Meet Impressions

Welcome I hosted a mini-meet at my place on Saturday, including HeadphoneAddict, Blutarsky, Sherwood, wiatrob and myself. And HeadphoneAddict's son (he has a Stax rig!) The idea of a small meet was to keep things more accomodating to getting some critical listening done - near impossible to do at full meets. And we did just that It's much more affordable, too All in all, it was a good success. A lot was learned, definitely by me and hopefully by all. Thank yous go out to: HeadRoom, without whom we would not have had the D7Ks to review And Drew at Moon-Audio, without whom we would not have had the Senn cables, the Creek, the Shanling nor the iQu…

Yeah yeah I know, the show doesn't start until Friday but I can't wait! I'm actually interested in speakers this year so I'm looking forward to listening to as many as I can! I've taken Friday off work so I can check out all 3 days! If there are any requests, post 'em here and I'll see if I can include them on my rounds. Exhibitor list here: Rocky Mountain Audiofest 2008 And will any familiar Head-Casers/Fiers be there?

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 …

Mikey and I attended the 2007 - 2012 Eclipse Vertical Tasting on December 4 and the Eclipse Release Party on December 5, and I have lots of pics and so does Mikey. I thought it would be easier to put them in an impressions thread, and after all "when two or more gather in Head-Case's name, it shall be a meet." First up is the Vertical Tasting 2007-2012. Seeing as the event was beer and desserts, we stopped next door for sushi and Japanese beer, at a spot Dinny might have inspired Our host Todd and his protege Alyssa The good stuff The snacks Getting under way with the beverages "Palate cleansers" were Nell…

Not sure if anyone here is actually interested in these, but since it had a lot of Gilmore representation I figured I would post here. KSA-5 Clone Balanced Dynalo Whatever this new amp is called. About the only headphones I recognized at this meet. Along with the 50 pairs of LCD-2s Some amp the audio store guy was peddling. A pimped out Crack and a normal Crack

Let me start this off by sort-of crossposting from HF. Not being able to just C&P from HF to here and have the pictures show up is REALLY annoying. Before I start with re-inserting 25 or so pictures, let me start off with a HC exclusive. I hope there are no small children around. **Colin Note: I decided to skip the bathroom pics this time, in loo (get it, literally toilet humour) of the shot below** He's baaaa aaaaack! Event organizer: Trav Listening to what we can all agree was the best rig there... mine. Trav in his normal/more natural pose The triumphant return of Ingwe Can you seriously believe someone brought a kid to a meet!?!?!…

This was a bit different kind of shindig than your usual Head-X.org meet. These were "old farts" (their term, not mine), while "we" were the "young farts" (again, their term). Ingwe was particularly thrilled with that, as he's old. They had Tyll come out to Atlanta for a meet/greet + presentation on computer audio. I arrived around 60% of the way through the 2 hour "set-up" time, which was really about the only time one had to listen to music in a reasonable environment (more on this later). I pulled in and got out of the car and saw TomB pulling in. I went over and caught up a minute before heading into the hotel where we were greeted by two friendly ladies with …

Here are my impressions from our meet. I had a great time at the meet, as well. I was able to see some old friends like robm, rhythmdevils and asr (who did a great job of organizing). I also got to meet some new people, and put faces to some names that I?ve seen around on the boards. RSA Apache: I heard this amp using the Ayre CX7e and it was a completely underwhelming experience. This was the first thing I listened to and I spent over 30 minutes on it. It simply did not engage me in any way shape or form when I was using my 580s and listening to some CDs I had brought with me. The sound was extremely dull and devoid of dynamics, especially with Eric Clapton Un…

Yesterdays meet at Earl's was a good time as usual. Here's the obligatory gear pics:

It was fun. Too tired to comment on gear right now.

As I'm doing a mega-whirlwind tour of Florida this weekend (Jacksonville yesterday & today for Axpona, then scampering down to Tampa tomorrow morning for the Beerfest and then back up Sunday morning), I'll have essentially no time to post either impressions or pics anytime until Monday night. Axpona was pretty cool today. It was fun listening to a wide variety of speakers. The hotel venue was smaller than expected, but inside the hotel was fairly well decked out with the audio stuff in lots of rooms. Compared to RMAF, I'd say the event is maybe around 20-25% the scale - and even then I still didn't get to see everything today, let alone listen to everything. If I …

Never call a friend about going to Vegas if your not totally serious. After several phone calls Al and I booked a one day blitz of CES madness to see if the HD 800 hype was for real. I'm on an iPhone so more details to come but the HD 800 is the real deal and to me worth every penny of the $1400 asking price. We got into Vegas at 10am and went straight to the Senn display area for a 20 minute session each with the HD800. All I can say it they sound Great and are competitive with any top tier headphone (current or discontinued). Thanks to Jude, Drew and Tyl for the hookup and it was great to hang with Ed, Naaman and his Dave. Dinner and drinks was a blast! To be c…

spending some time with the ec balancing act and an apuresound balanced hd600. This amp is ridiculous. I had no idea the hd600 was capable of this much bass.

No impressions for now, to come later. Pics below from Friday 5/29. Posters fresh off the press Edwood hard at work, finishing up room signs Luxman DU-80 The party in TTVJ's room w/ Voltron, Pete Millett, & Tyll Grado PS1000 Dual Singlepower ES-2s - blubliss' on right, neilvg's on left ....and, drumroll.....my Blue Hawaii SE!

I'll start since I'm home and finished my homework. First and foremost it goes without saying that Team Chicago was on their game and delivered, to my perception, a seamless meet. Easily the best hotel I've canjammed in, in terms of great rooms, great on site amenities (large bar, coffee shop, consistent airport shuttle), great proximity to at least one tasty Italian restaraunt, great rooms, and friendly staff (Elma at the front desk totally flirted with me). The convention facilities were great, I liked the way the rooms were laid out. Though it takes a lot of manpower to put together an event of this magnitude, I always try to make it a point to shake the hand of…

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 …

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

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…

the winners: meridian G08 headamp gs-x ps audio GCHA ps audio power plant shure e500 headphile HF-1 sony r-10 cardas sennheiser cable the losers imho: monster power conditioning strip (sounds dry and lifeless compared to the power plant) stealth (muddy, no air) hornet (no air) beyerdynamics dt880 (emotionless, dry) equinox sennheiser cable (too fat sounding on senn 650s) qualia 010 (urgh, just urgh) http://www.tc.umn.edu/~laux0078/chicago%20meet/

I guess I'll start this here with what I posted over at head-fi: Well, first things first, thanks to cryhavoc for a great job organizing this meet and GO SPURS. Second thanks to skylab and his wonderful family for allowing all us crazy headfiers to share their beautiful domicile. I must say Rob, I only hope my son grows up to be as well-behaved and charming as your children. O.K. now on to the real business. The highlight of the day for me was unfortunately not headphone related. It was Skylab's vinyl rig, the sound was glorious (as is Rob,s taste in music, eclectic is good!). The Denon turntable was not only glorious to behold but produced some great sounds, especi…

This is the first meet at which I did not take a single picture, so I apologize in advance. KG and Steve should be able to suffice I think. To start it off, let me just say that in the wake of this meet I want CanJam to get here so fucking badly it is almost painful. The gear has become such an afterthought for me that I wonder if I should feel badly about it . Hanging out with the guys is my main interest now, no doubt about it. But... here a few gear thoughts: 1) AD2K on Jim's rig (BA, 840C, Mac Mini). Only afterwards did I find out from Jim that Craig uses the AD2K most frequently on the BA (or at least he did at CJ). I can understand why. Excellent, excelle…

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

We're here, we're moderately sober, and there's gear being set up. Seems like time for an impressions thread. Duggeh's pictures will tell the story far more accurately than I can, so I'll get out of the way.

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.

not really a meet. went to carls awesome house for a few hours and listened to some tunes via speakers. in the line up were super small fonkens (forget if they were micro or mini fonkens) but the damn things were tiny and metronomes. some uber apogee speakers i hadnt known about were added to the mix towards the end for a song. amp of choice was some unknown 10 watt tube concoction which sounded quite nice feeding the metronomes. the fostex fe 127e drivers were enabled and the midrange was everything that it was hyped up to be if not better. the top end was lot a little but it was just the right amount of loss for a really nice listening session. even at louder volumes th…