyll's amps, which I probably should have made more effort to. I mainly enjoyed listening to headphones I hadn't previously had the joy of having on my head - and talking with Tyll.

Beyer 880's - Nice, comfortable, sound wise I can see why people would recommend these to people unhappy with the 595's bass. The bass was nice but dull for my taste tone-wise. Drum strikes were impressively solid.

AKG K501 - Very clean, fairly balanced, overall sound on the thin side so I didn't listen as long as I probably should have.

Grado RS1 - the bits I still feel I like/miss about grado (even though I don't use them since I got the sonys) with much less of what I don't about the other models. Great bass.

Senn HD201 - Definitely a lot of can for $20, get these as gifts for your non-headfi friends and they will thank you (as will your wallet)

Balanced 650s w/ Max - What's not to love. I don't like the 650s much on a normal setup, but I definitely like them on gear like this. The sound is just natural and soothing, worth hours of strait listening. On mid-fi gear I still prefer the 595. Weird eh?

Headroom Millet Hybrid - took some time to listen a bit (next to my M^3) because I was quite curious about this amp. Unfortunately I wanted to hear it with the Sonys as well, but didn't bring mine, and no one else with them made it. I used my 595s instead. If I recall I was using the 12AE6A tube type. For classical the sound was nice, full and smooth. For male vocal rock it was so-so, not bad but I wouldn't buy it for that (no surprise). For female vocal (Sheryl Crow) it brought out the voice but in a way I really didn't like which seemed unusual. I couldn't quite place why. Maybe next time I see this amp I will try it with different tubes and cans.

One thing's for sure, I look forward to Tyll's next tour! It was great to meet you and thank you so much for the effort and time to come out. I hope it was worth it. I look forward to seeing what photos you took.

 

[Gigabomber]

well that's a bit disappointing: we were expecting so many. I was going to make sure to chip in when I got there too. Was worried that the turn out might stay low when you posted earlier.
Guess a tuesday just doesn't pull folks like it could. My main interest was to see how folks liked the 880s versus other stuff and see how well headrooms micro amp stacks up to the sr-71 through the microDAC (whichever is more synergetic), but i guess it will have to wait, though I am tempted to just take the leap and buy them both now that the micro amp has passed me up.
I made the comment to Bean that I enjoy listening to my headphones ampless through my mp3 player cause the chaintech is a bit bright, so it is time for a change period. Prolly should jump on the headroom bandwagon before i have second thoughts 8)

 

[nleahcim]

damn - I would have gone if I had known about it...

 

[devwild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabomber well that's a bit disappointing: we were expecting so many. I was going to make sure to chip in when I got there too. Was worried that the turn out might stay low when you posted earlier.

We had 7 people I think at the fullest, so it wasn't horrible. Losing 2 people to work at the last minute and 3 due to your car troubles is quite a hit though at that point. The funny thing was that Budgie missed because he had to work in Astoria, which is where Tyll was staying.

Figures.

A couple of people were new to this level of headphone gear so I think it was certainly very worth it to them to get a taste. One of my friends that wanted to stay for a while couldn't because he forgot he had pool league that night. Next time should definitely be on a weekend

 

[Budgie]

(I presume Tyll will read this thread)

I am very bummed about missing this meet. Sometimes my dedication to work and my customers is my worst trait. I left at 10am with UPS red label parts, and didn't get back to the Portland area till 8:30pm. I hope Tyll will bring his bag of tricks this way again (although, I may be driving through Bozeman sometime next year . No ukele concert this time Tyll?

 

[Gigabomber]

Tyll didn't bring any Stax, did he dev?

 

[devwild]

Not that I saw.

Maybe the deal is next time we bring out the big group, and Tyll has to bring out the big gun cans.

 

[deadlierchair]

Quote:

Originally Posted by devwild Not that I saw. Maybe the deal is next time we bring out the big group, and Tyll has to bring out the big gun cans.

There seemed to be SO many headphones in the case that never got exposed, but if we'd had more people and been more active maybe it would have happened. Still, at least we got 7 people there, and there are always those that end up having last minute things/problems so overall I think it was still a positive experience.

Well...positive except that before I was 100% for sure getting SR325i's and now I'm thinking about some AKGs instead...

 

[devwild]

Most of the cans in the box were duplicates of what we had out (Tyll sure does like his 595s

)... oh, and the bose cans (did anyone actually do anything other than laugh at them?

)

After the fact I think the thing I regret most is not testing is the home/max dacs installed in the amp models Tyll had... but then, if I did that I might have upgraditis right now so I guess that's a good thing to wait till next time.

I'm actually quite glad that the last two meets have left me quite comfortable with my setup(s). The only changes I would want to make simply don't exist hardware wise... hmm, maybe I should have a talk with Tyll about that...

 

[iSleipnir]

I really enjoyed my first meet. I got to try out some grados and dt880 which I loved and now want to own. I also got to see how much an amp can affect headphone quality so that was definatly an enlightening experience. Overally, despite the size I really had fun.

-Slep

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Hi Guys! Sorry it took me so long to post my pictures.

I’ve also posted my concluding comments in my main meet thread, I rattled on a bit but I’d love any additional comments you might have there.

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showp...&postcount=148