[BIG POPPA]

Yeah we had another awesome Seattle meet. Portlanders represented. Focal Utopia made an appearance. And the infamous RedNet. Premeet was nice, more later im tired

 

[andrewcox79]

Tried the ZMF Omnis. This was interesting for me because I have Alpha Primes that I use in one of my setups. I liked the sound from the Omnis. I didn't have my Primes there to do a side-by-side comparison, but I think Omnis probably sound a tad better. Probably isn't a completely fair comparison since Omnis are semi-closed and Primes are fully closed. Definitely Omnis at least sounded VERY good. Unfortunately, at least for me with my big head and big ears, either the shape of the cups or the depth/shaped of the pads on the Omnis doesn't work as well for me as the alpha pads. My ears touched the pads (on the edges of the ears) and also the screen on the driver side. This was with the lambskin pads, maybe the stiffer cowhide might have been a better fit for me personally, though I didn't try those on.
 
Tried the Stax-SR207. Was my first time listening to an electrostatic headphone. I was looking for a noticeable difference in congestion here (compared to planars and dynamics), and I think I found it. If I wanted two home setups, I'd probably aim for the second to be a Stax setup, because I think with some kinds of music I would definitely enjoy them a lot. But I mostly listen to electronic and like a bit stronger bass I get from my LCD-X.
 
Also compared LCD-X to LCD-XC. Was pretty impressed with how faithful LCD-XC is. It is still a bit of a compromise, but very, very subtle.
 
Tried both focals (elear and utopia). Was not impressed, didn't even like them. Vocals in the song we tried hurt my ears (vs other headphones on the same song). Probably just my personal taste, or the amp combination (maybe they do better with tube amps)?
 
Highlights for me were:
 
- Hearing @dbalvo's dual monoblock CMA800R amps. We are work colleagues, so I already knew he was buying these a few months back but hadn't heard them yet, and I told him today that back when he bought them I thought he was just a bit nuts (but of course we all are in this hobby). Now having heard them, I was way more impressed than I expected to be. I currently have an Oppo HA-1, and his setup (those amps + his NAD DAC) seemed to sound way better with my LCD-X. We also tried some unbalanced connections that went through just one of the CMA800Rs in stereo mode, and I felt it was missing some energy. So maybe there is something to monoblocks... Admittedly, that was a different headphone, and unbalanced vs balanced, so a lot of factors at play here, but I prefer to imagine that dual monoblocks is just awesome
 
- HE-1K as compared to LCD-X / XC on the same CMA800R setup. For me, it was magical! From what I'd read, I expected that I'd be less impressed by HE-1K than I was. For twice the prices (plus the urge I'd have to immediately upgrade to a more expensive amp setup), I'm not sure it makes me want to run out and trade in my LCD-X for HE-1Ks (just yet), but I definitely see where the extra money is going, and @dbalvo (who was already thinking of doing just that) is more convinced after hearing them.
 
Was my first meet, so overall I came away impressed with the lengths people go to, the variety of different equipment, and most of all, how friendly everyone is at these things! Also reaffirmed that for the most part, what I have bought so far for myself was a good choice, for my own personal tastes.
 
Next time, I'll try to bring more of my stuff. Including something to hook up to actually *play* music.

Thanks @BIG POPPA for setting this up, and thanks every who came for making this a great first meet experience for me!
 
Now, curious to hear others' thoughts...

 

[curbfeeler]

Just a few photos from the meet.
 

 
Handsome stack of electronics.
 

 
Spent some pleasant time with the Stax system which was representative of the best from electrostatics.
 

 

 
Musiqboy's Rednet/Theta/Taboo kit was enthralling. Spent lots of time with it using familiar material. Among the best I've heard. Most gratifying was the change from S/PDIF coax to AES. That produced holographic imaging of individual instruments, and the effect was not subtle.
 

 
I heard the Questyle mono current mode when they were new at Canjam couple of years ago. They were promising then, and they acquitted themselves well on this most recent audition, too.
 

 

 
Musiqboy tells me that the Taboo was voiced using Audez'e 2.2, and what I heard using mine with the Nordost Heimdall cabling would lead me to believe it. I used the 4-pin XLR connection provided via adapter.
 

 

[BobFiggins]

Is he wearing the LCD backwards?

 

[curbfeeler]

  Is he wearing the LCD backwards?

Reversing phase isn't the only path to better sound ;>)

 

[miceblue]

All righty here are my impressions and photos from the meet. Sorry for the late reply, my week's schedule has been jam-packed. Thank you BIG POPPA for getting the meet all in order as usual!



Breakfast at McMenamins Tavern On The Square was pretty good. I ordered the the Anderson School Breakfast.




As for the meet itself, the first headphones I listened to after settling in were the new Focal Elear and Utopia. Thank you grizzlybeast for bringing these up to the meet!








Both sounded pretty good to me, but I actually preferred the less expensive Elear over the Utopia for its overall more balanced sound signature in my listening tests. The Utopia definitely "wowed" me with its expansive three-dimensional soundstage and great instrument separation, but something about the upper-midrange seemed off to me whereas the Elear didn't have as much trouble there. The fit of the Elear was also much better for my head as the rigid carbon fibre bails of the Utopia prevented the earcups from rotating to fit my head shape. As a whole, I liked the Elear's warm sound signature and it reminded me of a more refined HD650; not a bad choice for a sound signature!



Next up was gefski's STAX setup with the Yggdrasil.











^ those are some of the craziest cables I have ever seen!

Between the SR-407 and the SR-404 Ltd., I greatly preferred the 404's sound since it was a lot smoother compared to other Lambda-series headphones I've heard, save for the newest two. It had a stronger 9-10 kHz frequency presence from what I could hear, but it didn't interfere with my overall enjoyment of the listening experience. It must be an electrostat thing because other non-e-stat headphones that have a large 9-10 kHz presence tends to really bother my ears like the HE-500, HE-6, K 701 when placed on the wrong spot on my head, and Audeze's Fazor headphones.



Speaking of Audeze, I tried the big setup in the middle of the room with the dual-mono Questyles amps.






With the HE1000 on that setup, it was really something else to what I had heard on my own rig during the beta-testing phases of the HE1000. The imaging seemed much more precise, the soundstage much better-defined, and the bass impact and presence was much more planar-like. I still wouldn't buy a pair myself since I have no money and I don't like the build quality of that particular $3000 headphone, but it did sound good to me.

Trying the LCD-X was pretty underwhelming to hear next to the HE1000. I don't know if it's due to it being a more recent serial number compared to what I had heard 2 years ago, but the LCD-X on this setup sounded really bright and shrill compared to the HE1000. Not my kind of sound....



In more enlightening news, H2Ologd's tiny but heavy AudioQuest DragonFly Red was pretty impressive to hear, and see.




The one problem I had with it is that it's tiny, and it's heavy. If you attach it to a dongle, or even just a computer's USB port, it better be well-supported so that it doesn't break the thing while it's dangling off of a device. Other than that, it's pretty, and it sounds pretty decent for what you pay. It literally reminds me of a candy apple from Halloween, no joke.




Next up was markus94103's Mojo.


In short: believe the hype. It sounded freaking awesome and is easily is on the top of my list for portable DACs to look at. The only problems I have with it are its heavy weight and awkward form factor. It would be really awkward to pocket it since it's heavier than my ancient iPhone 4S and it's smaller than my computer mouse.



Finally, Muziqboy's uber fancy rig with the super-modded HD800.














I have to wonder how much of the sound the SonarWorks EQ contributes to the overall difference in sound quality for the HD800. I was toggling it on and off and it made a SUBSTANTIAL difference. The HD800 was no longer an HD800 with it turned on. Bass was very much present without sounding the least bit distorted (albeit too much for my preferences), treble was smoothed out, upper-midrange brightness was nonexistent, and imaging was more precise than a stock HD800. It was just insane to hear how much that EQ does to help the HD800.



To wrap it up, talking to everyone at the meet was really fun. Photography, the current state of the hobby, catching up with members, and school were all big topics of discussion for me at the meet. The after meet at the Beardslee Public House was a nice way to end the day.







^ how I felt after the meet too, hahaha


Miscellaneous photos:

^ alpha421's Resonessence Labs Concero


^ Ham Sandwich's Liquid Fire