ETA Festivus + SoCal Meet (End of August / Early September 2021)

thank you everyone for coming today! It was a lot of fun seeing you all

 

My first meet but it wont be my last. The excitement and generosity of the community was great.

Got to here some nice psudo-vintage from @Jh4db536 truly an amazing passion project. Rich midrange, nice way to enjoy favorites. Was a guilty pleasure with a ipod. Not the highest end digital end but it did bring out enough air from the vinyl alac rips loaded onto it.

Never much of a classical person myself but @animus setup with the wave dream and the SJR with utopia would have me listening. Mauler is pretty amazing

Thanks to @netforce Got to hear the Bryston BHA-1 with the HD800s, with the convert 2 and the recent Amp and Sound Forge. What a energetic setup, a bit too much for me on the BHA-1, but if I was to be honest I did do a torture test where I failed. It didn't forgive the last edge is my test tracks.

As for the A&S forge, it is pretty punchy. Nice little tube amp, well not truly little, maybe it was the OPT that gave its proportions. The OPT vs the KT88 is about twice the size most photos don't reveal that. Nice setup pretty dynamic and punchy, still retained some of that zip that the HD800s is known for.

 

What a fine looking bunch! Great to see old friends and meet new ones.

 

Looks like an excellent time, wonderful people and killer gear. Sad I missed it, great meetup!

 

Did you get a chance to whip up anything with the Nighthawk drivers for the group to test out? I haven't checked back into Discord in a while - only if I'm doing some gaming.

 

Nothing for today, but I do have some surgery for them planned for tomorrow - I'll take some measurements and see if I can do some transplantation, variations, and of course share with more ears before they come back to you Physically they do look remarkably similar to the Foster drivers, at least in terms of the diaphragm's front face, vent size and placement. Wondering how similarly they'll behave...

 

Great meet today. Glad I was able to make it.

- We had too much stuff

- Heard a different WD today from @animus . The normal "Wavedream" edition and the upgraded "Signature" edition sound different with the caveats of meet conditions, not my amps or tubes, only headphones no 2ch setups, etc... Ultimately, to me, the one I buy would depend largely upon the price I could get. Also, comparing it to the Holo May I heard recently, the May is no slouch compared to either version of the WD. Neither will give you a clean neutral studio sound though if that's what you like (Bricasti comes to mind here).
- I liked the Spring 2 noticibly more out of the Studio Jr more than I do out of the AF (which is probably EC's most similar offering that I'm aware of).

- The Gen G, Gen P, and other ETA products I heard today sound different from the stuff I heard during the loaner tour. IMO changes were more or less for the better.
- I don't personally like on ear headphones, but the ETA on-ear was very promising. My favorite sounding dynamic headphone I've heard by @tommytakis or @E_Schaaf to this date (both stuff from ETA and other stuff from before). Although it's been announced already, given that it's not a final product, I won't say more.
- Hearing @PTS 's Denon D7000 confirmed to me that I made a mistake not buying one when they were still in production. It's still one of the few close back headphones that I actually like.

Apologies to @YMO, @Azimuth , and others online that I was not able to engage with more. Arrived late so...

 

Had a good time yesterday, great to chat with Dan, Howard, Evan, Erik, and Tommy again. There was a surprising amount of stuff on the table!

- Very impressed with everything I heard in the ETA line. @tommytakis managed to coax an incredible about of bass from his design with HD800 drivers. I believe he's still tweaking things, but for sure onto something special. The Supra were well balanced, super-smooth, and could be listened to all day. If the design changed from on-ear to over-ear while keeping similar characteristics, I'd definitely buy them. I didn't get to directly A/B due to some amps only having XLR outputs, but I think the TH900 mods are an improvement over the stock Fostex/Denon variety. I know @E_Schaaf won't mind me saying that his early mods were tuned a little treble shy / bass heavy for my tastes, but I'm finding his recent work incredibly well balanced and enjoyable.

- I brought along some 2021 LCD-X, in a last ditch effort to see if I liked them on other setups before sending them back. Long story short, I still don't like them and fail to see the recent fervor surrounding them. Still heavy, dry, and unengaging. @elwappo99 and I shot-out old vs new LCD-X, and I thought the old LCD-X were a little better. Maybe Erik's suede pads helped?

- I finally got to try the Bryston BHA-1. Before receiving the LCD-X, I was excited to hear this combo, but my disappointment with the X caused me to drop out of the BHA-1 loaner. I have no regrets, it was kinda "myeh".

With everyone chipping in $29, I hope the cost of the room worked out? In future, I might be able to host smaller meets if everyone is fine with driving to the SFV.

 

This meet was very fun, met many internet personalities I'd otherwise known online but not in person.

By far the coolest setup there was @Jh4db536's hotrodded EC 2A3 MKIV with his Abbas 2.3 and CDP. Hits like a truck and has awesome midrange. Sounded awesome with my HD540 and his HD800, and I don't normally like HD800. Maybe a bit too upfront with HD6X0s, but I'm told a rectifier change is all that's needed to fix that. I'd really like to hear his rig with my own CDs one day, as well as with my WD Sig.

I heard some of the ETA stuff as well, though not that much because a ton of other people wanted to hear my rig. I got very little eartime with Gen G, heard Baram and ESX for a bit and Supra on both my setup and @pure5152's ECP stack. Baram was alright but perhaps a bit too uppermid heavy and lean for my taste. Supra was a bit veiled and had really reverberant bass for my music, but sounded awesome with @E_Schaaf's own electronic stuff. ESX was maybe a bit center-mid heavy tonally and way too intense and aggressive for my taste on my rig. Still enjoyed listening to them and am eager to hear more from ETA as they grow. More eartime to figure out exactly where I stand on them would help as well.

Also heard @tommytakis' setup with his Wavelight and not-his EC Ultralinear. The Ultralinear is an awesome amp and while I'm not sure I'd want to listen to everything with it, it's really fun. I heard it with my personal HD580 as well as @ChaChaRealSmooth's Code-6 and @elwappo99's HE-6SE, the two of which reinforced my dislike of planars. In the case of the Code-6, dislike may be too strong a word given the tonality actually being quite good, but the treble felt plasticky to me and the dynamics left a lot to be desired. Maybe nonplussed would be more accurate. The HE-6SE on the other hand, while not having the same compressed feel the Code-6 had, was rather poor in the mids and was even worse with treble. Nothing surprising here, just adds to how I already feel about planars in general.

@netforce also brought some interesting stuff in the form of a DC2 BHA-1 stack with the ampandsound Forge being fed from the BHA-1's pre-outs, as well as an anniversary HD800S, a Celestee and a Clear MG. The Clear MG was definitely better on my rig compared to the one I heard in a store rig in SG, and overall I'd say it does feel like a slightly improved Clear OG. It pretty effectively reduces the treble hash I always felt the OG Clear had, but the everpresent Clear mush was still there and the reduced upper mids were pretty apparent. I'm not that big on either Clear version. The DC2 and BHA-1 on the other hand... let's just say the Forge adds some much needed warmth and softness compared to the excessively lean and harsh tone from the BHA-1 and DC2 alone. Not only was this setup not nearly as dynamic as I'd been led to believe, but it lacked microdynamic engagement and nuance big time and the poor tone and timbre even with my HD580 was not exactly swinging things in its favor. Overall a setup I didn't like very much. The Forge itself seemed okay, I would probably need to hear it with a better upstream chain to figure out where it stands.

The best part though was definitely meeting everyone and chatting and sharing stories. There wasn't quite enough space for all our gear and not everyone brought a computer so we ended up spending a lot of time talking and messing around in between listening to gear and rotating computers. Netforce had a ton of really funny stories to share from the industry, as well as general discussion regarding amps and DACs and the usual. Overall I really enjoyed getting to know everyone and I hope to see some of you guys again soon in mini-meets and the like.

 

Just thought I would bump this instead of making a new thread. I'll be heading down to TSAV in Torrance around noon (and probably stay till close then get dinner after) if anyone is free and would like to join. I'm mostly going to demo dacs so I'll be bringing some gear of my own. If anyone is interested the list if below

• Bakoon 13r
• Susvara
• Diana TC
• LCD-R
• Raal HSA-1B
• Raal SR1a