Vancouver / Burnaby Meet Impressions!!
May 11, 2004 at 10:15 PM Post #17 of 44
we did have zoobomofos mpx3 amp hooked up to the meridian via the toslink optical - mensa plus art dio - mofo's upsampler - singlepower mpx3 -- sounded pretty slick, nice and smooth with the senns, they were a senn amp, the grados didnt fair so well, the midrange was ok but the bass became muddy, it was then that we hooked it to the jupiter dac setup using plain analog to see if it changed things with the grados but we got the same results, i dont think it would be too hard for mikhail to incorperate some kind of hi-low imped. switch or extra jack for low impedence cans, all in all a very good amp with high impedence cans, very slick looking too.

Another mad prop for the xcan v3, we hooked it up to AOS's modded sacd player, quite smooth and detailed with very good control, a good commercial alternative to a stock ppa, trevor was telling me that the first two previous xcans were produced in britain but MF has since started manufacturing the v3 in china. Trevor's heard the first xcans and said they sounded really subpar compared to the v3, a significant step up in quality.

MG-OTL 32, very smooth amp good with all phones, looks nice, steeleblayde was telling me that ASL is from hong kong or the at least the main guy is.

Rega Jupiter, transport and dac, nice setup, very dynamic and musical i think more so than the meridian 507, i think demolition has maybe an old version of the jupiter? doesnt seem like the one shown here : http://www.rega.co.uk/html/jupiter.htm

By the way that magnovox pdcp that xcanv3 was hooked up to is none other the same type cdp az6832 that duncan reviewed in his thread CDP through the Ages or something like that, did i mention it has killer line out.

oh yeah that was my 580s with the pure silver cord, actually its not pure silver all the way i still used part of the old stock because it was more flexible around the head area, i dont think braided silver could compete with the stock for flexibility with constant head movement, but yes theres an improvement with it nevertheless.

More impressions later.....
 
May 11, 2004 at 11:03 PM Post #18 of 44
Thanks again to Trevor for hosting the meet and letting us into his home for so long. And thanks to everyone who made it to the meet; you guys made it very enjoyable.
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The main reason I came to the meet was to convert you all!!
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I thought I'd found a close to reference system and wanted to see what others thought of it. It seems reactions were favorable.
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Having been to numerous SUPER-MINI meets with the locals around here (many of them without having bothered posting about them here) and one major meet (the Seattle meet at Experience Audio), I've had a chance to listen to much of the gear thats been posted about here. So I was going to the meet with the goal of letting others listen to what I found worked for me, and really just hanging out and chatting with fellow head-fiers.

There were a few surprises however, both good and bad. I'll talk about the "audio-related" ones and leave the "others" where they belong: in the deepest darkest pits of hell.
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1. There were a LOT of sources there. I dont think the Mission DAD was even touched throughout the entire meet. The two biggest source surprises were the REGA Jupiter and my very own MENSA+ ART DI/O:

The Jupiter is one sexy player. People seemed to be drooling over the Meridian that was there, but I thought the Jupiter took the cake. Call me shallow or whatever, but I face the facts: The first thing one notices when one looks at a piece of gear is how cool it looks. The Jupiter looked cool.
And then I plugged it in. And it sounded good. It wasnt really a surprise since I was expecting a good sound, but I was pleased that a high-end player sounded high-end. In the same league as the 507 and I agreed with Trevor's observations: More dynamic than the Meridian, but also a little weaker on the bass compared to the Meridian. I guess its a trade-off. I liked them both and chose no sides.

And then I came to the biggest surprise for me during the meet: Hearing my MENSA+ DI/O actually start showing its true colors. I bought this unit hoping it would live up to the rave reviews and cult followings that its gathered for a while now. And ended up being dissapointed. It sounded muddy, bloated, sloppy, and pretty much downright awful. My PCDP sounded better. I didnt sell it though. I had an inkling of hope that since my unit came with the stock wallwart, it might be the leading offender. People kept telling me so at least. But the sound was so bad, I felt that even better power might have a hard time cleaning this crap up.

But I lugged all my gear across the border anyway (another story of adventure seeing as how Xtreme4099 and I had over $12'000 USD worth of gear with us for "personal use".) And 'lo and behold, Zooboomofo had a stock DI/O with a Stancor PSU. A cheap PSU; people here have said it sounds much better than the stock though, but I wasnt expecting a $20 power supply to work miracles on my DI/O. I gave it a shot anyway. And came away with a huge SMILE on my face!
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Holy crap, this thing actually sounds half-decent! My money hasnt gone to waste!! The bass was still very boomy, but the sound was significantly cleaner. I am not exagerating when I say night and day. I could still tell this was the DI/O but it sounded miles better.

-A better PSU for my poor under-estimted DI/O, added to future shopping list. Worth investigating.
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2. I was also delighted to find that Zooboomofo had brought along his SinglePower MPX3. I'd heard SO much about these amps on the forums and I was eyeing the unit for quite a while before actually stepping up to the plate. It looked especially nice seeing as it had on Mikhail's new enclosure and no longer looked like its old toaster fore-fathers. There are a lot of manufacturers and designers of amps on this forum and this was the last one on my list that I hadnt heard before. I was excited.

And then I was sorely dissapointed.
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I am a Grado guy. The Sennheisers dont do it for me (though the 650 does try). I dont like using strong adjectives when describing audio as it tends to mislead people, but when I connected my MS-Pros to the MPX3, it sounded terrible. The bass was all over the place. So much so that it was quite hard to hear anything else. I thought the the amp was broken or my headphones had somehow popped.

Which lead me down this road of thought: "People on head-fi cant possibly be raving about this sound I am hearing, since its god awful. So it must be that this amp isnt powering these cans properly. Its a tube amp. I bet it hates my low-impedance, current-hungry Grados. I bet its geared towards the Sennheiser/Beyerdynamic users on the forums." And that was that. I tried the amp with my HP-1 and though the problem wasnt as pronounced, I could still hear the bass flopping around. If this amp is any indication of the other amps in the Singlepower line-up, I'd say these amps are catered for the high-impedance headphone users out there. They definitely dont work with my Grados.

And that was all the critical listening I did during the meet. The highlight was always to meet fellow Headphone Looneys.
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And to argue with them as the case may be (stupid Stax mafia...)
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I had a great time hanging out with all of you and I hope some of you can come down when Seattle hosts its next meet.


Edit: Apparently the forums dont like it when I use too many smilies now.
Edit: I read that apparently Mikhail designs his amps to work with any impedance load. This was not the case with the unit I heard. Perhaps it was faulty (though it worked fine with the Senns at the meet.) Or maybe the unit was an older revision even though it had the new enclosure?
 
May 12, 2004 at 2:22 AM Post #19 of 44
The mpx3 - Grado sounds good on some of my cds, as long as you don't need gobs of bass. In the mpx3's defence, these tubes are a bit lean sounding, and I don't think that that suits Grados unless you have a real sweet sounding source.
 
May 12, 2004 at 11:11 AM Post #22 of 44
Quote:

Originally Posted by xtreme4099
Rega Jupiter, transport and dac, nice setup, very dynamic and musical i think more so than the meridian 507, i think demolition has maybe an old version of the jupiter? doesnt seem like the one shown here : http://www.rega.co.uk/html/jupiter.htm


Yes, it's the previous-generation Jupiter with the outboard Io DAC. Mine dates to March, 1999. In 2000, the design changed to a one-box design (the style shown in your link). More info about the old Jupiter/Io can be found in this review.


Quote:

Originally Posted by SteeleBlayde
I dont like using strong adjectives when describing audio as it tends to mislead people, but when I connected my MS-Pros to the MPX3, it sounded terrible.


Trevor and I discussed this the other day. We figure that the MPX3 sounded bad on that day due to several factors, but primarily because the power is a bit dirty in his building and the MPX3 was plugged into an overstressed circuit -- the MPX3, ASL MG-Head OTL32, JVC XL-Z1050, Mission DAD5, Rega Jupiter/Io, the fridge and stove, and a few other things were on the same circuit. A couple of times, I heard some almost imperceptible popping and clicking through the HP-1s connected to the MPX3/Jupiter rig -- I'm betting that it was occurring whenever the fridge started up. So, I suspect that MPX3 was just a bit more sensitive to it than some of the other gear, and would have benefitted from being on the Panamax AC regenerator.

I heard Trevor's HP-2s through the same MPX3/Mission DAD5 rig on a relatively unburdened circuit several times prior to the meet. I thought that this combination sounded superb. The only differences at the meet were that we used HP-1s instead of HP-2s and the electrical circuits in Trevor's apartment were overburdened. So, in my opinion, the MPX3's perceived poor performance at the meet was an aberration brought on by other factors (i.e. primarily, bad power).


Quote:

Originally Posted by sacd lover
What tubes were in the mpx3? Tube choice makes a huge difference.


The stock Electro-Harmonix EH6SN7s. These are the same tubes that were in the MPX3 when I heard it prior to the meet. As mentioned above, it sounded very good at those times.

D.
 
May 12, 2004 at 5:04 PM Post #23 of 44
you guys shoulda mentioned it earlier so we coulda removed some of the gear to make it work correctly, alas next meet, were hoping to hold one here soon in the seattle area, maybe you guys can drop by and plug-in to our cleaner power than thee homes hehe. where are them pics btw....
 
May 12, 2004 at 6:01 PM Post #24 of 44
Power may have an issue to do with its performance, but xtreme was telling me that the amp sounded pretty good with the HD580s. It could be a sensitivity issue too though I guess. I'll have to give it another chance when you guys bring it to our meet.
 
May 12, 2004 at 8:27 PM Post #28 of 44
wow, look at all that stuff!! wish I could have been there, but I had too much schoolwork to do that a road trip up to Canada wouldn't have been the thing to do.

nice pictures of the members and the electronics.
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care to say who is whom?
 
May 12, 2004 at 9:14 PM Post #29 of 44
Thanks for the pics, seems like you guys had a great time!

More impressions on the bigger aos dac (not piccolo)? Was it the prototype with the crystal chip, and usb input, or was it the regular ally with the pcm1793-chip?
 

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