here are a few of my impressions for what they are worth.
1st of all, a lot of you south floridians are sickos & your photoshop abilities are very good. There are exceptions, but i am not sure you even know who you are.
i did not like the zana deux out of the rega apollo cdp & it sounded harsh & digital. an outboard dac will correct the problem. i have had this problem with my rega apollo. the apollo is a great cdp if the amp is not revealing. we moved the zana deux to jp#’s ayre source & the zana deux warmed right up & proved to be an excellent amp for the hd-650 as well as the qualia with what ever tube set was in the amp. i love the ayre.
next up was my buddy from skokie & his balanced b52 (the bomber). i have to admit that the tube set was a real surprise with the qualia. one of the top qualia amps i have heard to date.
agile_one always surprises me. he hardly ever brings the same gear to two meets. this time he had a very cool looking ancient thorens tcd 2000 cdp hooked up to his earmax anniversary & it was a beautiful combo & sounded great with the ath-L3000’s. he also had a balanced headroom blockhead running from a laptop to some kind of dac i have never seen before & that was bad a**. also, he had an ath amp & assorted ath cans. i still liked the thorens tcd 2000 & earmax anniversary amp with the ath cans over the ath amp.
tyll from headroom had a balanced desktop side-by-side with an unbalanced desktop. balanced made a difference & for those who can not afford a balanced blockhead may want to consider the balanced desktop. but the killer for me was the new diamond buffered micro amp with the newest version desktop modules. real diamonds? i have always thought that the micro amp was the best portable amp in production. i use mine exclusively with my UE10-Pro micro amp & ipod. it never leaves my flight bag. but, comparing the new micro amp with the old micro amp provided a new world of low level volume detail & resolution that could only be achieved by turning up the volume on the older model. hopefully, i can now extend my deteriorating hearing.
since mikeG was being neurotic about warm-up time on the exemplar modded denon 2900 i went to the other end of the room.
i listened to boomana’s rig which consisted of a $300 darkvoice chinese tube amp with stock tubes connected to an ipod which i reconnected to her eastern mini max cdp with also with stock tubes using rca splitters. it sounded ok. also, a heed ss amp was also sounded pretty good running off the splitters. i am familiar with akg k-340’s so i was able to get a good handle on the sound. then along comes mikhail & mikeg & changed the tube set in the darkvoice. the tubes made a world of difference but probably tripled the value of the amp.
mikhail brought a new version of the ppx called the extreme. it needed a really good source so i tried it with jp#’s ayre & mikeg’s exemplar denon. i am very sorry i listened to this amp out of either source.
i must admit that i have a thing for jp#’s ayre with balanced outputs & mikeg’s exemplar denon. these were my favorite sources at the meet. agile_one left his accuphase at home this time. bad boy agile-one!! on another bad note, tyll left his wadia 861se at home which i would have loved to have listened to.
i also had a chance to listen to iGrados. agile_one had a stock pair & voltron had a recabled pair. very nice $50 cans. the recable made for a nice improvement. i have to get a pair.
as always, too much too listen to & so little time to listen.
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