November 17, 2007 East Bay SOTA Meet Impressions

[Icarium]

Yeah the ES-2 was best in show and then I think a tie between Al's SDS-XLR rig and Min's Zanden Rig. I liked the HD-2 too but.. the SDS-XLR was just on another level.

I don't think you were alone in the attack thing. Me and I think one other? Maybe Iron Dreamer remarked on that too. Besides having a lot of strong points the HE90's biggest and most appealing trait is its effortless sound. Neil's rig obviously has maximized that trait in spades while maximizing other things as well. You don't have to concentrate on the music at all. Nothing demands your attention and fatigues you. You simply enjoy. And I think what is necessary for it to be this way is a slight lack of speed/lack of attack. Imo with the 3D21A output tubes which I've been non stop raving/hyping about... I think some of the attack gets put back into it. Whether or not that's an improvement or not depends on taste. I for one like a speedy attack (Hence Qualias even at the sacrifice of midrange). Very interested in hearing Neil's impressions of Hytron 3D21A versus NOS Mullard XF2s with proper biasing on both.

[Iron_Dreamer]

Mikeymad's Marantz SA-7S1 SACD player...

...and Singlepower ES-1

foo_me's Zanden 300B amp:

Voltron's tower of power:

...and Satan's favorite toobs at work

JP#'s had to have the Pellegrino!

The latest from Eddie Current, the HD2!

Perhaps the oddest looking DAC yet, the Wavelength Cosecant!

Sacrilege! A recabled HP2?!?

Ori's shiny K1000 amp...

...with an odd tube complement

The star of the show, the APL NWO 3.0

The 3.0's innards...

...as compared to a stock Esoteric UX1

[deepak]

Did you guys listen to the HD650 out of the NWO, HD-2, etc?

Or y'all Californians not big on the Senns

And great pictures!

[nickknutson]

Great pics!

Tube-city

[postjack]

gawds i think marantz gear is soooo gorgeous.

Looks like the meat was tops!

[asebastian0]

Seriously, I have seen many pictures of foo_me's zanden before but none have captured its true beauty like iron_dreamer's! Incredible!

[Icarium]

Did you guys listen to the HD650 out of the NWO, HD-2, etc?

Or y'all Californians not big on the Senns

And great pictures!

Damn straight we did. Problem is that as powerful as the transformer coupled output stage (The excess power is what lets it function as a preamp) is not quiteee up to the task of driving the HD650s. It did sound awesome with Qualias and anything else though. That it beat out the SS-1 is not overly surprising. He says he has yet to find a customer who has a pre amp that can beat out the NWO and clearly people who have multi figure sources have some pricey ass speaker rigs (Though the merits of which can be of course debated if we examine the rigs individually.. but... well you get the picture.)

Alex thought the HE90 was the best headphone hands down and the HD650 is a bit bass heavy but otherwise another very good headphone. He liked the vintage rs-1s as well and the K1k rig... and probably others ;p

[deepak]

Damn straight we did. Problem is that as powerful as the transformer coupled output stage (The excess power is what lets it function as a preamp) is not quiteee up to the task of driving the HD650s. It did sound awesome with Qualias and anything else though. That it beat out the SS-1 is not overly surprising. He says he has yet to find a customer who has a pre amp that can beat out the NWO and clearly people who have multi figure sources have some pricey ass speaker rigs (Though the merits of which can be of course debated if we examine the rigs individually.. but... well you get the picture.)

Alex thought the HE90 was the best headphone hands down and the HD650 is a bit bass heavy but otherwise another very good headphone. He liked the vintage rs-1s as well and the K1k rig... and probably others ;p

Interesting. Good all in one source/pre is always awesome.

How does APL's DAC stack up against the 3.0? And I assume the 6H30 tubes in the DAC (info from the website) is old spec and it is now using the ECC99?

[tyrion]

Mike, Al has cleanly vaulted over both our rigs with the SDS XLR Emm Labs combo really killer stuff and needs to be heard to be believed.

Not that dollar cost automatically equates to better sound but you need to compare the costs of our systems compared to Al's. I would venture a guess that it is more than double.

During the day I had one Pliny draft, one Sierra Nevada Celebration draft, and one Fuller's London Pride hand-cask draft. Life is good.

The NWO will be at more meets and you will too, one of these days.

My visit may be sooner than you think. I have a Southwest ticket I have to use by the beginning of February. I'll keep you guys posted. Your rig looks great!

[spritzer]

The website is very outdated so I'm sure they are using the better ECC99 tube, though I'm not quite sure

[Icarium]

Yeah they are using the ECC99

[Icarium]

Interesting. Good all in one source/pre is always awesome.

How does APL's DAC stack up against the 3.0? And I assume the 6H30 tubes in the DAC (info from the website) is old spec and it is now using the ECC99?

The DAC is going to be similar to mods in my DV60. 6 dacs per channel. ECC99 tubed output stage. Capacitor coupled again sadly. USB interface input as well as a ton of other inputs/outputs which mine will not have. Including a proprietary connection that will couple with his modded transports. As to how it will sound in comparison? In possible to say. I think he said with the fully updated Denons ($2500) they will be a 5 or 6 to the NWO 3.0 GO. My player with a better transport and true balanced output will probably be a 6.5-7. Depending on the quality of transport you use with the dac I would imagine it could bridge anywhere from the range from 5-7. If you say used an APL modded UX-1 transport... I bet you could possibly hit a 7... This is all based off estimates though based on him saying the updated (32 bit dacs/new tubed output stage amongst other mods) Denon will be a 5/6.

He will eventually release a dac on par with the NWO 3.0 GO but that will I'm sure between somewhere like 15-20k Probably closer 20k

He seems pretty sure that the modded sa10 (CD/SACD)/sa60 (CD/SACD/DVD-A)/dv60 (CD/SACD/DVD-A/DVD-V) all with the same mods will still better the EMM labs SE stack and will be the second best digital available. We'll see if that's the case I can't say I am ultra-ultra confident without the transformer coupling, but hey Alex has followed through asofar with promises related to performance.

[tkam]

Interesting. Good all in one source/pre is always awesome.

How does APL's DAC stack up against the 3.0? And I assume the 6H30 tubes in the DAC (info from the website) is old spec and it is now using the ECC99?

Correct the APL DAC will use the ECC99 but the modded UX-1 is for the time being the top of the line product they offer. The APL DAC will run about $4-5k vs the $20k+ that the nwo 3.0 is.

They will be offering a total cost no object product sometime late next year that will be based on Esoteric's top of the line transport and mono dacs.

[Voltron]

Correct the APL DAC will use the ECC99 but the modded UX-1 is for the time being the top of the line product they offer. The APL DAC will run about $4-5k vs the $20k+ that the nwo 3.0 is.

They will be offering a total cost no object product sometime late next year that will be based on Esoteric's top of the line transport and mono dacs.

Alex talked about this future uber rig, which I think is a P01 and two D01s all fully modded to APL 3.0 level. It will be over $60-70K.

[Dusty Chalk]

That Zanden looks hot.

(No comments about its phallicity and my questionable sexual deviance -- I'll just pretend they're uber-nipples.)

The Wavelength is cute, too.

And thanks for the info on the APL -- sounds like it should be some good stuff. I'll try to find a way to audition it some time in the future.

[neilvg]

Still no time for impressions, in NWO bliss land. Connected it up to my speaker rig next to my DV50. The rig comprises of Dali MS-4's, Manley Snapper 100W monoblocks using either Mullard XF2's or Fat Boy EL34's. The difference with the NWO connected straight to the amps versus the DV50->D70 (connected digitally for preamp functionality) is BEYOND night and day. My girlfriend who loves music but hasn't necessarily been turned onto the gradations of high (and higher) fidelity, could only, with wide eyes, describe the sound as orgasmic.

Neil

[JBLoudG20]

My girlfriend who loves music but hasn't necessarily been turned onto the gradations of high (and higher) fidelity, could only, with wide eyes, describe the sound as orgasmic.

Neil

Get to work.

[Voltron]

Still no time for impressions, . . . My girlfriend who loves music but hasn't necessarily been turned onto the gradations of high (and higher) fidelity, could only, with wide eyes, describe the sound as orgasmic.

Neil

Get to work.

Now that's some funny shit.

[Edwood]

Remember it's the girth that counts.

[Voltron]

A few things I forgot to mention! First of all, we all owe JP#s a lot of thanks for setting this up, booking and paying for the room and for managing to keep it all together even with HF down. Thanks JP and

Also, I thought it was important to note that we decided early on that this was actually a Head-Case Meet given the fact that Head-Case saved the meet and made planning possible. So we started swearing a lot, trading insults, and being open about our disgust for each other. That made it even more fun than a normal Head-Fi meet.

Lastly, I_D's great pics of Satan's Delicious Sound reminded me that I wanted to thank GuzziGuy for jump-starting my amp. The regulators on the PS have to ignite and require a fair amount of juice and/or a healthy light source. The cafe was over-taxed and under-powered to begin with so I couldn't ignite more than two tubes at first. I set it to four tubes and switched on the plates but no ignition. The only lamp was a cheesy fluouresant so that wouldn't do. We had the idea to try using a camera flash and Ken stepped up with his dinky digital. One flash and POP went four tubes! That was funny as hell and really made me believe Mikhail's comments about either using light to ignite.

[purk]

Nice impressions guys please keep them coming. Did anyone manage to compare the ES1 and ES2 w/ HE90?

Thanks

[Iron_Dreamer]

A definite thanks to John for putting together this great little meet, in the biggest "back room" of a coffee shop I've ever seen. I'm very glad he was able to overcome the server problems and convert this to a Head-case meet!

I had a fun time with guzziguy's rig. It's not the most extended or resolving setup out there, but what it does have in spades is bass punch and midrange goodness. The Extreme sounded much better to me than any of the other sub-$3k Singlepower amps ever have. The combo of it and the Exemplar Denon 2900 really had me rocking out with the L3000. The Darth Beyers, which I'd never heard before, really did have an almost comically huge bass (I'd swear more bass than the stock DT770, but it's been years since I've heard one). I think they might sound a lot better with the port holes covered, which should greaty reduce resonance. They certainly look excellent and lack the stock 770's upper-midrange harshness. The K340 had an excellent midrange that played well to the system's strength.

The APL NWO 3.0 really was quite a fantastic sounding device. Listening to the balanced Qualia straight from its' XLR outputs sent my jaw to the floor. I am now completely certain that the Qualia in and of itself is not harsh, just brutally revealing, as I've never heard such a smooth but detailed treble (a quality which came through the ES2/HE90 system as well). The Qualia's immediate viceral impact which I love so much sprung to what seemed a superhuman level. I hardly have the requisite experience with uber-high-end sources to place this one in a pantheon of others (let alone accurately judge its' value), all I know is that what I heard was quite spectacular.

Neil's complete system with the NWO, ES2, HE90's, and nuclear-plant grade cabling certainly sounded much better than when I last heard his system at head-fest. Gone was the somewhat over-warm/colored/romantic/whatever sound that has bugged me in the past with the HE90 in every instance I'd heard it. The bass was also well-represented and more impactful than I'd come to expect from the HE90. Ultimately, my only "criticism" of this system is that the presentation, slightly diffuse or relaxed, is not ultimately the way I prefer to experience music. But discussing this with Neil, it's pretty clear that this is just what he is after, so he should be happy as a clam! Good thing you got out of that movie in one piece!

In other miscellaneous listenings, the Edition 9 still sounds funky, the PS1 still has too much bass (though I do now think more highly of them than I had), the Omega II and HE90 need drastically different sounding systems in order to excel, the Zanden/K1000 combo is still a beast, and the Singlepower Qualia headband kicks major ass!

Certainly moreso than listening to anything, I really just came to hang out and enjoy the company of everyone who makes the Bay Area group just such a blast (as evidenced my Neil's method of greeting me ) I'll definitely have to arrange a place to crash next time so I can kick a few back with you nuts!

[jinp6301]

Stupid noob question that will probably get me banned, what's the HD-2? I cant find info about it anywhere (thats not HF)

[Nanoha]

What exactly is the Delicious Sound btw?

[909]

Stupid noob question that will probably get me banned, what's the HD-2? I cant find info about it anywhere (thats not HF)

in the simplest terms the hd-2 is a balanced zd, but John's has some ultra rare and costly parts so his is one of a kind.