Bah, even us young guys need to sleep once in a while. I hand all picture responsibility to Tyler. His camera kicks ass, mine sucks it. I only took like 9-10 pics anyway.
The rundown:
4:30-4:45 PM yesterday afternoon, I finished cleaning up and making everything look all nice and sparkly for the micro gathering. The Cicadas naturally looked really good compared to how they usually do; I sensed them trying to give me some last-minute regret over the imminent sale (more on this later). I missed Falkon's call/text right before 5PM and noticed like five minutes later that he had arrived outside the apartment. I help him unload his car; the gear list includes his HF2 #1xx, Omega subwoofer (unsure which model), Buffalo DAC (was already sold lol), Trafomatic Head One amp, and a shitload of cables/power stuff.
We decided to dig right in to the speaker rig and found an interesting way of getting the Omega paired with the Cicadas. The path was:
Marantz CD5001 transport + Parasound DAC 1100 + Trafomatic Head One running sub out to the Omega and pre/loop-out to the Moth EC2A3 (must have been pre), which was powering the Cicadas.
As it turns out, the Trafomatic is the fucking swiss army knife of headphone amps. Without it we would have not really had a way to run the sub, and for that I am very glad it made the trip. All the inputs/outputs we had running to and from it confused me quite a bit, but Falkon had it under control .
Cicadas sound good with a sub, no doubt. I had wanted to try this ever since I first bought them, and it was nice to finally see that realized. I have no reference for anything at the Omega's level, so I have no comparisons to make. What it did in the rig last night was add a ton of flexibility to the sound; Falkon tuned it to kick in @ 80HZ was just about the sweet spot and it helped every song we listened to (was a little variance amongst them for settings).
As for the Cicadas' performance, they tried to make me feel guilty. I mean, REALLY guilty. Right before Tyler showed up we put in Kind Of Blue followed by Ella and Louis Sing Gershwin, and between these two albums it was the best I had heard the Cicadas in months. The midrange was absolutely nuts.
We also did some HF2 listening, comparing both of ours to one another and the two head amps. The Trafomatic is good. I'm not sure I'd pay ~ $900, but for the sound it has (it's a SET, so make of it what you will) and the flexibility of the outputs/inputs it definitely is worthy. The Moth EC2A3 won outright for me mainly because of impact (Falkon agreed and noted speed as well). My reference "bronze" ears for headphone listening are shot so getting solid impressions was difficult, but the Moth was definitely performing very well with HF2. We did notice (and Tyler later agreed) that the Trafo has some odd sort of advantage with low-bass detail in a few of the songs we heard. Bizarre imo, but there you have it.
At about 8, Falkon and I went over to a nice restaurant on the edge of Bradley's campus, One World. I had not been there yet this semester, so I figured it was perfect timing to show Falkon one of my favorite places to eat in Peoria. He got a pork sandwhich, I got quesadillas, both rocked the shit, 'nuff said.
We got back to the apartment and very briefly tried Buffalo v. Parasound, but the Marantz would not agree with the Buffalo and was making it clip for some reason. Hope you got it diagnosed Falkon.
Tyler showed up just after 10PM iirc. The man drove 14+ hours for this, so I was a little nervous about his initial impressions of the gear he was about to own. We helped him bring stuff up and right away threw Kind Of Blue back in and had him sit in the sweet spot. It must have went well, because he drove away with the gear this morning . Tyler brought 2x AKG K1000 (one stock cable, one Enigma Oracle cable), vintage RS-1's (which I'm dumb and forgot to listen to), Peachtree Audio Nova, my soon-to-own PSB Platinum M2 monitors, and some cable stuff.
After I confirmed that Tyler was happy with the Moth gear, we ran through a bit of headphone comparison. We did K1K v. K1K, one on the Trafo, one on the Moth. The stock cable K1K was on the Trafo and beat the other one rather easily. I don't know what it was (certainly not the amp), but the stock K1K sounded far better in lows/low mids. The other one sounded very tinny to me and I knew which one I preferred within seconds. Both Tyler and Falkon concurred. Tyler did more listening with the HF2, which he has heard before and enjoyed once again. Falkon went HF2 v. vintage RS1. I'm not sure which he preferred, but he did not that the RS1 had more impact overall.
Oh yeah, we did do some alcohol. Tyler had about 4 Jack Daniels & Squirt's (a family tradition I'm told), Falkon bought a 6 pack of Dogfish (thanks for the leftovers ), and I had my usual Gin & Tonic. I only have one more meet left before I'm legal to drink this goddamn stuff .
Falkon had to take off at about 1AM to get some sleep before work in the morning. Tyler and I disconnected the Cicadas, powered down the Moth, and hooked up the Peachtree + PSB M2's. It was time to hear my new lovelies . And yes, I like them a lot. Last night they sounded pretty good, but today they sound excellent. I don't believe either of us downgraded in this trade/sale, we just sidestepped to an entirely different sort of sound. I'm running on new speaker-high, but I am quite sure I prefer the M2's. They fit my genres much better than the Cicadas did. But, Cicadas still rape for specific genres, so no worries for Tyler.
I recall that we put in Killswitch Engage followed by All That Remains right around 3 AM. By "put in" I mean we blasted the shit. It was pretty sweet. I hooked up my Nak integrated to get a feeling for what sort of sound I'd have for a while. So far, so good. The night finished off with the M2's rocking some Hootie and the Blowfish followed by Josh Groban. Good shit.
~~~
The best part of last night was a break of non-listening for a solid half hour/45 minutes when all three of us just talked about a variety of things, , and not all of it audio. This is what the hobby is about; ultimately I don't care all that much about gear at times like these. It is just awesome to be able to hang out with fellas that you otherwise would never have known, talked to, nor met. I am grateful for audio in this respect.
Tyler and Falkon, thanks. Hope you enjoyed yourselves. There will be an AuraJam II.
