Impressions:
Great food
Very glad to have finally got to hear the JH13
So it is good? no question; is it OTT good , no. It scales well with amplification and source and is pretty stellar out of a DAP. It will not replace full size headphones imo. The universals are a little cumbersome, i would believe the customs would take care of that and improve sq a little further. My surprise was how close the JH10 sounds to the 13 while the 11 was totally off for me - tuned to the dark side.
I loved the WA6SE with the sophia princess 5U4G , just a very cool amp and shows Jack's attention to detail and passion for what he does. It was a perfect match for the ampless D7000 which I initially didn't take to amped from the little TTVJ Millett.
Being a meet in my backyard, there was no shortage of Orthos and thanks to luvdunhill, we had the almighty T50v1 grace our meet. To quote Brian "it's just not right" referring to the fact that it shouldn't be allowed to sound so damn good.
I will openly admit o being biased towards the orthos and not even the JH13 was enough to draw my allegiance. One of the more interesting sub themes was the O2 vs ESP950 fracas. They both have strong points but for the price point, the ESP950 is a serious bargain in the ES world.
Opinions were drawn over the DAC shootout with my preference going to the assemblage DAC2 over the ultraclocked, silver wound RAM citydac.
I thought that it would be the perfect place to unveil the new uber stacker ii but the power must have been all over the place as it kept tripping - it has been rock solid for the past 2 weeks and Alex agreed to allow me to show it off , I would have liked to please all the folk who wanted to get to hear it but the stars did not align.
Pics:
What else?
The Maximo IM590 - I know Andrew sponsored the gig and one would expect some payback or loyalty but for those of you who know me, if i don't like something I usually don't have much to say. I compared this iem to some of the lower end iems turbos, .... i forget their names but there was only one other that was tuned to anything near to what I prefer. Andrew has spent a fair number of years in the recording industry and has a good ear, this I respect after spending some time with his iems. They are not the be all and end all but for their meagre cost of $60 - serious contenders for people like me who tend to leave things on public transport.
I did get to hear the HF2 - they're grado's , who woulda thunk.
I know I am forgetting to mention a ton of folk and tidbits but I went to hang out with the people and had fun listening to some of the gear.
strangelove - sorry i ran out of time and had to dash off before hearing your electrets and enjyoing that monstrous CRT
..dB