First, you are all welcome, and I join you in huge thank you to the ultimate Ears team. They were super supportive, really nice, and easy to work with. So THANKS UE!
Luis' remasters were an incredibly interesting treat, and maybe the highlight of the meet for me for their quality, and the novelty of getting to hear some real treasures. I would really love to hear more of the library some day. Certainly a chance to hear that much material and compare to older releases doesn't come often.
Biggest surprise: the akg 501 rig. I was really amazed at how good that setup sounded.
Biggest wish: having had more time to listen to the really cool home made rigs. DIY rocks, and even seeing but not hearing was interesting. But I would really enjoy getting a bit more time with some of that stuff.
I'm still processing on the Stax rigs. I really liked the transparency, especially n3rdling's setup, but something about the Stax sounds a bit analytical to me. It may just be that I need more time to internalize and get used to how different they sounded. This also happened the first few times I really got to listen to orthos. My preference tends toward a bit warmer sound, and less analytical, which maybe behind this, but also a lot of the music I heard was not familiar, so I didn't have the reference to really get in and a/b. Certainly left me curious... Anyone local want to loan a pair to me?
Also, the Audio-gd stuff was interesting. Very detailed, and interesting to compare to the Burson. Again, more analytical sounding to me, as was the HE6 in contrast to the LCD-2. I get why people are really into them, but it's not the right sound for me. My guess is if you like the HE6 sound the Audio GD would be a great choice, but for the LCD tubes or a Burson. what do the HE6 owners think?
Loved seeing mackat's collection, go guy! I got into audio around the same age, totally awesome to see how much he new and how into it he is!
Loved Jim' death by capacitance amp with the big warning on the front. It was fun to hear the Koss stats, too.
DannyBouy had more cables than a power company, but didn't get to hear them. The violectric gear left me interested to hear more.
I really like bigrocks t50 woody, it certainly took the sound a level past where it is possible to go using only the stock enclosures. It leaned out the one remaining overly warm area in the lower mids, and had a clean extended sound. Well done!
My favorite part of the event: meeting everyone. So many people who clearly are really into this at a really deep level, as a phone noob you guys were really inspiring.
If anyone has suggestions to improve the event, length,o location, whatever, pipe up. Constructive ideas welcome, and maybe we can arrange another.
A few of you who are local, maybe we can sometimes do a mini meet where we can really get some quality time in. I live in Carmel Valley, drop a note if anyone is interested.
