guzziguy

I got up to SJ on Friday and then spent the evening with JP. The Englander seems to be his favorite place as that's where we went for dinner. Not being a beer conoisseur, I drank what JP did. What all did I drink JP? I seem to remember Pliny as being one of them. All were quite good and I only had a small headache Saturday morning. I showed up early at the meet with JP. Almost immediately two other members showed up, Mikeymad and Iron Dreamer. The four of us set up the tables and chairs. JP then set up the fan to remove as much of the lingering odor as possible from the morning work out class. The fan worked and Zocaro turned out to be an excellent place at which to hold a meet. I suspect that many more meets will be held there. I was amazed at some of the systems that showed up. At $6K, I had one of the "budget" systems there. I didn't get to hear everything but really liked everything I heard. I had friend show up for his first meet and spent a lot of time helping him. Being the social butterfly that I am, I also spent a lot of time renewing old acquaintances, making new friends and talking with most everybody. Eventually I packed up and left at 5:20 and got back to Santa Barbara at 10:10. I was pretty out of it yesterday and it turned into a "lost" day. So here are my late impressions. Ori's prototype amp/dac combo: Ori was showing a prototype desktop SS amp/dac package that he'll have available in a couple of weeks. The prototype wasn't exactly the same as the advertized finished product in that it had a pot whereas the product will have a stepped attenuation. He was driving it with a cheap ($100) DVD player. I didn't recognize the cable between them. I listened to it with both my mod'ed K340s and my Darths. I was surprised to find that it was easily able to drive the K340s. The music through them was coherent and well integrated. So many amps at this price level just do a poor job driving them. I really liked the sound through both headphones. This set up would make for a great work setup. I made sure that my friend heard this too. I think that Ori has a real competitor on his hands. Voltron's "Tower of Power" I first listened to this right after he got it started and before it was really warmed up using his (I think) Sennheiser HD-650. I heard the classic "Sennheiser Veil" and moved on. Later I talked to Al about it and he said that not only was the amp not warmed up, but the EMM combo's clock was misconfigured too. So I listened to it first through his balanced HD-600s. Wow, it sounded great. This was the first time I've liked listening to the high end Senns. I also tried my K340s and they sounded great too. I did side by side comparisons and slightly preferred the Senns. Not enough to go for Al's set up though! MikeyMike's ES-1/Marantz/Omega 2 This was a really nice system. This meet was the first time that I really have been able to listen to high end electrostatic headphones. It has all the advantages of good electrostatic transducers and few of the disadvantages. In fact, I would have considered this a contender for best system at the meet. That is, until I heard ... NeilVG's ES-2/APL NWO Mk 3/HE-90 This is the best headphone combo I've every heard in my short (1.5 years) headphone career. Everything sounded right to me. It was quick, dynamic and bass was very present but not overwhelming. I got to hear the HE-90s and Omega-2's side by side on this system and way preferred the HE-90's. They just sounded much more life like to me. Details and timbre were so life like. Attack and decay were "right" too. If I win the lottery any time in the future, I'll have a system similar to this. In the meantime, I'm still very happy with my system. I really didn't think that my tiny point-and-shoot camera would be enough, but thought "what the hell, let's try it". I have the picture and will post it and others in the near future. Thanks Peter. I value your opinion highly. I am a mid-range freak and this system really does it for me. I may tire of it eventually, but feel no urge to change it at the present time. These DB's are more bass heavy than the other two pairs that I have heard. I'm hoping that I can get it to sound more like the other pairs, either with more break-in or by further modding it. I'll tape over the ports as you suggested and see what that does. Again, I had a great time at the meet. I suspect it will be a long time before there is another meet with such high end systems. Vicki, you really should have come out!