I was there all day, but didn't leave my booth. I did borrow a Lyr 2 to have in my booth. Didn't get a chance to listen to it much though. I have all the Questyle gear in my booth too.


And for Pirates, if you want to hear Alex's modded Oppo PM-1's, you can come by my booth but you have to ask for the Oppo's to try them. They won't be left out for the general public.


Also, another tip... If you are interested in any of the raffle prizes for Headphonium, Come by my booth and enter the raffle. Today there were a total of TWO completed raffle cards for the whole day! Um that means you are really likely to win something. You have to get the raffle cards at my booth and return them to my booth to enter.


My booth is in the Headphonium Too or Marketplace II on the ground floor of the Hilton.


I won't be at my booth tomorrow at all, but will be back on Sunday.


-Darin

Can't make it this year, but from the sounds of it, I'm not missing much.


Any news on the Schiit Wyrd?

Ask Jason about it personally.

My impressions from Friday:

* First thing I listened to was LCD2.3 out of the RSA amp (must have been the Darkstar?) and it was bloody awful. No idea who thought that would be a good sounding combo. I asked the rep to plug it into the Cavalli amp (was it the LAu?) and it was much better. I still think the LCD2 is a good headphone despite its obvious faults

* Mad Dog was very bassy, or bassier than I remember. First time listening to the Alpha Dog; did not seem as neutral as advertised IMO

* Schiit booth was top notch as always. Enjoyed both the LCD3 and modded HD800 out of the Rag. I preferred the LCD3 in that given system, although I usually lean toward the HD800. HE500 (out of the Asgard) was lame sounding to me and I don't think it's the Asgard's fault. HD650 is a better headphone side-by-side IMO. Valhalla2 was good with the HD650 and PS500. I'd be very interested to compare Valhalla1 and 2 in my own system, as I did think they sounded different from memory. Didn't give the Lyr2 much time.

* Nothing new at the Cavalli booth. LAu is still excellent. I was more on the fence about HD800 and Liquid Glass.

* HeadAmp booth was a mixed bag. Was fun to compare the SR007 and SR009. I ended up preferring the SR009 with pretty much all of the tracks I was familiar with. Anax: I also heard an issue with the HeadAmp system. It seemed like some sort of channel imbalance to me, but both of the estats seemed to have it. Dunno what was up.

* I liked the Mini Maggie system that was in the Atrium. Didn't like the controlled demo though. Controlled demos suck.

* MSB room was pretty killer, kind of took me by surprise.

* Empirical Audio: Seriously one of the better systems at the show. Another pleasant surprise. Those RAAL ribbons seem to really deliver; I hope to play with them eventually in my own system.

* YG Acoustics room was very good to my ears. Mostly because they had plenty of space to work with I think.

* I browsed the Woo Audio room for a bit. Got to listen to the K1000 for the first time and was incredibly underwhelmed. There were some other good pairings that I listened to through the Woo amps though I can't remember specific combos. What I do remember is that the unmodded Abyss + crazy Woo monoblocks was quite poor sounding to me. Despite all those around me who were singing its praises.

* The Janszen ESLs were my favorite from last year, despite a bit of nagging harshness that I noticed. This year he replaced the amplification with some triode/FET hybrid which was MILES above the Bryston gear that was driving it before. I noted the differences before David even told me that he was using different amplification. He conceded himself that the Bryston gear wasn't up to snuff for his speakers.  So yeah... IIRC the side-firing tweeters are new this year, which is a very cool idea. The Janszen speakers are not only really accurate and articulate, but also have a real coherent quality. My favorite system from this year again. I want these.

* The speakers in the ESS room were definitely sub-par like Greed mentioned. But I got to talk with one of the guys about their AMTs and it looks like it could be another good option to try in my own system if I could come up with a crossover configuration to allow it. Would definitely be cheaper than the RAALs, but not as detailed I'd wager.

* Was hoping more from the Usher + Pass room (under Katli Audio) but it was pretty damned awful. Tonally dull, poor imaging; really not reproducing my recordings correctly. Lame-o

Did Sony show up this year?

In a big way. Headphonium, a shared display in one of the Crystal Ballrooms, and a tower room. They are going all out on the new hi-res campaign.