I had a great time listening to quite a few amp at the meet, but not as many as I had wanted to and the ones that I did listen to I felt it wasn’t long enough and ambient background noise made critical listening difficult to say the least. Further, I am convinced that my impression of a particular amp could be skewed positively or negatively by the particular source and cables used in the set-up.
In the end, I left with the conclusion that most, if not all of the amps at this meet sounded good to very good, yet to identify the incredible ones or particular differences that I would prefer over say another amp, I would need to spend some quality listening time in an quiet place since most of the difference between a $350 or $1200 amp aren’t usually immediately and reliably identifiable under normal meet listening condition.
An example of the cables making a difference happened when Digipete and I were listening to his Dynamite amp, which he built himself, connected by (cattylink) gold interconnects to his Esound E5. While listening to one of my reference tracks, I couldn’t hear a particular ticking in the background, but when we changed the cables to Grover’s UR6s this improved the clarity, detail, and separation so that we could at least make out the ticking. The gold cables were chocking or constraining the source feeding the amp and it wasn’t the amp at all, but the cables that were the actual causing this lack of detail.
An example of the source making a difference happened, while I was listening to the Hornet, connect with RnB180’s Black Diamond to my Rio Karma, which had the audio format of ogg vorbis at 256, I found tracks with on average five or more instruments or something similar to the “wall of sound” sounded muddled. Yet when I hooked the Hornet up to a better source such as my E5 and played the same track off the original CD the sound quality improved drastically and again the clarity, detail, separation, and sound stage improved. Here, I found that the issue wasn’t the Hornet in particular, but the quality of the audio format and the source.
With this in mind, I being my brief opinion piece on the particular amps that I found to provide an immediate and most enjoyable listening experience.
Eddie Current
EC-01
Pioneer DVD
Cables (not sure)
Moth Audio DAC
HD650 (stock cable)
This amp is built like a little Russian tank. The interior design is laid out flawlessly and what appeared to my eyes intelligently with a clean point-to-point wiring job. In fact, it appears to conserve the footprint of this little beast by utilizing a two level design. I also like the wrinkled black metal exterior, it isn’t fancy, but looks tough and built to last. When I first listened to this amp, I was immediately amazed by the sound quality and musicality in this little package. Overall, I found it hard to believe the minor difference I perceived I heard between my EC2A3 and this new offering from Eddie Current. Although I didn’t A/B my amp and the EC-01 I walked away very impressed by it and its reasonable price. I regretted not having the time to hook it up to my source and cables at the meet.
Headamp
GS-X
Meridian G08
Cardas Golden Reference Interconnects
HD650 replacement balance cable from Moon Audio
I really really liked this balanced solid state amplifier coupled with the moon audio cable and my HD650s, G08, and Cardas cables. I’ve never listened to a balanced amp or even a solid state amp before the meet but compared to the GS-1 it provided more of a good thing such as a fuller and deeper sound and an ever expansive sound stage. In no way did this compromise any of the detail, separation, or transparency. The mids were beautiful and articulate. The bass was responsive yet exercised a controlled impact. And the background was dead quiet. The treble sounded fine to my ears as well. Yet with this set-up I didn’t use my reference source and cables, but it probably was one of the nicer or nicest solid states I heard at the meet. This is one of the amps that I definitely preferred and would have liked to spend some more serious listening time with it. On a final note, I must commend Justin on the precision and beauty of his build quality; the inside of this amp looked absolutely awesome, extremely detailed, and cleanly laid out.
Gilmore lite
Esound E5
DiMarizo M-Path
HD650 (stock cable)
I had been listening back and forth between my EC2A3 and the Gilmore lite amp first using Ray’s A/B switch box and then I used Edwood’s A/B switch box. I did hear minor differences in the low and high end. I also even heard minor differences in the mids, detail, separation, and soundstage. I suppose the meet background noise influenced some of what I call my immediate inability to form any firm listening impressions, yet it really made me double think things. Most of the time I felt as if I was splitting hairs between the Gilmore Lite and my EC2A3 and it should be noted that these amps aren’t even in the same price range, yet the Lite compared very favorably under meet listening conditions.
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In general, I didn’t find it so easy to listen and detect or at least try identifying or comparing the difference between amps with attendees talking and moving about in the background. And what if anything that I did notice, it seemed only minor or trivial. I suppose everything at the meet to some degree or another sounded good. And as I’ve indicated meet conditions coupled with the lack of time I had to carefully listen and compare made it difficult since even under ideal conditions it takes time to properly evaluate an amp or even the difference between two amps before anyone should actually reach any valid conclusions.
Still have a few more amps to go…
RS Audio and Eddie Current….
