Atlanta Meet 5/8/10

[MexicanDragon]

Let me start this off by sort-of crossposting from HF. Not being able to just C&P from HF to here and have the pictures show up is REALLY annoying.

Before I start with re-inserting 25 or so pictures, let me start off with a HC exclusive. I hope there are no small children around. **Colin Note: I decided to skip the bathroom pics this time, in loo (get it, literally toilet humour) of the shot below**

He's baaaa aaaaack!

Event organizer: Trav

Listening to what we can all agree was the best rig there... mine.

Trav in his normal/more natural pose

The triumphant return of Ingwe

Can you seriously believe someone brought a kid to a meet!?!?! :facepalm:

Oh well, at least he brought a Wii. Doesn't this kit have great hair? Yeah, he does.

Cybertron trying to run away with Purk's R10s. Oh, wait... nevermind.

What!?!? Another kid? Seriously? Oh well, at least she was super cute.

From left: Some guy's arm, Cybertron, Zoe (Beauty), Ingwe's head (Beast), blurry Trav, MrArroyo's right arm.

I never knew TomB was a Viking...

Oh yeah, if you didn't know, it's Tom B, not "tomb". He doesn't really remind me of the Crypt Keeper, makes a lot more sense with caps, no?

Internals of JJ900s Exemplar 3910.

You've met the machine, now meet the man. JJ (JeffreyJ900. Seriously dude? Seriously?) with some L3ks via Purk out of the ZD + Exemplar 3910 rig.

Here is Paul Tarver, a founding member and current Treasurer of the A-VCOA (Audio-Video Club Of Atlanta). These guys invited some HF HC members along with the great (and sadly absent) Tyll Hertsens of Headroom fame to a Computer Audio demonstration in the Atlanta area last summer. We had a great time there and have kept in touch some, and I invited their group to come out to our headphone meet this weekend. I'm not sure of the total count, but I know at least 6 or 7 members came out and unlike the last gathering, we had plenty of rigs and time to listen and talk about things. If you're reading A-VCOA guys, thanks for coming out, hope you enjoyed it! I believe the rig is an Exemplar 5910 -> Headamp Gilmore Reference amp (I'm sure Purk will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is one of the one or two single ended Gilmore Reference amps in existence).

You'll have to ask Fitz what this is, but it has the blackest blacks I've ever seen. I'd want a blacker faceplate, but otherwise I greatly approve of the visual palette used.

HC Bonus: HF-1 porn (TomB's, though)

These next two pieces of gear need no introduction...

OK, so maybe they do need an introduction, but I will let our good friend TomB answer that one for you.

Speaking of TomB yet again, here is a horrible shot of him with a wonderful shot of someone's beautiful naked HP-1s. Yes, I just ruined anyone's chance of finding this thread with SafeSearch turned On.

Mrs. JeffreyJ900 sporting her new office rig, right Jeff?

I didn't get to listen to this guy's rig, but I got to play with his computer, and I want one. From the picture album entitled "Excuse: Seriously, the lighting was tough in this room, guys..." I bring you ZeroIbis' Alienware M11x.

The DIY sub-forum: Fitz and TomB

Foreground: Ingwe and TwoTrack (who brough a high-rez rig with some of his digital recordings, which is one of the things I meant to get around to listening to (along with the, I believe, ALO modded SR225s around his neck). Background: Cybertron facepalming after realizing he was going to wind up making a purchase on this event day.

Those silly kids again! This time forgoing their portable rigs for something a little more grown up. Xavier's rig: 4th gen iPod Nano->PX100s. Zoe's rig: Sansa Clip+ ->JVC Flats (in pink). (I wonder if I could send some SR-60s to Colorware... hmmm...). Their portable rigs are loaded up with ALAC/AAC/MP3 and FLAC/MP3, respectively. Zoe is listening to Dave Matthews & Time Reynolds: Live In Las Vegas (if you were wondering why she was smiling so big (and you were)).

Cans I brought to the meet: HF-1 #39 / HP-1 / HF-2 #39

Cans Cybertron wound up taking home with him along with whatever he brought. Lucky...

Daddy shaking a finger at Junior telling him to be good for his new friend

My rig from my viewpoint

My rig from Zoe's viewpoint (she took this picture while using an impromptu flash diffuser made out of a white napkin)

I had a great time at this meet. Lots of great gear, lots of great people, lots of fun. Can't wait to do it again, but hopefully we won't have to wait another year.

Trav ran a good event last year, this one was bigger... next one? Bigger, maybe?

**BRENT**

[boomana]

Nice pics of the meet for us, brent. Looks like you guys had fun. Xavier sure got big since I saw him or maybe it's his hair

[MexicanDragon]

Nice pics of the meet for us, brent. Looks like you guys had fun. Xavier sure got big since I saw him or maybe it's his hair

Heh. I think his hair didn't grow... it just stayed the same distance from the ground and he grew a bit. They were almost as good as the R10s were.

**BRENT**

[manaox2]

Nice pics, it seems like it was a great crowd in attendance. Nice to see Ingwe has been spotted again!

[cetoole]

Looks like "my favorite mexican" and friends had a good meet!

[tyrion]

Great pics Brent. It looks you guys had a great time.

[dBel84]

Great pics always speak volumes - nice

OK, so maybe they do need an introduction, but I will let our good  friend TomB answer that one for you.

c'mon spill some beans ..dB

[Beefy]

Great pics

c'mon spill some beans ..dB

Pretty sure the long amp with tubes is the L'espressivo. Looking forward to details of that project soon......

[shellylh]

Nice pics Brent. Thanks for sharing.

[MexicanDragon]

Great pics always speak volumes - nice

OK, so maybe they do need an introduction, but I will let our good  friend TomB answer that one for you.

c'mon spill some beans ..dB

If I'm not mistaken, dsavitsk could possibly shed some light on this DAC/amp duo, but don't multiquote me on it.

**BRENT**

[Asr]

Was any alcohol consumed? No meet is complete without alcohol you know.

[dsavitsk]

If I'm not mistaken, dsavitsk could possibly shed some light on this DAC/amp duo, but don't multiquote me on it.

Indeed I can.

The DAC is pretty simple. It is a CS8416 receiver connected to a SRC4192 upsampling to 96K connected to a Wolfson WM8741 DAC chip. The output is straight off the chip. Generally, people put a buffer, or an opamp, or at least some caps there since the output is biased up ~2.5V and can't drive a difficult load. Here, however, because the amp it was connected to (with short low capacitance cables) has an input transformer, the bias is effectively nullified. The amp thus acts as the output stage for the DAC.

The amp is one of my prototypes that Tom has been listening to. It is basically a differential mosfet follower using an input transformer for a little voltage gain, and an output transformer to block offset. The fets are CCS loaded, and there is a servo that measures offset and adjusts one of the current sources to keep them in balance. The arrangement, which is fully differential (not balanced bridged) makes sure that there are no caps in the signal path, no power supply caps in the signal current loops (the "rail" caps are 0.1u per side), and no attempting to match inherently unmatchable P and N channel devices.

Here is a simplified schematic:

The amp is pretty much designed around, and voiced for Grados. It works OK with a few other phones, but really seems to excel with Grados. There will be a couple of prototypes at CanJam (TomB and I have a table) in nice wood and anodized cases. There will also, I should add, be a new tube amp and maybe a DAC next to it -- more on that in a few days.

The long tube amp is one of our prototypes. We had been hoping that prototypers would build them, we'd make changes, and we'd have at least a semblance of the kits at CJ. Alas, the prototype transformers that I thought would take ~3 weeks took two months to get wound. They should be here tomorrow, so more on this very soon. But, we'll have the first version at CJ anyhow with kits sometime later this summer.

[LarsMarkelson]

Awesome pics. This post prompted me to get that Dave Matthews album, weeeee.

[purk]

I had a blast their meeting new and old friends. Wish I can stay a bit longer to chat and listen to more gears. Brent was fun as usual, his kids are super cute!!.

[jeffreyj900]

I had a great time at the meet. Good to see the usual cast of characters as well as new. Always enjoy getting to hear Purk's stuff.... Enjoyed the L3000's the most in my setup. It's hard to get a good listen at meets. Really liked the Extreme that Brent brought. Nice job NG. The HP-1's were very nice. I just can't listen to Grado's for long, uncomfortable. Liked the HD-800's. I think if I was going to get another headphone it would be those or JH13's. Heard some stax for the first time. Couldn't get a seal on Trav's set. The others were... I forget, but sounded nice. The dac above that dsavitsk comments on, VERY nice looking. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was hooked up to that amp when I stopped by with some HF-1's. However, nothing was coming through. My ADD took over and I went on to the next thing. Always enjoy listening to Fitz's K1000's and that amp of his. Brent is as crazy as ever. Hard to believe those were his offspring. Miracles do happen I suppose. Purk was lucky to get his R10's back. My wife liked them cause she thought the wood was pretty. Need to get together with Purk for some serious listening. Would like to compare the SDS and ZD as well as his 5910 and my 3910. I am anxious to try the Amprex 7062's in the 3910. I have the stock GE's I got from RiceBoy when I purchased it. I was proud of Cybertron leaving with more than he came with! He went home with Brent's HF-1/HF-2 matching serial number combo.....

PS: That first pick of Trav ROCKS! Brent, much better pics this year versus the one's of the toilet you posted last year.

[MexicanDragon]

Hey guys... thanks to dsavitsk for the info on that combo of yours. @JJ, I'm sorry my little rig was better than yours, I know it's hard to come to terms with it, especially since my Denon is stock.

I'm proud of Cybertron/Wheels/Josh as well... he's finally getting a good rig up and running. I'm glad you got them, man... hope you're getting a lot of listening in.

Also @JJ, that's Ingwe up at the top, not Trav. Crazy picture, though, doesn't really look like anyone there.

When's the next one?

**BRENT**

[dBel84]

Thanks Doug, I recognized the parafeed. The mosfet follower looks interesting, but then mosfets always look interesting to me ..dB

[mrarroyo]

It was a great meet specially meeting so many new people. I really loved the sound from dsavitsk new dac/amp combo as well as Fitz amp which he used to drive his K1000. I tell you if he wishes to sell I would like an opportunity to buy it, it is that good.

Of course for me the best part of the meet was seeing my family in Atlanta and finding out that the chemo is working and my dads tumors (2) to a returning renal cancer have shrunk significantly (or so the oncologist says). Oh yeah!

[MexicanDragon]

It was nice to meet you, Miguel. Glad to hear your dad is doing well, great news!

**BRENT**

[mrarroyo]

Thanks Brent and I hope to see in the next Florida meet, will not be able to make it to CanJam10.

[jeffreyj900]

Great news Miguel! Enjoyed talking and getting to meet you.

[mrarroyo]

Hi Jeffrey, did you buy an R10 for your wife? She really seemed to liked it.

[jeffreyj900]

Hi Jeffrey, did you buy an R10 for your wife? She really seemed to liked it.

Nope. I finally got an amp for my Harbeth's though.

[mrarroyo]

Sweet, what amp did you get?

[jeffreyj900]

Manley Lab Series 100 Mono Blocks - 100 WPC - Pre-cursor to Snappers