I was there on Saturday. Good to see ultra, Warren, and Ethan. Had a very nice chat with Jason Stoddard.
As you know if you were following the shoutbox on Saturday evening, I ended up buying a set of the Aedle VK-1 after listening to them for a half hour with iPad and Herus in the Tweak Studio space (the Boardroom off the lobby of the Atrium). I actually went in there hoping to listen to the Questyle Q192, but they only had it on static display. Questyle was all over the place, BTW. The Aedles are astonishingly good for a closed, on-ear can (actually, it's a bit of a misnomer to refer to them as "closed" because there are two little vents built into the aluminum housing, forward of the bottom (7 o'clock on the left and 5 o'clock on the right)). They are dynamic as hell, and to my ears my early impression is that they don't seem to have any notable peaks or valleys in the FR. And they are bloody gorgeous. Build quality seems good. Out of the box the clamping force is a bit high, but I expect them to loosen up a bit; the demo unit was extremely comfortable. I'll make them available to anybody local who wants to hear or measure them.
I've already weighed in in the Valhalla 2 thread. Suffice it to say that I was quite impressed. It's a big step forward.
I didn't listen to the Obravo headphones, but I did spend some time with their cute little portable amp. With Herus and UERM, it did nothing wrong, and if your aesthetic taste runs to brushed aluminum bricks, it's really nice looking. Gotta wonder about the pricing, though. For an amp-only unit to compete at $450, it has to be really special, and I don't think it is.
Finally got to hear the Resonessence Invicta, albeit under substandard conditions. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. If I didn't already have a Hilo, I would be all over the Invicta. Wasn't able to listen to the Concero HP because the Windows machine to which it was connected was FUBAR (pun absolutely intended; I don't know what anybody sees in Foobar).
Agree with Ultra on the new KingSound stats: they are definitely moving in a positive directon. Still have a way to go, however.
Can't think of a single speaker I heard that made me say "boy, I'd like to own a pair of those some day.
Bought a bunch of vinyl. Not sure what I was expecting from the new Coldplay album, but lush, romantic synth-pop that would not have been out of place in 1983 certainly wasn't it. The Mercury Golden Classics reissue of the Starker Bach solo cello suites is to die for. Finally found a replacement for the Munich Bach Orchestra/Richter Brandenburgs on Archiv that got tossed when my parents moved in the late 1980s--beats the bejeebers out of the CD.
