2022 Texas Audio Roundup

Discussion in 'The Meeting Place' started by purr1n, Jul 21, 2022.

  1. Slade01

    Slade01 Almost "Made"

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    I was just gleaning through this thread and saw this bit about the Alnico drivers which was extremely intriguing. As a former guitarist, I always did the same - always changed the ceramics for Alnicos over the years in both amps and pickups. I'm sure many in music who always opted for Alnicos - just hearing the possibility of it being in a headphone, it's definitely an attention getter. "Shut up and take my money" kind of thing! Can't wait to hear more about this in the future!
     
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  2. ColdsnapBry

    ColdsnapBry Almost "Made"

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    Enjoying reading some impressions of amazing stacks. Thanks for this!
     
  3. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    Congrats on what sounds like an awesome show! Really sucks for me that it coincided with me taking a long-planned out of state trip. I would have loved to meet some more of you. Glad it went well, though.
     
  4. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    First and foremost, want to say big shout out to everyone that made this event possible. I had a great time seeing everyone again and also meeting a bunch of new faces.

    I booked my tickets and flights little late this year and decided to take this event more of the vacation. I made a very dumb mistake that I only realize once I arrived.

    I ended up flying to Dallas and then realized oh wait the event is in Austin! 3 hours, $300, and a rental car later I arrived. Definitely should have double checked to make sure I was flying into the right airport but glad I was still able to make it.
     

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  5. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    Very briefly - I would like to thank all the people behind the scenes who made this show possible, who brought or sent gear in, and made this show happen for us. And on top of that, even if 1 or 2 tickets isn't $$$ for most, I really do appreciate how the hosts ate additional costs by making it free just for the benefit of the community at large.

    I will also briefly say the DAC shootout was curious for me. Not in what DACs people liked or not, but as someone without a huge amount of experience in 2 channel, I was surprised at how much easier it was to hear the difference between DACs yesterday. Not sure if it's because it was a bigger room vs past DAC comparisons I've done (HP or 2ch), the speakers, the amp, the music, the DACs being more varied, or something else, but I'm curious to find out about this now.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
  6. obsiCO

    obsiCO Thai Fish Experiment Gone Wrong

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    Heck, I'm thousands of miles away from the event and I'm having a blast reading through this thread, living vicariously through you all. Just really happy to see that everyone's having fun and a good sign of the world opening up again.

    On another note, ETA headphones are worth everyone's attention. I have been living with Mini O and C for a good few months and love them so much that I bring them everywhere I go. They are great-sounding out of a modest phone yet scale well, are easy to drive, and most of all cheap. Can't wait to pick up the Mini S!
     
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  7. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    I could write incredibly detailed and autistic impressions about everything I heard at the meet like I have for other audio events in the past, but I won’t because quite frankly the gear was not a highlight for me at this show, and it’s definitely not because the gear was bad. Some awesome stuff was shown off and I think everybody has their favorites.

    Really, it’s just that the best parts of the event by a long shot for me were talking to real life people. I had more fun shooting the shit over drinks or dinner or just trying to talk to people by basically yelling over the DAC off jack off session than actually listening to anything. Past a certain point there isn’t really any gear or listening session that beats the in-person real human bean experience.

    My only comment specifically on the gear is that the only box in the entire hotel that not a single person had a bad word to say about was the $150 Nitsch amp. It’s not because everything else was bad, and it’s also not because the Nitsch amp was the unambiguous best piece of gear in the whole hotel either. Nor is it just because @CEE TEE was rocking a slick haircut. That is all.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
  8. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    One other thing I will say that needs to be said is that it seems @schiit is back on the right path of good sound despite measurements. I was getting worried too much attention was being given to the measurabators, but given Folkvanger, Piety, BF2/64, and hopefully new Modi MB later this year, it seems good sound is the better win.

    I also like the added features in stuff like Lyr 3. Good stuff.
     
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  9. insidious meme

    insidious meme Ambivalent Kumquat

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    Gatekeeping says more about gatekeepers than anything else. IMO, it's pathetically sad to find some sort of euphoria from exclusivity. Be surprised and enjoy it, but don't jealously guard it with your life.

    This has always been my issue with meets. I'd vow to actually get some listening in at the next one, but sure enough I fall back on old behavior and be social.

    Looks like the meet went well, although I'm sure with more exposure from other sites (Emotiva and Schiit drove this train although some folk would like to think otherwise) it could have been bigger. Guess some things never change.
     
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  10. Erroneous

    Erroneous Friend

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    The thing that warms my cold, dead heart is that Schiit and Emotiva made this event free for EVERYONE. Vendors, attendees, all were welcome to just come, join in the fun and get together. No strings attached, just bring your ass and have fun.

    Big kudos to the people who put this on as a gift to the community. I bet it gets bigger each year.
     
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  11. SoupRKnowva

    SoupRKnowva Official SBAF South Korean Ambassador

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    What.A.f'ing.Meet

    First we need to thank everyone that put this on. Whether that's Schiit and Emotiva for footing the bill, so that we and other vendors could all attend for free, or @purr1n and Denise at Schiit for planning the whole thing, or community members like @penguins and @Erroneous going out of their way to make sure as much sick f'ing gear got to the meet in the best shape possible for all of us to listen to, or Marv's family running the check in booth. A lot of people gave it their all to make sure this thing went off without many hitches and was a great time for all us attendees. Bravo to everyone, your contributions were not unnoticed.


    As a few others have said, the highlight of this meet, like almost every other I've been to was the people. The true highlight was Saturday afternoon just bullshitting in the Nitsch room with Marv and some other members about life, audio, etc for several hours. Sure I missed my appointment in the Magnepan room cause of it, but I hear I didn't miss much. Seeing @CEE TEE again after so many years, man, what a human, just overflowing with life and love for the community and bringing excellent gear to us. He truly has a vision and the brains to execute on it for Nitsch, I can't wait to see what else he has for us. Friday afternoon I ran into a gentlemen, Ken I believe his name was?, in the Eddie Current room that was babysitting the gear, and rather than listening to the frugal horns on the Yggdrasil and studio B, there was music on in the background, we ended up just chatting about tech and our experiences working for several hours, nerding out about engineering challenges we'd had to overcome. It was all the little conversations like this that truly made the meet special. Getting that live interaction with Marv learning about speakers, the man is just a wealth of knowledge on all things audio and I love getting to pick his brain.


    Anyways, all the circle jerking out of the way, I do have a few impressions.

    Disclaimer: my view on meet impressions is that they should be a sort of guide, not to be used as any sort of firm review or absolutes. As with most meets some part of or most of the rig you're listening too is new to you, so drawing any sort of firm impressions is impossible, not to mention not necessarily having access to the music you want to use.

    I didn't listen to much gear Friday, mostly doing the chatting thing. But, we did have the dac off Friday night after the show ended. Marv might've ruined my punchline, but I'll give my thoughts anyways.The rig was entirely foreign to me, I've never heard freya or Tyr amps before. Neither have I heard Marv's speakers, and they weren't particularly my cup of tea, but as @penguins said, the rig overall did a pretty good job highlighting the differences between the Dacs. and I won't be pulling any punches in regards to one of the dacs we heard.

    The dacs on hand were the Rockna Wavedream Edition, Chord Dave + MScaler, Yggdrasil OG, Sonnet Pasithea and Abbas 2.3

    I can still remember the first time I saw someone post pics of the Abbas gear, and I called it a Ukrainian Highschool Science project. It sounded broken. It was easily the worst dac in the comparison, and honestly isn't even worthy of critique imo. It can't handle any even remotely complex music, any metal we put on just turned into a mushy soupy mess of noise without ability to discern the music at all. This total lack of ability to separate complex passages along with a lack of detail and precision is just a total non-starter, even my Gungnir DS wipes the floor with the Abbas 2.3, I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone. I know some will try to defend this dac by talking about its few strengths such as "timbre" or how it presents voices, etc, but to me this is a sideshow, like trying to debate the hops used in Natty Ice beer, when everything else about the product is so bad, I can't see why the one or two things it does well matter.

    As for the best dac in the comparison, I would easily say it was the Dave, but that is helped by the fact that I have extensively compared it and the Wavedream in my own home for over a month earlier this year. But as I said in my review there are definitely things the Wavedream does better and that was born out by many people in the room picking the Wavedream as the best dac present.

    My overall ranking would be Dave > Wavedream > Yggdrasil > Pasithea > > > > > > Abbas 2.3


    I got to hear some headphones as well. First I stopped by the ETA booth as people have had some nice things so say about those cans, I heard the portable closed cans they had on Friday. I can't say they bowled me over, they sounded fine, but the issue I have is with the pricing. They sound like good 200-250 dollar headphones, not 400 dollar ones, and I know some other members I spoke to that had similar thoughts.

    I got to hear quite a few of the newest orthos as well. I think my favorite of which at the show was the @rhythmdevils modded LCD-4, they didn't sound like audeze's at all, very open and even frequency response, nicely detailed. I much preferred them to the LCD-X, which I thought had some etch or harshness. The DCA Stealth was also not too bad, but the music choice in this room great limited my ability to test these cans, but they are incredibly light, look cool, fold up to a small size and are closed back while sounding very open and clean, I wouldn't mind hearing these again with more music. The LCD-5 and MM-500 at the audeze booth also weren't too bad, I would need more time with them to really pick apart the few issues I think I was hearing with the FR, but probably worth another listen.

    I also got to hear a few ZMF cans for the first time. I know going in these wouldn't really be my cup of tea based on what people have said about them, but I wanted to hear them regardless. I was expecting to like the Verite the most based on others impressions, which wasn't the case, the FR really screwed with vocals, particularly male vocals, these came off my head immediately. The Atrium though wasn't too bad, the bass was a little fat, but overall they were very agreeable headphones, technicalities wise I don't think they are worth the asking price, Id say they should be sub 1k, but many people don't value those things as much as I do and love wood.

    All that said, I'm no slave to the new hotness, I wouldn't take any of the new cans I heard at the meet over a pair of Focal Utopia if I were to get back into headphones. The Utopia are still king to me.

    Speaking of the Utopia one of the few rigs where I got to hear where there was only one piece of gear I wasn't familiar with was on Saturday in the DNA room. I brought my Dave back for @crenca, he had shown a lot of interest in the dac after the dac off, so I wanted him to be able to spend some more time with it. Which meant I also got to check out the Starlett being fed by Dave + MScaler into Utopia. This rig sounded phenomenal with some vocal focused tracks, bringing that tube magic and realism to voices. however, and some will label this heresy, overall I preferred the Utopia straight out the Dave for most of the music I checked out, I would actually say Utopia driven by Dave was the best at show for me. This is keeping in mind my preference for separation but also precision and clarity, Im not looking for a "tube" sound most of the time, and don't prefer that coloration with most of my music.

    Anyways, that as enough rambling from me, can't wait for the next event whenever and wherever it happens to be!
     
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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Dave -> DSHA3F would have been what you wanted. Dave HP out is actually good.

    I wanted to get more time on the Stellaris, but every other time I was there, the amp was out of commission. Evidently someone could not resist rolling the Elrog rectifier tube, which blew the fuse not once but twice! Unfortunately, the second time around we did not have a spare fuse. Yup, shiney expensive exotic tube is hard to resist. So hard that we need to blow it up a second time! This is dumber than Pavlov's dog! :(

    PXL_20220723_195930676.jpg

    You guys know what always I ask: do you listen to tubes or do you listen to music? Seriously, this wasn't needed because the Stellaris is sooo good that it sounds awesome with "shit" tubes.

    Oh... I know everything that happens at meets: who, what, where. Daddy Marv is disappointed, very disappointed in you.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
  13. gridmaster

    gridmaster Facebook Friend

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    I'll own up to it and publicly apologize for blowing the second fuse.
    I'm deeply sorry, I thought it was the adapted tube that blew the first one.
    Noted for any future meets I go to, don't mess with anything!

    I did call home depot but they said they didn't have 2.0A 5x20mm slow blow (Howard gave me the specs)
    I couldn't find any other local electronics stores in Austin on maps.

    It was a pleasure to meet everyone. Had a great time!
     
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  14. insidious meme

    insidious meme Ambivalent Kumquat

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    Are you this guy?

    [​IMG]

    (Edit: For anyone thinking I'm targeting this person, this post was already going up even if someone didn't own up to it. It's the type of behavior that makes me wonder about this hobby sometimes.)
     
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  15. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Changing anything on other people's 5 figure amps without permission is not cool. You should be begging for permission just to plug different headphones in.
     
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  16. Erroneous

    Erroneous Friend

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    This was all my idea and I coordinated it. If y'all would like to blame anyone, please blame me!
     
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  17. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    I had a lot of fun. Been busy, can’t wait to write about it.
    options and photos later

    short story once, my 2nd meet/show. It is energizing, being around like minded people. Meeting people and chatting is great. Going out to lunch and moving away from avatars to people is really humbling to me. And of course the food.
     
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  18. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Congrats! Seriously, if there's anyone in this community that fills me with genuine enthusiasm and excitement, it's you. I admire your dedication, not just to your craft, but that you always have the community in mind. You're always looking for ways to deliver great things to people without making them bend over or kneel for you. And you're always so damn nice, humble, and caring!

    I'm not sure how many SBAF members today were aware of how shitty the hobby was a decade ago, nor am I sure how aware members are of the impact you had actively trying to fix that in the years since. I'm sure many haven't had a chance to work with you the way I have either (for which I appreciate in ways that are difficult to convey).

    @CEE TEE is the real deal, for those that don't know! And I'm super stoked to see the Piety become a real thing.


    Onto some quick Piety impressions (putting in this thread until there's a dedicated one)...

    I heard an early prototype of what became the Piety a while back...a couple years ago? It was definitely promising. I don't recall exactly what I thought of it. And I got to hear the latest version next to the 3+ a few months ago. I'll share some of the thoughts I texted @CEE TEE, though I'm not sure if anything has changed design-wise with the amp:

    - Rather lush and robust sound

    - Forward presentation, lacks stage depth (I'm not the best judge of this, and depth might have been my DAC at the time)

    - High gain has moderate-to-high amount of bass and low-mid bloom

    - Tone is fairly warm

    - Timbre has slight soft/fuzzy characteristics but is generally well behaved

    - High and low gain sound noticeably different

    - Low gain really seems to tighten things up while retaining the more colorful or tube-like traits of the amp

    - Mild reduction in macro dynamics on low gain, but a good tradeoff for a tighter sound

    - 3+ bests it in overall clarity, control, speed, and especially staging

    - However, 3+ can sometimes sound a bit too hot in the upper-mids, sounds a bit strained at time (like it's trying too hard), and isn't particularly great for relaxed listening

    - Piety is really lush on the low end, softer in upper-mids and lower-treble, but slight hint of splashiness in mid-treble

    - 3+ sounds neutral, sometimes almost a bit lean, in upper-bass and low-mids, is more aggressive in upper-mids and low-treble, but might have slightly cleaner mid and upper-treble (not saying 3+ is lean, just in comparison to Piety)

    - Piety has a bit of BH Crack in the sound

    - Piety did fairly well with what planar I tested it with (Ether CX) and didn't make it sound limp dick

    I tried to sum it up with this analogy:

    3+ is the kid that's blatantly trying hard to be the best in school, annoyingly so. Piety is the kid that is inherently gifted, doesn't have to try, spends most of their time goofing off and procrastinating, and yet still does really well despite an inherent amount of sloppiness in their work.

    The only complaint I really had was that I requested a price point of $50 so that I could comfortable purchase 4 of the amps. But the $150 asking price is still more than fair, I think.
     
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  19. MellowVelo

    MellowVelo Friend

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    What are we looking at here? Honest question. I don’t know enough about tube amps to identify the issue.
     
  20. archer88

    archer88 Friend

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    It's a Feliks Euforia/Elise with a ton of adapters that let's one use tubes not directly meant for the amp. I guess something similar happened with the Stellaris? Not sure why though: the Stellaris takes a 5U4G natively but it doesn't play well with a Elrog 5U4G?
     

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