Excellent!
That's my impression. For details, read on.
Firstly, I would like to apologize. I got stuck with a crazy work schedule 2 days before the meet, and am very lucky that I could even make it at all. I worked from 6am-6pm, went home to eat and burn off a cd to bring, rode my bike HARD to the university, and finally walked in around 8:30. Then, to my horror, I started smelling my own B.O!
Geez. I really hope it was most obvious to me, particularly for the sake of my asian buddies at the table where I spent most of my time. Sorry all, but I was really desperate to be able to get to this meet. I still had to go back to work from midnight to 6am, too!
(I was the guy in the red shirt, Chris, if you don't recognize me by scent, yet
)
Anyhow, having arrived late, I soon got to chatting with JaGWiRE, whose friendly enthusiasm was very welcome upon walking into a room full of strangers. (Thanks, Brian)
Soon afterward, I ended up at the end table, where the gentleman in 'Husker Duds' was, whose name I am very regretful to have forgotten now. He was very open and knowlegable, and promptly fixed me up with:
a sony portable (?)cdp->AE-1-> what was to be my introduction to grado's: the 325's. My thoughts 1 minute later:
'Self, how can you be smiling like this, when you have just had your butt kicked so badly?'
'Well, self, because you, too, could own this same system, if you coughed up the $ for it!'
'Self, sometimes you think music to my mind!'
(I currently listen to X-Fi basic->stock HD600's)
The bass from the grado's was punching me in a very satisfying way. This was the way that I was hoping to hear sounds after buying a DAC and upgraded cable for my 600's. This was, understandably, most notable on
the 2 tracks of my cd that were intended for bass response analysis. 'Queen-Another One Bites the Dust' has pounding bass throughout, as well as a screeching kind of sound at the end of verses, which should reveal any discomfort in the higher frequencies, which I detected none of. Metallica sounded, I believe, the way that Metallica would tell you that they had intended, if asked. My negative thoughts of these grado's: They are compressing the cartilage of my ears. This would be fine for a while, say, the
duration of a movie, however I often have long listening sessions, even 10+ hours at a stretch, in a room that gets too hot too easily: 2 computers, 1 of them with a hot video card running games on a 21"CRT monitor. I was told, however that there is a C-pad upgrade available for them that could address this issue. Asking how much $ for that, he seemed disappointed to say that they were expensive, $100 or so. He must not have owned Sennheisers, as I'm looking at $300+ cdn for a cable for my 600's!
Wondering how my 600's would sound through this system, I nonetheless wanted to hear more headphones that I had not heard before (easy, I'm a total noob). I grabbed a pair of k701's.
After adjusting volume to my preferred level, I thought thought that I was hearing sound much more like what I was used to. Too bad, but at least I wouldn't be getting creamed by everything there! They still sounded good, but I could not keep my interest in evaluating their performance, as I was still too shocked from the previous set.
I just had to find out how my cans sounded in this setup, so when they became idle on the table, I promptly swapped them in. Ahh, good, they too sound much better than I am used to. I think that details on exactly what I mean by this would be appropriate and interesting for people reading this, but I am thinking I should decline at this point. It's possible that people reading could be interested in spending $ on the equipment I mention, I am afraid impressions I give may be too inaccurate and faded from what I heard last night. To put it more simply, I forget. Basically, things were cleaner, fuller, and more detailed through the 600's than through my x-fi (no surprise there, I know).
I am wishing that I had tried plugging straight into the cd player, skipping the AE-1 amp. I mentioned to a few people that I did not need an amp to hear my 600's loud enough on my computer, and they all seemed surprised by this. It's true on my x-fi, and was the same with my Audigy 2 before that: above 50% volume setting for music gets too loud for me. This goes is contrary to most of the comments on this issue that I have read on HeadFi, so I had been assuming that reading "will not hear them" un-amped meant "will not hear what they are capable of". Alas, I am still wondering what imrovement an amp will give me.
I next went to try out the Lavry DA10, which is a very strong candidate for my next purchase, but I found that there was just too much excitement of people I had not yet met, for me to be able to concentrate on it. People also began packing up and leaving at this point.
I'm starting to worry that this post may come across as being long-winded considering how little stuff I got to try out, and I apologize if you have read this far and agree! I only have a couple of more things that I really want to post.
First, maybe this is just because I'm a noob, but would anybody be interested in a GEARLESS meet? I am thinking that I would really have liked to get to meet and talk with people there much more than I did. I guess maybe veterans either already do, or maybe just don't see the point, eg:
veteran 1:"so, how 'bout that new piece from so-and-so? sounds pretty good, huh?"
veteran 2:"yep"
veteran 1:"yep"
But personally, I haven't met very many people who are into 'improved' audio, let alone headphones specifically. I'd like to just hang out and shoot-the-sh** with others who share this esoteric interest.
Finally, thanks to everyone who showed up. Specifically, I want to thank bashot for organizing (and showing me that I could build my own amp, cheaply). Philodox, thanks for being very friendly and informative to everyone there, not to mention for bringing gear that I personally had been considering forking out mucho $ on. The previously mentioned sir in Husker Du, you were gracious and informative. If you could please inform me of your identity, I could stop worrying that the credit I would like to give you is not being accurately recieved. (I'm also wishing I'd had time to browse any music you brought) And finally, The_Duke_Of_Eli, while it is very likely that we met, I can't say for sure. Thanks for keeping this meet moving with your posting on headfi.
