11/01/08 Colorado Mini-Meet Impressions & Pics

[Luminette]

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 iQube (even though we were so caught up in everything else we didn't listen to the amps and hardly the cables - wait for impressions on the much larger meet I'll be attending in Chicago next weekend for impressions on these things)

And Alex at APureSound for the V3 Senn cable

As well as Fungi for most of the portable cans seen in the portable buffet pic below.

And my mother (Aww), for making us a good selection of food and drink

And everyone else for actually showing up and going through the efforts of disassembling, packing, unpacking, assembling, disassembling, packing and then assembling their stuff again once they finally got home. What a pain.

The Melos was stuck on mute because you can't unmute it without the remote, which was left 70 miles behind. Minus cool points for Melos engineering! This was a pretty unbelievable thing that took a while to sink in for us. All were eager to hear. We'll have to wait until next time

I'll shut up and move right into the pics here for you guys - I'll save my comments until after the pics. Sherwood and wiatrob also took some photos so be on the lookout for those when they come (they are surely both much better photographers than I - I just point and click)

Photos:

wiatrob and I started the day off checking out the issue with the power on my overhyped PS1 SCPH-1001 that I thought I may pull out for everyone to give a go

wiatrob's area where we spent time exploring his Soha II build

A little buffet of portable choices and a pair of Bose which I insist are not a choice

The selection of Senn cables - Blue Dragon, Silver Dragon, APureSound V3, Stock HD650, Stock HD600

Creek OBH-21SE, Shanling PH3000, Stock Woo Audio 6

My Oppo HD981-DV I picked up as cheap entry level transport

Headphone buffet

D7000s, V3'd Edition 9, V3'd Edition 9

HD600s, Balanced V2'd D2000s and Germania modified AT700s

Uh. Grados? This was HeadphoneAddict and Blutarsky's table

And the listening begins

Stello DAC sitting on top of the Melos Gold

The muted Melos

Melos insides

[Luminette]

Melos back

The Head Direct EF1 on top of a Singlepower Squarewave XL on top of a Sigma 11 on top of a Sigma 11. A Sony 303 PCDP and the Darkvoice 336i. And the Apogee Mini DAC on the left. And the tiny DAC Larry had that I can't remember the name of but will edit this once he lets me know

Stock WA6 and Maxed WA6 with Sophia and PDPS

The two WA6s and the GES just being so tubey one can't not take a photo

One of the last photos of the night - it was just HeadphoneAddict, Blutarsky and myself left and they were doing the review between the Stello, the Apogee and the Magi-DAC

And snacks etc prepared by my mom

[Luminette]

My impressions/comments from the day - I'll try to go chronologically

Balanced APS V2'd D2000s vs stock D7000s (possibly not fully burnt-in)

Well. I am a D2k person. I have not liked the D5ks in the past. I'd say that the D7ks are more D5k than D2k - but that they are definitely an improvement on the D5ks. I think everyone agreed that a recable was just what the D7ks needed.

The D7k has a lot of bass. But I am not necessarily saying it has too much bass. It goes really deep and has no issues with getting it to resonate/sustain down there, either. What I particularly liked was that the mids also felt pretty strong with these, too. Usually you may expect the low end to overpower the borders with mids but I didn't feel this way (albeit a brief listen for this particularly). The highs on the D7ks weren't as good as the D2k pair - would a recable make up for the difference?

There was more air around the highs in the D2ks, allowing for the superior detailing and particularly decay of things like cymbals. And an overall clearer presence because they weren't crowded at all.

If money is a concern - it's a no brainer: D2ks all the way.

If money isn't a concern - I suggest you go for a pair of recabled D7ks, or wait to hear impressions on them . I think a Silver Dragon would be the perfect cable for them but I heard interesting and convincing things about the Jena as a choice for these (and closed phones at large).

Still, I have no idea which of the phones I would prefer, then.

If you are already a D5k fan, the D7ks are definitely a relevant one to take interest in.

I have really no experience with the markl mod'd Denons so I can't add anything there.

I would be very interested in hearing more to do with all of these Denon variants (including recabled and/or mod'd d7ks) so as to draw some more finalized conclusions.

Soha II

wiatrob had his Soha II here and after hearing his talk on serious synergy with the Senns (650 and 600s) [i would assume 580s, too] I was ready to hear it.

I am not an HD650 fan - I have always found them to sport crapmuddy laid-back-feeling boomy bass, lack of mids and syrupy-glazed over highs (particularly easy to catch with pianos) all delivered in a dark presentation.

Well, I was really enjoying them out of the Soha II. It didn't really make much sense. But I have to vouch for the way that amp sounds with the 650s (and according to wiatrob, the other hd senns). If you are a 650 person, I currently cannot make you a better recommendation (unless maybe you want to spend 4-8 times the money - but even then..)

I didn't get to listen to it with the 600s but I really plan to the next time we get together. Which I am thinking about trying to make sooner just for this purpose

We did spend some time listening to the Soha II with the D7ks and the Edition 9s, though. The D7ks turned into these feather-bassed super highs-oriented cans (it was pretty strange) and the Ed 9s turned into these bloat-bassed.. things.

Strange stuff.

Edition 9s and the WA6 - both stock and Maxed w/ Sophia

Sound good. Maybe a touch more bassy than I would like - but I was mostly listening to Infected Mushroom (Electronic - Psytrance). But just a touch. It's perhaps more to do with a current inner debate I have between whether I want the V3 on my 9s or the Silver Dragon. It's an issue between bass presence and mids presence. And the 9s lack mids to begin with. But the V3 gives me deeper bass and better resonance capabilities (important for electronic, primarily - but all music imo)

Le sigh

I am very pleased to have my WA6 now for use with the Ed 9s.

Senn cables

I have not had the chance to spend much time at all comparing between the senn cables I have on hand - I just got them and then had to prepare for the meet and never got around to it during the meet. Look for more impressions out of me (and probably Aura) on the Chiun-Fi meet taking place next weekend as I will be traveling to Chicago for that and we both plan to spend some time with those. Also add an Oracle

[postjack]

more snack impressions please.

[Beefy]

Woo Audio amps make me feel funny in the pants. Absolutely gorgeous amps!

[Guest sacd lover]

That 274B rectifier is absolutely beautiful.

[philodox]

Looks like a fun meet. How were the -=modded=- headphones?

[Luminette]

Blutarsky thought the brownies were incredible while wiatrob was all about the pumpkin bread

The -==-'d ATs were actually not half bad - they had a pretty well rounded presentation that wasn't /too/ far off from the D2000s - but for nearly the same price point, it's D2000s all the way

[morphsci]

Did anybody spend any time with the Shanling? IMO it is a very underappreciated amplifier since it lacks the bling and doesn't have a cult fanboy following.

[Luminette]

I've got the Shanling at home with me now but was having issues with a noise level in the Shanling as well as the Creek OBH-21SE

They both put out something that my Ed 9s pick up very significantly - whereas with the D7Ks or the HD600s it is probably negligible.

I'm waiting on my new source to arrive and then I will spend some one on one time with the Shanling - with the less resolving phones. I'm pretty put off for that to occur at all but I'm going to check out what it is as an amp aside from that.

Nobody had any interest in the Shanling, sadly.

[Asr]

I've got the Shanling at home with me now but was having issues with a noise level in the Shanling as well as the Creek OBH-21SE

They both put out something that my Ed 9s pick up very significantly - whereas with the D7Ks or the HD600s it is probably negligible.

I'm waiting on my new source to arrive and then I will spend some one on one time with the Shanling - with the less resolving phones. I'm pretty put off for that to occur at all but I'm going to check out what it is as an amp aside from that.

Nobody had any interest in the Shanling, sadly.

Hrm...any chance I could get some one-on-one time with the Shanling before you have to send it back? Seems like an interesting amp, I'd certainly give it some love as I'm a sucker for a good AC-powered home amp, even if it does use tubes.

[Luminette]

Of course, Steve

PM'd

[Sherwood]

I spent some time with the Shanling, albeit with inferior headphones.

It was good enough that I felt I could reastically identify a recabled KSC-75 from a stock KSC-75.

I also spent about 10 minutes with the -==- and the Shanling, and it was really a nice combination. For the size and the flexibility, I really think it's a great amp.