Meet Impressions

Pabbi1 and myself were graciously hosted by luvdunhill, wife and family for an overnight DIYfest in Austin this weekend. Great food, great fun and even a little bit of DIY work thrown in for good measure. My project was the Pass F5 I'm building. I had yet to wire the boards and run the initial fire up, which I wasn't comfortable doing without an experienced DIYer present. Marc was tugged back and forth between Al's project and mine, without complaint one. He didn't even attemp to work on his own extensive list of extremely eye catching projects, choosing instead to devote his time to us. For that and the great hospitality by the entire luvdunhill family (yes the chi…

Well, noboody else seems to be starting the impressions thread so here goes. I just left JP11801 and Iron_Dreamer at the Englander Pub where Peter steadfastly refused to consume alcohol. We have to work on that and maybe provide a travel couch to see what this kid has in him. Great vibe at the meet, and it was not just the coffee jitters. Yergecheffe rulez! The meet was great fun and the stalwart 15 or so who showed up were treated to some of the best available headphone rigs. It was especially cool because nobody was feeling it necessary to strut their gear as everyone with a rig was comfortable in their own choices. It was particularly cool to have an outside…

Had a great time spending the day with Nate, Ian, Ari, Dinny, Tom, et al at the NY Meet. To make it even better I brought home HF-1 #10 to match my #10 HF-2. Freshly turned NH style Wenge deep bowls and leather headband make these even better! Got to spend some time listening to Nate's new amp, Colin's new amp, Ari's new amp and Dinny's Beta 22 and the 12 DACs he brought to the meet. Ari took lots of pictures with his new camera so I assume he will be along soon to show all the toys.

There was quite a bit of uncertainty as HF is down and the attendees had no way to communicate with the organizers. I am sure bhjazz, who organized the meet, was nervousrs about whether people would actually show up. I arrived 30 minutes late, and there were only 4 people, including myself. But soon thereafter, most of the attendees arrived and another great meet was had. Based on my conversations with several people at the meet, I may have been the only Head-Caser in attendance. In other words, this thread may turn out to be a one-man impression thread. I did tell a few people about HC, so we'll see. Sorry, Brian. I couldn't wait until HF came back online to do th…

"He's like the angry 909." -Adrian about Fitz's driving. Welcome to CanLanta, tkam! **BRENT**

HOW WAS IT!?!?! Where are your impressions?

I know it's a bit early for this, but the anticipation is building for what will surely be an awesome 3 days of audio goodness! My gear is all packed up and so are my clothes, because I'm far enough from Denver that it'd be a pain in the ass to make the round-trip drive twice a day for 3 days. And also because I have a proactive role in this year's show, plus there are a bunch of cool people to hang out with this time. Not sure how soon pics will be coming because I recently had to format my laptop (new HD) and couldn't find my Photoshop Elements CD in time to install it. Will look for a freeware alternative in the meantime.... Heading to Denver tonight after work …

link So, who are these people? I know pic #2 is Jude; #8 is Mikhail; #11 is Tyll; #13 is Ray. #6, is that Pete Millet? #12 (the other one, not Tyll)? #16, I haven't a clue -- Steve Nugent? The EFF guy and the Ultimate Ears guy are pretty obvious.

I wasn't there, so not much I can say. Some gear showed up, some drinkin got done. Stevieo probably did something highly inappropriate, at some point. Good times were had by most.

My full impressions (and everybody else's) are over at that other place, but here are my short takeaways, in case anyone's interested. Mr Speakers Ether C is great. Different people rate it differently compared to HD800, Ether (open), etc., etc., but I didn't speak to anyone who wasn't impressed by it. Personally I could have spent all weekend listening on these (at the Schiit table with their multibit DACs and Mjolnir 2)Chord Hugo is a real winner. It's not just another semiportable DAC/amp (there's very different stuff going on inside), and the difference is really audible. There is a tabletop Hugo now too, but I didn't listen to it (there's a higher end one in the …

Been wanting to go to a Head-Fi meet incognito for a long time so I finally did it for "CanFest" in Charlotte, NC. The meet is tomorrow but I'm here and I have some pre-meet impressions to share. Oh and half the reason I came to this meet: Joe Grado! Closed headphones at Sam Ash (across from the hotel) - Ultrasone Proline 650 vs Senn HD280 Pro vs Sony MDR-7506: There was some obnoxious techno music running on this multi-headphone display so my impressions are limited on that alone, but despite that I could still tell that the Ultrasone 650 sucked ass, because it was honestly terrible, there's no other way to put it. There was a huge suck-out of all the frequencies…

I posted these over on HF and wanted to share them with you all as well. We spent 2 days at this insane event, what a great time I am beat but here are the first set of pics and thoughts. Sonist Speakers these were in many of the rooms and they make 2 types of speaker both use a ribbon tweeter and a standard bass speaker. They are fairly efficient which is why many used them but IMHO they are mediocre at best. They image poorly and seem slightly off tonally I really wanted to hear the electra print amps and get a good impression of them but it was impossible as they used the floorstanders of these and it left me feeling flat. Cold War Amp this amp was a beauty and t…

There's a group of Brazilian hobbyists on Facebook that we sometimes actually call the "Brazilian Head-Case" because it's a small and closed group of actual friends who are more experienced in the hobby and some of the traits that we find here (irreverence and occasionally some hostility ) are also found there. It's a place we really treasure. Recently we decided to get together in a meet and this is the result! The pictures are not mine, they're courtesy of Matias. Impossible not to start with Hugo's Orpheus set (although that's not his DAC), always a fantastic joy to listen to. …

There was only three people, two beers, and one system, but I'd say the 5th Annual International Postjack Plus Friend Ohio Mini Meet (codename: Raging With Reks) was a complete success. Jacob's speaker rig is truly awesome. Pretty much does everything I'd want a system to do. Tonally my absolute favorite part was the highs. I love it when the highs are perfect, and they were. The soundstage had really awesome depth, and the imaging was great. We went from small scale classical to large scale classical to a bunch of jazz to Rush to that weird guy from Soft Machine doing weird spoken word free form jazz. Although I spent a bit of time telling Jacob to buy a turnt…

I'm currently taking a break from a mini-meet, it got pretty intense and my friend & I are taking a break to go grab some food and catch up on things a bit before returning to the listening. A little teaser, we have a modded Audio Aero Capitole, a custom built 2A3 amp, and a balanced RS-1 recabled with copper litz wire. For shits & giggles, we decided to compare a regular store bought CD (Tori Amos - Boys for Pele) with a CDR copy burned on a Fujifilm CDR. I've heard people saying CDRs sound better but never heard a difference on my system, so since we had a top-notch system at our disposal we decided to test it out. Shockingly, the CDR sounds better, and I was li…

1) Stax Omega 2: I really liked these headphones; they have IMO the bigggest soundstage in a headphone other than the K1000s. I didn't find it to be too bassy out of the ES-1, although the impact was not up to the level that I would consider satisfactory for hard rock. But these have very good timbre, and the tonality is a little bit dark, but nothing to really complain about. I would not hesistate to build an O2 system if not for the fact that I just can't get them to fit right. I tried rotating the cups and the cushions every way, but just never found a good fit. 2) Orpheus: Between the Orpheus and the O2, I'd say it's a toss up when both are amped out of an ES-1. I co…

Wow another great mini at Craig's house, I wanted to come down to hear Joe's (Dreamcomposer) balanced Zana and A/B with the HD-2 that I own. Well I got to do that and a whole lot more. Rounding out the amp line up was Eddie Current HD2 Eddie Current Balanced Zana Duex Eddie Current balancing act (prototype) We also had a singled ended Zana and a EC proto amp with C41 power tubes that sounded great. David (909) was nice enough to bring his amazing source the Reimyo 777 CDP, if you get the chance this is one great sounding source. We also had the pleasure of going back to the future and hearing to well regarded linear tracking turntables from the late 70/80s the Sony…

We got together at the last minute at my mom's house (she was away) for a small meet. Sorry I couldn't invite more people. We had me, stv1756, another friend of mine who made lunch, n3rdling, purrin, 909, and anaxilus. Gear was mostly electrostatic: T2, HV, BH, Aristaeus. Dynamic: Balancing Act. Phones: 009x2, HE90x2, 007, SR-O, HD800, LCD-3x2, LCD-2r2, R10x2. We had a great time and a nice pasta lunch made by my native Italian friend. He made a home-made sauce, very nice. Purrin was talking about the 009 in the LCD-3 thread, about how it changes with source quite a bit, and I agree. We had everything running through the Amarra Model 4, and could switch bet…

Created for great justice! How can there not be a thread here yet?? 'Twas a great time as expected and more to come later. No pics or impressions yet. Tired. Must sleep. zzzzzzzzz.

I think we had a meet. I'm a bit too tired to remember for sure. the past few hours have been a blur. at least I made it home up north of Muir.

Meet Impressions 'Twas another great meet to add to the history books. Quality listening enhanced by a group of great people. Lots of new faces too, was great to meet everyone. Big thanks to 909 for organizing and pulling it off without a hitch. Great location also, will make for another great National Meet next year, and I can see this hotel will work out great for quieter listening in more isolated environments. The only issue that will need to be worked on will be the A/C. And as I've said before on the other site, these meets are always a great experience. Not only for the gear but for the people who come - I continue to be impressed by the quality of people in…

All you need to know is that Yikes came, cleaned up on the door prizes, implied I was deceptively short, and left.

Decent meet. Got to try my 007s with the BHSE and listen to the GSX so I was happy. Todd listening to his new HP system.

Below is the post from Headfi here is the link Norcal Mini-ish Meet impressions 8-9-08 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio Wow what a fun meet, thanks to Dan for opening his home to us all We had a great group of folks there that all shared a deep love of music and gear. It showed with lively discussion. I eneded up staying at Dans place when the group went to lunch so I could get some quite time listening done. There was a ton of of top flight gear considering this was a mini meet. Once again even though I was there for 12 hours I still did not listen everything. Eddie Current, a tale of three amps. The Nautilus, this is one heck of …