[dusk]

BIG THANK YOU to all the Massdrop folks for allowing us to put this on at your HQ.  Very kind.
 
Thanks to everyone who showed up, and a special thanks to @DecentLevi for helping me organize this (and doing most of the work.
 
Anyway, post your meet impressions here!
 
 
I'll post mine later when I decompress from it all, but wanted to start a thread if others were ready to go.
 
-DUSK

 

[bazelio]

Thanks to all of you who hauled up the magnificent equipment.  Eye candy, ear candy, you name it.  I'd like to know how the DAC-off between the Vega and DAC-19 turned out, from whomever participated.  I didn't make it back to the Vega, and I should have.
 
But for me, the most surprising takeaway: The Cavalli Liquid Carbon + DAC-19 combination (stock jumper settings) is simply special.  [Purposely omitting the "at its price" clause there].  It was like sipping a dram of Lagavulin by the fireplace in a cozy chair.  Right where I want to be.  

 

[TMoney]

I was lucky enough to share a room with Bill P (the mod god) today at the meet.

This was the rare meet where we had almost zero MOT participation outside of Massdrop who hosted. It was a nice change of pace from the Head-Fi sponsored Can Jam meets that feel like 80+% MOTs.

I had a lot of fun talking with everyone, especially Velvetx, Bill P, AtomikPi and the Massdrop guys. AtomikPi's rig (which I used to own) was easily the class of the meet. It is very hard to beat a properly driven 009 rig.

I also finally started coming around to the EC Black Widow. It sounded pretty good out of Yggy and my preamp today.

The only real negative was the nightmare of parking the in the financial district on a Saturday. Other than that, great meet.
 
Thanks to Massdrop, Dusk and Levi for hosting/organizing.

 

[bcschmerker4]

Any reviews of equipment at the meet pending?  I had a backlog of office work to tend to.

 

[DecentLevi]

I second a BIG thanks to Massdrop for hosting us. From the first moment I knew Massdrop may be able to host us, I had a feeling this is going to be MASSive, and sure enough it was... no, wait it was better than massive - it was HISTORIC!!! I swear I learned more, discovered more, and made better friends at this one day's meet than I could have from YEARS of reading on Head-Fi. It's just that actual being there, trying things, meeting members that's priceless.
 
I had several absolutely humongous larger than life realizations from the gear present that will drastically improve the course of my path to sonic bliss in the future. And it may have been just the best out of the 4 meet's I've been to. Not to mention a highly amusing day with the Zana Deux failing, the Liquid Carbon (prototype) crapping out, and channel imbalance of an SR-009. Nevertheless as was well and educational, to say the least! 

 
Everybody else - yeah we are hecka worn out and need time to to process everything. Interesting impressions are sure to come in the next few days...

 

[bazelio]

Glad I got to listen to the Liquid Carbon before the crapping outage occurred then.  As for parking, maybe I was lucky, but found it easy to park on the curb right at Battery and Bush.  Actually, the yellow curbs around there were "only yellow" Mon - Fri.  So it was $7 for two hours in the meter.
 
As fun as the meet was, it was maybe more importantly educational.  My want list has certainly changed.  

 

[jazzfan]

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to hear the HE-6 and HD800. It was nice to meet all of you and to catch up with old friends. I echo TMoney's sentiments regarding the level of MOT participation at this event as being a welcomed change. Events like this give members the best opportunity to come together to share ideas, experiences and music, which is why I've enjoyed being part of the Head-Fi community.
 
Lastly, many thanks to Massdrop, Dusk and DecentLevi for hosting a very enjoyable event.

 

[manywelps]

Had quite a bit of trouble with parking and the SF pedestrians and drivers, but the meet was quite fun, even if I got there pretty late.
 
That modded HE-560 had quite impressive soundstage, and good midrange, rivaling the ESP-950.
 
Speaking of the ESP-950, people seemed to quite enjoy it.  One comment that I agree with and heard quite a bit is that it has a very fast "attack" when playing music (I suspect it's the near complete lack of reverb (so instant decay) on the sound, so it's very clear and dry/cold)
 
(And comments on how hilariously light it is, forgot about that until people mentioned it)
 
SR-009 was king of the hill, as usual.
 
Something was afoot with the AC power there, instantly blew the fuse in my KGSS... (which implies that the AC voltage was very low?)  Luckily I have the SRM-1 MK2 Pro. as backup.
 
Maybe at the Fremont meet I can get there earlier and set up proper blind testing.

 

[stjj89]

Thanks so much Massdrop, @DecentLevi, and @dusk for putting this together! I had a lot of fun today, made some new friends, listened to some great setups, and learned quite a few things.
 
I don't see any pictures yet, so I'll get the ball rolling with some ****ty pictures taken from my phone:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gzone3lement]

Thank you jazzfan for giving me a ride to Massdrop! All of the folks are friendly I learned a lot about Massdrop's goal in making their products successful. Thanks everyone who checked out the gear. It makes me happy just talking about headphones and why each gear sounds differently.

 

[DecentLevi]

OK now that the word has been leaked I will make the announcement:
 
Myself and user Fidelity King are planning to hold another local meet-up in Fremont (between San Jose / Hayward). This will give us a chance to do what we may have missed today, plus free parking. We're planning to hold it sometime in February, so it's not too close to the official CanJam in So Cal. We will make future announcements on this impression thread, but I would also invite all of the greater Bay Area Head-Fi'ers to join this thread to keep in the loop with these various local meets

 

[stjj89]

Brief (and not very detailed) impressions of some setups I listened to at the meet:
 
Yggy > KGSSHV > Stax SR-009 (@AtomikPi). This setup was surprisingly warm for me, given what I've read and briefly heard of the SR-009 before. Basslines and drums were very present and quite visceral for most tracks that I played. This was a very rich, organic sound for me. I tested the bass with EDM/hip hop tracks with hard-hitting mid bass, but this setup did not deliver the bass slam that I would like on this type of music. I also felt that the warmth of this setup made it really hard for me to pick out nuance in the treble region, which surprised me, since that was supposed to be the standout for electrostatic setups.
 
Auralic Vega (@dusk) > Bottlehead Crack w/ mods (@dusk) >HD800 w/ Anax mod (@jazzfan). I only got to listen to this briefly, but it sounded good. The HD800 sounded musical, unoffensive, and very open on this setup. On the jazz and rock music I was playing, this was a very natural sounding, enjoyable listen. Probably my favorite HD800 setup of the day.
 
DAC-19 (mine) vs. Vega DAC-off (@dusk), compared using a Cavalli Liquid Carbon and modded Fostex TH900. I think @dusk and I ended up agreeing that these two DACs were in the same league in terms of detail retrieval, but just had different sound signatures. The DAC-19 has a very noticeable warmth to it, with slight bass emphasis, and this syrupy "cloud" that kind of fills in all this space in the mids without giving up detail or soundstage width. It's like there's some kind of unintrusive bloom of sorts that kinda hangs around and makes everything sound pleasant and full. If this doesn't make sense, don't worry--I'm probably doing a bad job of explaining what I was hearing. There is probably more nuance in the differences between these two DACs, but I could not pick them out in the meet setting. The warmth and smoothness of the DAC-19 is definitely very noticeable.
 
Gumby > Eddie Current Black Widow > Modded HD800 (@Bill-P). The modded HD800 was quite warm and musical, but still had that wide soundstage that the HD800 is known for. Through the Yggy and Black Widow, I still felt like there was a little too much treble edge sometimes, but this was still very pleasant sounding, especially on jazz. I still like the Anax-modded HD800 on the Bottlehead Crack setup a little more. I got to try the Black Widow amp with my modded TH900, and it was a good pairing--the combination was dynamic, punchy, and warm. I definitely see what people are saying when they say that the Black Widow sounds like a tube amp.
 
Bifrost Uber > Stax SRM-1/MK2 Pro > ESP-950 / SR-009 (@manywelps). This electrostatic setup left an impression on me. On electric guitar pieces like Cliffs of Dover, the treble on both the ESP-950 and SR-009 was fast, natural, and effortless. I'm listening to my HE-560 as I'm writing this, and gosh, I am sure missing that treble. The SR-009 took everything the ESP-950 did a notch higher, with greater soundstage, more treble and bass extension, and just better bass overall. I was honestly surprised at how good both these electrostatic headphones sounded on a modest amp/DAC setup; I had always thought that electrostatic headphones needed insanely expensive (and huge) amps to sound good. I am now officially considering getting into the electrostat game.
 
Thanks again for everyone who let me try out their gear, and for the great conversations. Oh and Massdrop for that pizza. The pizza was good. I'm looking forward to doing this again some time!

 

[AtomikPi]

First of all, it was nice to meet you all, Head-Fi and Massdrop folks alike. It seems my KGSSHV developed a channel imbalance (we isolated it to the HV by testing other phones and swapping the DAC’s channels), but it’s hopefully just a dislodged wire somewhere in the case. It seems clear that it was fine or close to it first thing in the morning and pretty much mono by the time I tore down my setup around 4 PM. If you listened through JRiver, you heard a bit of EQ; if through Spotify, then you heard the signal straight through, and I think most listened through Spotify.
 
I’ll just give a few shout outs to some good gear.
 
I really enjoyed Larry/ @Jazzfan’s modded HE-6’s. Tons of detail on these, though paired with a slightly hot treble. Texture and extension in the sub bass are top notch. Sound stage is wide open and expansive – some credit here is probably owed to the grill and pad mods. A favorite test track of mine is James Blake’s version of Limit to Your Love. Toward the end, he brings in a pitched bass synth, and there are many ways to screw it up – overtly distort, fail to track the pitch properly, reproduce the bass but mess up the vocals and treble in the process… the HE-6 do none of these. You hear Blake’s voice, the electronic percussion, and you can track the bass riff’s pitch easily.
 
Other than that, @Bill-P ’s modded 800’s sounded pretty great, although they didn’t have much “synergy” with the Luxman P1 I heard them from.  They’re definitely an improvement over stock, but I didn’t necessarily prefer them to the 800’s EQ’ed, and I’ll probably just keep EQ’ing my pair of 800s. With modding, you can fix problems, but you can also end up causing unintended changes. For those of you who don’t like EQ, try some mods. With the HD800S announced, the HD800 is a great value proposition. Actually, both the HE-6 and HD-800 (with mods) are some of the best values in high-end headphone audio.
 
I had a bunch of fun with @ichiboy ’s AD2000’s. I used to own a pair, and even though they aren’t that impressive in terms of technicalities (rolled off on both ends, not incredibly detailed), they have this lush, liquid, romantic midrange coloration. Ichiboy’s library is thankfully free of Krallcore, and weirdly-produced, low-fi, and otherwise not-audiophile recordings sounded great on the 2000’s. I generally prefer neutral headphones, and yet I’m a little tempted to try to snag a pair to complement my 650’s for worse recordings.
 
I’d actually never listened to a pair of PortaPros, so I did this time. And they’re pretty great too. They get tonality right, for the most part, though they’re a bit rolled off on both ends and have a warm midbass emphasis. Regardless, I’d take them over plenty of headphones that cost an order of magnitude more.
 
I’m regretting not having a chance to check out the ECBW or ECZD. Oh well.
 
Cheers, and see you all next time. 

 

[3X0]

Nice meeting you all. I was the guy in the Sennheiser hat.

Lots of good stuff. Bill-P's HD 800 and jazzfan's HE-6 stood out for me.

 

[Fidelity King]

I'd like to say that it was very nice to be able to attend another meet this year, this being my third one. I met Levi and some other nice members at the show who I'd like to have at the next show that will take place in the Bay Area. For me personally, the Soundmagic hp100, Hifiman he500, Master&Dynamic mh40, Sr-009, and Audio technica ad2000, stood out the most. The hp100 was a very pleasant listen and is the type of signature that I could listen to for hours without the lack of detail. the he500 was another very pleasant headphone in its sound which was very liquid like and warm, just too heavy for long listening sessions. Wow!, the mh40 was a very enjoyable headphones. Suits rap/hip hop very nicely, yet still has a good amount of detail without being overly bright. the sr-009 was as usual perfect in that it works with every genre, is very neutral and isn't strident. I would have liked to hear a little more warmth to the 009 setup however. Once music stated playing through the ad2000s, I knew this headphone was a beast. With the right tracks it sounds like the music is coming at you at 1000mph. This was for some tracks and genres, but when I started playing rap through these, they just sounded awful.