Duggeh
Indeed
- Joined
- May 9, 2005
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Big big thanks and a bucket of kudos to Milkpowder for hosting this meet at his place, and for putting half of us up for the night on his assortment of beds. Thanks dude.
I turned up rather later than I had intended, on account of the fact that I woke up with a stinking hangover in the morning and hid from the world until about 1pm. So this in combination with my GPS not knowing where Milkpowders house is made for a tardiness in my getting there, so that just as I was in, unpacked and plugged in. The K1000 rig was down, packed up and out the door. Sad times for me. Sob.
Still all was not lost, it was really good to see some faces I met at the UK meet again, and a few new chaps too. As fine a group of audio nerds as anyone could ever ask to spend their day with I think. And I use the term nerd only in its most friendly and endearing sense of course.
Like at the UK meet I ended up with my my gear in a seperate room which may or may not have cut down on people playing with it but I hope that people enjoyed themselves with it. It also meant that all of the dynamics were in one room and all of the planar headphones were in the other, which is the sort of segregation that the Stax Mafia calls for in its secret manifesto.
I haven't taken any pictures because my parents are away to Paris this weekend and naturally have taken the digital camera with them but I'm sure that there will be a succession of JPEGs coming anyway.
So in the planar room we had an SR-202, a Lambda Pro, an HE60, and an Omega 2 representing the electrostatic side of things, running from a choice of SRM-212, SRM-006t and SRM-717. Also a TakeT H2 and an Ergo AMT running from the NAD/Pass Labs stack.
I spent most of my listening time in that room with the HE60. It really is a very very good headphone and I preferred it out of the SRM-717 to the SRM-006t it just seemed a bit livelier all around, maybe with a little more grunt at the bottom end too. Didn't do any big comparing of the Lambda Pro and the SR-202, but they sounded, as you might expect, very similar to each other compared to the other options.
The main room was home to the (and lets see if I can remember everything here) 2 HD650s (one with Zu cable), SR-325, SR-80 (ALO woody), Jecklin Floats, K81DJ, Ergo 2, PX100, fake PX100, PK.2, W5000, K44 and the Surrounder.
During the course of the later part of the evening in that room the me that had earlier been explaining that portable audiophilia was not something which interested me for assorted reasons died an unexpected and slightly shocking death when it transpired that the Livewires customs (almost properly) fit my ears.
Those things were seriously seriously sweet. I've always been objectionable to IEMs because I find them uncomfortable, foamys, triple flange tips of olive tips, all uncomfortable in different ways which makes the sound a moot point. But the customs just vanished and all there was was sweet sweet music. I actually really wanted to just sit back and listen to them for the rest of the night, but that would have been just a bit anti-social.
Definitely the star of the meet for me. I want a pair.
To flip side to the nights loser. Thats got to be the AKG K81DJ. Uncomfortable all around, boomy, massive roll off in the highs, sucked out mids. Suitable for a giggle with Kylie Minogue and a bass boost but made Mike Oldfield sound as wrong and strange and unnatural as I've ever heard. Cannot understand their popularity at all. They also improved 0% out of the iMod setup.
It was nice to hear the HD650 and the Ergo 2 again. Headphones that I've had and said goodbye to. I think though that my time with them confirmed my transition to the planar side. To the one true path. I remember loving the HD650s but they did nothing for me really this time. The Ergo 2 was much more fun, I'd still very much consider buying a third pair of those for situations where a 'stat isn't practical. Lan parties for example. Its also, and I'm sure I've said this before. Just a plain better in every way headphone than its daddy the Float 2.
It also seems that Grados really are a huge hit and miss affair for me. I used to have an HF-1 and never really liked it at all. Then I heard the RS-2 at the UK meet and thought it was fabulous. Last night the SR-325 failed to stimulate me at all. It was okay. Not bad. Just not fabulous either. More of a hit was the ALO modded SR-80. The headband was very nice, the wood cups were extremely pretty and they sounded I have to say pretty stinking good out of the iMod setup and pretty good out of the iPod headphone socket. Where they failed though is that hideous hideous flesh coloured braided ALO recable. Its covered in nylon or whatever at the headphone end which looks fine, then suddenly its this garish selection of small bore tubes that looks like their pumping Irn-Bru through them.
Obviously an unfamiliarity with each aspect of the equipment (woody, recable, iMod, voyager amp) means I couldn't chalk up which bits were the most responsible for the better sound over just sticking things into the top of the iPod very well. What I will say though is that I liked (apart from the Livewires) the Ergo 2 best out of an iPod headphone socket. The troubl is that no-one in their right mind is going to use an Ergo as a portable headphone.
I didn't spend much time with the W5000, but they were much of the sameness as I remember from Manchester. Very very clean, very comfy, absolutely gorgeous, but with that sort of reflective shininess in the upper midrange which isn't always there but when it appears kind of ruins how nice the rest of the sound is.
The fake PX100 drivers were set inside a real PX100 headband and pads, removing their biggest flaws, sonically, they were fairly similar, and if there was a hole in the fake driver housing where the real ones actually have a hole, maybe they'd be more similar still. It's entirely possible that the drivers are the same and that its the shoddy workmanship on the counterfeit housings and headband and pads that's the weakness. Should have done a bit more comparison there.
The Yuin Pk.2 were quite nice, but lacked a sense of weight and presence which any of the bigger headphones, even the PX100 did have. They also seemed to have a certain graininess to their sound at some times which put me off. It's also been too long since I lost my B&O A8s to call a fair comparison between the two.
The spicy Dominoes pizza was good stuff, especially the cold breakfast slice the next day that went smashingly with my remaining last-nights-beer. I'm a high class guy.
I had a hoot though. Cheers guys. Hope you all had/have safe journeys back.
I turned up rather later than I had intended, on account of the fact that I woke up with a stinking hangover in the morning and hid from the world until about 1pm. So this in combination with my GPS not knowing where Milkpowders house is made for a tardiness in my getting there, so that just as I was in, unpacked and plugged in. The K1000 rig was down, packed up and out the door. Sad times for me. Sob.
Still all was not lost, it was really good to see some faces I met at the UK meet again, and a few new chaps too. As fine a group of audio nerds as anyone could ever ask to spend their day with I think. And I use the term nerd only in its most friendly and endearing sense of course.
Like at the UK meet I ended up with my my gear in a seperate room which may or may not have cut down on people playing with it but I hope that people enjoyed themselves with it. It also meant that all of the dynamics were in one room and all of the planar headphones were in the other, which is the sort of segregation that the Stax Mafia calls for in its secret manifesto.
I haven't taken any pictures because my parents are away to Paris this weekend and naturally have taken the digital camera with them but I'm sure that there will be a succession of JPEGs coming anyway.
So in the planar room we had an SR-202, a Lambda Pro, an HE60, and an Omega 2 representing the electrostatic side of things, running from a choice of SRM-212, SRM-006t and SRM-717. Also a TakeT H2 and an Ergo AMT running from the NAD/Pass Labs stack.
I spent most of my listening time in that room with the HE60. It really is a very very good headphone and I preferred it out of the SRM-717 to the SRM-006t it just seemed a bit livelier all around, maybe with a little more grunt at the bottom end too. Didn't do any big comparing of the Lambda Pro and the SR-202, but they sounded, as you might expect, very similar to each other compared to the other options.
The main room was home to the (and lets see if I can remember everything here) 2 HD650s (one with Zu cable), SR-325, SR-80 (ALO woody), Jecklin Floats, K81DJ, Ergo 2, PX100, fake PX100, PK.2, W5000, K44 and the Surrounder.
During the course of the later part of the evening in that room the me that had earlier been explaining that portable audiophilia was not something which interested me for assorted reasons died an unexpected and slightly shocking death when it transpired that the Livewires customs (almost properly) fit my ears.
Those things were seriously seriously sweet. I've always been objectionable to IEMs because I find them uncomfortable, foamys, triple flange tips of olive tips, all uncomfortable in different ways which makes the sound a moot point. But the customs just vanished and all there was was sweet sweet music. I actually really wanted to just sit back and listen to them for the rest of the night, but that would have been just a bit anti-social.
Definitely the star of the meet for me. I want a pair.
To flip side to the nights loser. Thats got to be the AKG K81DJ. Uncomfortable all around, boomy, massive roll off in the highs, sucked out mids. Suitable for a giggle with Kylie Minogue and a bass boost but made Mike Oldfield sound as wrong and strange and unnatural as I've ever heard. Cannot understand their popularity at all. They also improved 0% out of the iMod setup.
It was nice to hear the HD650 and the Ergo 2 again. Headphones that I've had and said goodbye to. I think though that my time with them confirmed my transition to the planar side. To the one true path. I remember loving the HD650s but they did nothing for me really this time. The Ergo 2 was much more fun, I'd still very much consider buying a third pair of those for situations where a 'stat isn't practical. Lan parties for example. Its also, and I'm sure I've said this before. Just a plain better in every way headphone than its daddy the Float 2.
It also seems that Grados really are a huge hit and miss affair for me. I used to have an HF-1 and never really liked it at all. Then I heard the RS-2 at the UK meet and thought it was fabulous. Last night the SR-325 failed to stimulate me at all. It was okay. Not bad. Just not fabulous either. More of a hit was the ALO modded SR-80. The headband was very nice, the wood cups were extremely pretty and they sounded I have to say pretty stinking good out of the iMod setup and pretty good out of the iPod headphone socket. Where they failed though is that hideous hideous flesh coloured braided ALO recable. Its covered in nylon or whatever at the headphone end which looks fine, then suddenly its this garish selection of small bore tubes that looks like their pumping Irn-Bru through them.
Obviously an unfamiliarity with each aspect of the equipment (woody, recable, iMod, voyager amp) means I couldn't chalk up which bits were the most responsible for the better sound over just sticking things into the top of the iPod very well. What I will say though is that I liked (apart from the Livewires) the Ergo 2 best out of an iPod headphone socket. The troubl is that no-one in their right mind is going to use an Ergo as a portable headphone.
I didn't spend much time with the W5000, but they were much of the sameness as I remember from Manchester. Very very clean, very comfy, absolutely gorgeous, but with that sort of reflective shininess in the upper midrange which isn't always there but when it appears kind of ruins how nice the rest of the sound is.
The fake PX100 drivers were set inside a real PX100 headband and pads, removing their biggest flaws, sonically, they were fairly similar, and if there was a hole in the fake driver housing where the real ones actually have a hole, maybe they'd be more similar still. It's entirely possible that the drivers are the same and that its the shoddy workmanship on the counterfeit housings and headband and pads that's the weakness. Should have done a bit more comparison there.
The Yuin Pk.2 were quite nice, but lacked a sense of weight and presence which any of the bigger headphones, even the PX100 did have. They also seemed to have a certain graininess to their sound at some times which put me off. It's also been too long since I lost my B&O A8s to call a fair comparison between the two.
The spicy Dominoes pizza was good stuff, especially the cold breakfast slice the next day that went smashingly with my remaining last-nights-beer. I'm a high class guy.
I had a hoot though. Cheers guys. Hope you all had/have safe journeys back.
