[flecom]

did anyone find a 2gb sandisk cf card? im missing one

 

[tyrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjcha So who's organizing the Head-fi Beer Group Buy!?!? I'm down for a few cases. Best, -Jason

Put your orders in now for our special brew for the National Meet. I still have to negotiate the license with Jude to use the Head-Fi name and Aaron for the beer concession at the Meet. I think Aaron will be easy, I slipt him the contract after drinking a couple of bottles.

Frank, I didn't find a flash card. I am sure it will turn up.

Here are some pics from my Razr, so they are not very good:

Blind Boys of Alabama

agile_one > NightWoundsTime > jp11801

wmcmanus, caught slipping a cd into his sock

NightWoundsTime and jp11801 at agile_one's table

Some of Ray's gear

Xinya (I hope the spelling is correct). I think her name is the name of a flower or should be one. Sorry Gary, I couldn't resist.

agile_one banging his head into the wall because the room next door was making too much noise

Ray telling MikeG that he usually wears black socks with his sandals

stevieo, wmcmanus and Holly (MikeG's wife)

Orpheus and Justins amp (can't figure out who is in pic)

stevieo, flecom and Justin. steve was telling Frank that he wishes he could be more like me.

Dave, new guy. He and his wife seemed to have a great time. Welcome!

Aaron complaining that it's his turn with the Orpheus

 

[NightWoundsTime]

I think JP11801 (John) was the main camera guy there but I was so busy there might have been more. Of course his birthday was yesterday and when he got home to south florida he was going out with friends, so he might be out of commision for a while.

Last night all of us who were in town went to Ybor. What a night. Guss2's girlfriend turned 21 at the crack of midnight so we couldn't go home till she'd had her first legal drink. Of course Gary was drinking all the way up till midnight so he was a very happy man.

The meet, oh it was so long ago now. Who cares about gear, maybe someone else did more listening and can give you all the audiophile BS you're waiting for.

 

[tyrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NightWoundsTime I think JP11801 (John) was the main camera guy there but I was so busy there might have been more. Of course his birthday was yesterday and when he got home to south florida he was going out with friends, so he might be out of commision for a while.

He took a lot of pics, as did Ray. Hopefully, my explanation to jp11801 last night on how to post pics will be remembered this morning after his night out for his birthday.

 

[RaYSaMueLsSoN]

Hey everyone my dad took alot of pics from the meet so im gonna be posting them up... here are the first 20 there's about another 30.

There they are...

 

[immtbiker]

It was a fantastic meet. As usual with head-Fi meets, I had a blast. The after party was just as much fun.
Our night trip to Ybor city was a scene out of the Twilight Zone. I come from a city that never sleeps, but this 8 block strip was worth a trip on anyone's schedule.
Gotta catch my shuttle back to the airport now, so I'll write impressions later.

Thanks Matt (NightwoundsTime) for a meet that was run smoothly and professionally.

One last note...I shared aroom with 2 different people this week that stuffed up the toilet. You guys are messing up my schedule, and I've seen things about both of you, that I never need to see again.

 

[tyrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by immtbiker One last note...I shared aroom with 2 different people this week that stuffed up the toilet. You guys are messing up my schedule, and I've seen things about both of you, that I never need to see again.

And thanks for sharing this with us now and at the meet.

 

[NightWoundsTime]

Ok Wayne challenged us to get to the second page only talking about the food and the beer and now it's basically been done. Time for some gear impressions!

I really talked a LOT at this meet and I was just as responsible as everyone else for making the quiet room not so quiet. That didn't keep me from shushing the crowd when it came time for my 15 minutes with the Orpheus.

So yeah, top gear was of course the Orpheus, although I didn't connect with it as strongly this time as at the last Florida meet. That time though it was Wayne's well broken-in pair and Gene's Stax 007t. This time it was Guss2's brand spanking new pair and the new amp from Justin. The combo sounded GREAT but lacked the musicality and emotion that I felt the last time. Just my two cents, and I was probably a bit distracted.

MikeG's Exemplar Denon 2900, Singlepower SDS and R-10 were beautiful as always. My parents brought lunch and my Mom listened a LOT to this setup. She also enjoyed my Denon DP-59L turntable with my MPX3 into the R-10. She definitely did more listening than I got to yesterday.

R-10's really grabbed me at this meet, having Immtbiker's extra pair floating around gave me the opportunity to listen to a lot of vinyl on my own setup with them. Such a beautiful headphone. Thanks Tyrion for putting your Kind of Blue on my table, I enjoyed that a LOT and really need to find my own copy soon.

I heard the Qualias on several different amps and I'll say that with the Cardas cable upgrade they are much more pleasing than I'd heard before. Still not perfect but enjoyable.

The Eastsounds were great as always, and the Cyrus CD8 was absolutely beautiful. Still didn't get down to a hardcore source match like I've wanted to but my Cyrus CD6 still keeps me happy when I'm not in the mood for vinyl.

The AKG electrostat/dynamic hybrid (can't remember the number) was clumsy, uncomfortable, and sounded GREAT from a Dynahi.

New AKG 701 sounds great but really needs a cable upgrade. PsychoZX's Headphile modded HF-1 absolutely killed the stock HF-1, with its' cable upgrade and wood cups.

Wrapping up the gear was the ever solid Ray Samuels lineup, Justin's Headamp collection, and Agile_one's Cary 303/200, Proceed DAC, Grace m902, and the L3000.

 

[dburna]

Matt (who was a terrific host BTW -- thanks for all of your hard work to put this meet together) had asked me to "post more often on Head-Fi". After his kindness and generosity, who am I to decline such a simple request?

I'm not new to evaluating stereo equipment, but I'm a complete newbie to all things headphone, so I thought I'd take a different approach and post my impressions as a "fresh set of eyes/ears," which may prove useful for anyone just getting into this hobby. To whit:

• Camaraderie: This was my first meet and indeed first foray into Head-Fi. I wanted to see and hear as much of what was out there as possible. Everyone was extremely friendly and helpful to me and my wife, helping us to get set up and seeing to it that we could do swaps and comparisons between gear. We felt very welcome there.
• Differences between headphones & other stereo gear: It's admittedly a first impression, but I found the differences between headphone offerings (both phones and amps) to be more subtle than those between stereo gear. Stereos have to deal with room interactions, major variations in implementation topology/technology that larger footprint equipment can accomodate, a wide variety of different uses, serious fluctuations in speaker efficiency, etc. Take that away from the headphone equation, and almost every rig sounded pretty good to my ears with subtle shadings in presentation emphasis. Whereas in the stereo world, I've heard some pretty execrable hi-fi sounding rigs, especially some of the pricier ones. Not such situation here. Most rigs had a fine, natural sounding presentation. I could be happy with most any of what was demoed in Tampa.
• Audio Nervosa: For anyone that is hesitant to take the plunge into the world of headphones, I can say this about amps: you can pick virtually anything from Ray Samuels (a gracious demonstrator of his gear and genuinely helpful with his insight), SinglePower, and Headamp (Justin is far too young to make gear this good!
  
  ) and know that you have chosen well. They are differences and trade-offs to be made, but these are all high-quality pieces from the top-notch designers. Plunge ahead without fear...... Now as for headphones, there are a number of different presentations, and I had some very strong reactions to some that I will keep to myself. I wll say, however, that you really shouldn't take anyone's recommendation blindly when it comes to headphones. Headphones are like ties, no one will be able to do a decent job of picking one out for you. You just have to try them on and see. On the amp side, I think that it would be easier for someone to recommend an appropriate match for you as long as you were very precise in describing what you wanted.
• Miniaturization: I was really struck at how compact how small the footprint was on some of the offerings. The Headroom Micro Stack easily fit in my palm. Ray's Hornet was less than the size of a credit card (though slightly thicker, of course) and sounded delightful. My wife and I couldn't get over the sound of coming out of this little bugger. What's next, Ray -- cochlear implants???
  
  The only thing that started to look big/imposing to my mind was the SinglePower Supra. Then again, it sounded terrific so it would be worth it clearly.
  
• WAF Factor: To be sure, much of this gear has some serious WAF factor associated with it. My wife was very pleased with the look-n-feel of some of this gear as well as its ability to "disappear into a drawer" when company comes. I took that as an opening to plan for my next purchase.
  
• Orpheus headphones: Sweet Mother-of-Pearl, these are an amazing set of cans!! Gary was kind enough to bring these along. Together with Justin's proto electrostat headphone amp, this made some seriously fine music. SERIOUSLY fine. Gary cued up some Smashing Pumpkins for me and I kept turning the sound up to find out when I'd get some distortion out of these. Never happened. I turned around to find everyone looking at me -- hey, how was I to know that these were OPEN cans???
  
  Everyone got to share my love of music with my (though inadvertantly) for a couple moments. P.S. Sorry bout that, guys!!
  
  Anyway, this is a very winning combo. Frankly, however, I'm glad I can't afford these. To misquote an old George Carlin joke, if I had these I'd never leave the house. Gary, I'm sure you'll be very happy with this purchase and that these headphones will provide many years of wonderful listening.
• Chinese Manufacturing: I would say it's out in force. I've heard a number of stereo pieces from Chinese manufacturers that were nice....for their price. PsychoZX's Feel amplifier is another matter. That's a serious piece of machinery and for $600 delivered competes extremely well with amps that are far more expensive. I know they are already, but other manufacturers really need to pay attention to the price-performance ratio delivered by equipment like this.
• Beer: Just to add my $0.02, the Head-Fi IPA was a terrific brew with a very hoppy character. One can only hope that this becomes a regular tradition as it raises the bar for all future meet events.
• Special thanks to: Matt: for his organization, plus the wonderful DVD full of tunes; Mike: for showing me all around the equipment and helping me ot get oriented; Aaron: for bringing the Micro Stack so I could give it a whirl; Gene: for his warmth and conversation....plus his ability to distract my wife so I could get a few extra minutes of listening in.
  
  Sorry if I forgot anyone else.

I had a great time. Anyone who has an opportunity to go to one of these shows....just go, you'll learn a lot and have fun doing it.

Kathleen and I left the festivities at a reasonable hour and made it back home for a great show by the Rebirth Brass Band on Saturday night.

Salut from gray and muggy Orlando,

-dB

 

[tyrion]

My pick of the show (I am not including the Orpheus as I have no chance of owning one) was PsychoZX's modded HF-1 and his RnB Senn replacement cable. I didn't go to this meet with the idea of either modding my HF-1's (I have been very happy with them in stock form) or replacing my Zu cable. However, that is exactly what I am considering. I've already order the cable from myo and I am deciding exactly what to do in terms Headphile mods to my HF-1.

With the mods, the HF-1 became a fun and musical RS-1. Actually, it doesn't sound like an RS-1 and really shouldn't be compared to one because it's not. In my opinion, for me, it's better. The RS-1 (2 different pairs) were dull and bass anemic in comparison. There were some who like the RS-1 that feel it is more refined. If more refined means dull and dry, then they would be correct. I didn't find any lack of detail or dynamics with the Woodied HF-1. The large wood chamber (roughly the same size as the RS-1 chamber) seems to spread out the soundstage. I have no doubt that the cable upgrade (I never asked which Headphile cable was used) was responsible for some of this increased soundstage as well as the increase in bass response.

I have to say that while many of the mods done by Headphile were beautiful, I was never in favor of having these mods done to any headphone I have. Frankly, this was the first Headphile modded headphone I've heard and I was pleasantly surprised.

Moving to the Senn cable. I am pretty sure I have already said that this was the most dramatic change, brought on by a cable change than I ever heard. The only other time I a clearly noticeable difference from a cable change was replacing a cheap power cord for a high quality aftermarket power cord in my XR-2. Rnb's cable was far more dramatic. Interestingly, the changes brought on by the cable swap were in some ways similar to the mods to the HF-1 (is the cable responsible in both instances?). My 650's, which I have enjoyed with the Zu cable became just plain better. The bass was deeper and more focused. The overall presentation was balanced. I found the there to be no loss in detail despite the increase in musical warmth. Again, this is all imo. I think myo has something special here.

Is either the mods to the HF-1 or RnB's cable for everyone, I don't know. I feel it is definitely for me. The rest of you will have to judge for yourselves.

My impressions of the Woodied HF-1's was primarily with my Raptor/Cyrus CD-8/Rega P5 and Hornet/ipod. My impressions of the RnB cable were for the most part in combination with Justin's GS-1 and my CD-E5 (Justin needed a source for his amps and I had an extra). I had never heard the GS-1 prior to this and initially used it due to the dual headphone jacks. I enjoyed the GS-1. It is a very capable ss amp. I wish I had a chance to try out it's preamp capability.

Another treat for me was my upgraded Raptor. More on that later.

 

[reeseboisse]

Pissed I missed it. My schedule's been so f*ucked lately that I didn't know it was the 19th until it was too late.

sounded like a good time.

 

[tyrion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeseboisse Pissed I missed it. My schedule's been so f*ucked lately that I didn't know it was the 19th until it was too late. sounded like a good time.

Don't sweat it, I hope to host one in May or June. If your're near SoFla, there may be a mini meet sooner that you could attend.

 

[gpalmer]

What tubes were in Justin's new amp? I didn't get to hear it with the stock tubes just the Telefunkens, but I understand that replacing them improved the performance substantially.

 

[RaYSaMueLsSoN]

alright everyone here are some more of the pictures...

i will post the rest up of the pics a little later.

 

[tyrion]

The pics reminded me of a couple of other items. I tried the Qualia again and for the first time enjoyed them. I preferred them with the Cardas cable. As is typical of meets, I didn't get to spend enough time for any specific impressions. Hopefully, I will get a chance in the future to give them the time needed to determine if it is something I might consider in the future.

The L3000 was another can I had not liked in the past which this time around, with the Raptor I began to appreciate. It came across, during my limited time spent, as a well balanced headphone. I don't think I could have a closed headphone as my main can due to comfort issues related to heat. They are certainly comfortable in terms of feel and fit.