Voltron

Look at this crazy thing!

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 outsider or two -- both Alex Peychev of APL personally delivered the AMAZING NWO 3.0 and hung out the entire day with us, plus a couple Bay Area Audiophile Society (or whatever it is called) folks came along as well. We'll get around to some pics and some real impressions I am sure, but the first one is that the NWO 3.0 is one incredible piece. My EMM Labs SE stack was quaking across the room but held up just fine with the help of the SDS-XLR. The 3.0 is quite something and when I can post up the pic of the stacked boards that make up the 32 bit DAC, you will see just a part of the madness that makes up the APL genius. When heard right out of the XLR output, the H650 sounded better than I have ever heard them direct from CD, but when the ES2 and HE90 were connected up to it, the combo was stunning. Really really really great stuff. More to follow...

My car is packed up but I am on a work conference call and will try to be there as soon as I can be. See you all soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILLY! Have a Chiumphant meet! Cheers.

I found some stuff in my Hydra 8 box that may belong to somebody from the last meet in SJ. They are all cables of two types. Weird I never heard about this but I will bring them to the meet saturday. It seems possible that some of them were Dan's or Mikhail's. I have boxed up the SDS-XLR and lots of tubes and the Emm Labs and some cans and some other stuff. I will bring my rack so that little or no table space is needed for my stuff.

Evil Spock is going to drain away all your head-fi knowledge!

Bring your own! What the fuck, ok. Call Min, though, and see if he is coming and what he is bringing. I don't have his number.

Den Mother, do tell why you have this info...

That's what I was wondering. Talk to you tomorrow to see where we're at and who is MIA with HF down and out.

Where's that "MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS" pic when you need it? \

I can make some calls/send emails tomorrow. Did you get guzziguy's info? Does anybody around here know how to contact him?

Plenty of info on stevehoffman.tv/forums on these and earlier reissues. Check it out Mike.

I talked to Jude today and the story is so heinous that it is unbelievable. Not everybody around here gives him much credit but he is really pouring his guts out over this thing and feels what he says way deeper than most people understand. Plus, the fact is that everybody here reads HF and relies on the info there and a bunch of it may be down the shitter from what he posted on Facebook. That sucks for all of us.

So, I gave BigGuy the info through stevehoffman.tv but nobody else over there seemed to be on the list for the meet. I will call Neilvg tomorrow and check on Leeav and Min also. Did you ever ping any others JP?

The latest at head-fi.org. That really sucks for Jude and whoever is helping him. 2007-11-14 1025 EST We are still at the datacenter, working with the vendor and OS team in Europe to restore the NAS. Even with 16 gigabytes of memory, the file system repair ran out of memory. The OS team in Europe has since upgraded our version of the file system repair program, which is apparently more efficient and less memory-intensive. It is in process right now, but getting it re-configured (including installing still another drive to provide ~160GB of swap) took most of the night. I have, for the most part, been at this datacenter since Saturday night. I have my portable rig to help me block out the din of the thousands of servers behind me in this datacenter, but I'm so ready to go home, and I'm so ready to get back to Head-Fi'ing with the rest of you. Thank you for your patience, and, once again, sorry.

I have a sealed pint bottle of Old Taylor in its original box ("Spiritus Frumenti") that was casked in 1919 and bottled in 1933 during prohibition. The bottle and box are labeled "For Medicinal Purposes" and the box actually markets that by stating it is "Unexcelled for Medicinal Use!" My grandfather collected mini bottle from the 30s-50s that I also have, but the Old Taylor is most excellent. 100+ years old. Wonder what it tastes like?

If X really meant what he typed and wanted to limit himself to American or Irish whiskeys and exclude Scotch or Canadian Whisky, then Pappy VW is a nice choice. Tyll had a bottle of the 20yr at Head-Fest and I knocked back a sizeable amount from a HeadRoom mug saturday night. Very nice. Knob Creek is everyday bourbon, but Black Maple Hill makes some nice whiskeys. I also like a good rye whiskey, and have mostly run through a bottle of Sazerac 18yr. Next I want to try the Black Maple Hill 18yr or maybe the 23yr, which is way too pricey and very hard to find.

I quite like the Glenmorangie Burgundy Wood Finish. CHEERS!

Vincent gets a two-fer! HB again.

Happy Birthday Vincent and X! Cheers!

Congrats Vicki! I actually saw that sub today and couldn't remember who had the Cains. Good stuff, and I am sure you will dig it.

Jack Wu has a CD3K with a regular 1/4 connector and it is plugged into the 1/4 jack in the pic above. It sounds quite good with the WA5 on the low impedance setting.

Hey Jahn- I am going to have an Ag-18 mini-RCA, and Ag-18 mini-mini, and a Cyprium One dock with hard-wired mini cable. We can go mobile for a comparo with a bunch of other stuff I will have but also on Sunday it may be a bit easier to do. Who knows, 60+ people is still a noisy bunch.

Thanks for the responses Salty and KG. Not that it is something I really want to hear, but I might as well know what's going on in the box. I will say there is a fair amount of low frequency rumble, but I was attributing that to other things. Sorry for the off-topic distraction. I will be interested to hear the B-52 in action, but I am much more interested in hearing the GS-X and Rudi's new balanced amp at the meet.

Kevin- I am sincerely curious about this comment and wonder if you can explain what is wrong with the balanced output on the XR-10B. I am no RSA fanboy but I did get a very good deal on an XR-10B and think it sounds great using the balanced outs. Interested in your thoughts. Thanks, Al