Headfi Meet 2014 - My Thoughts

Hi.

This is not a philosophical, logical, mind-bending blog entry. Nope. If that's all you look for in this blog, turn around and wait for the next post. Today I want to talk about my experience at an event I went to, followed up by general thoughts on audio as a hobby. Rest assured, I'm not turning this into an audio blog.

On 7-19-2014 there was a Headfi meet. Headfi is the largest audio forum for audio gear as far as I know. As the name hints, it is centered around headphones. I will talk a little bit more about my thoughts on Headfi a little later. Headfi had a meet, which is where forum members come together and bring their audio gear for other people to try out. Some companies send some of their gear and their representatives to showcase what they have. It's $20 to get in per person. Not bad, considering it was $15 if you buy ahead of time, plus the event took place in a hotel and booking multiple rooms probably costed them quite a bit. There was a raffle where over a thousand dollars of stuff were given away. Unfortunately, I could not stay for over three hours.

I brought along two friends. One had to get me there and became my camera man. He tried all of the headphones and earphones and said he was not impressed. He's a bit of an odd one. He swears by his $30 earphones, the Razer Morays. Razer is not known to quality audio products and instead caters to the mainstream gaming crowd that cares about flash over substance. And the Morays are not even their highest-end offering. Yet he insists that his earphones, while not 'as accurate', is 'more like a real concert'. I listened to his earphones and it sounded like utter garbage. I'd rather listen to my car speakers. And my car is a 1996 Toyota Corolla. He had some funky EQ, and after he turned it off, it was a lot better. Nice for a $30 earphone I think, but not stellar. He later says his computer settings were out of whack, causing me to dislike it. The other friend is Mark, and he's not really an audiophile either. I taught him a few things though.

The next section is very image heavy. After the images comes a more broad section about my opinions regarding audio.

Little picture of stuff for sale in the meet from various Headfi members. They were giving out free stands?!

This is the Audeze table. It's hosted by a very cool DJ/audiophile that's related to the founders of Audeze in some way. On the table were LCD 2, 3, X, and XC. I prefer open headphones myself, so I was trying to hear the differences between each. These are the high end bass machines! A very different headphone from my HD800s. Mark and I both really enjoyed these. Favorite headphones on the show! My biggest issue with the LCDs is that the leather doesn't really breathe. Long sessions of gaming in a warm room sounds bad. They are also a bit on the heavier side. Not ridiculous but not the best. I think the LCDX is the best looking headphone that exists, aesthetics-wise.
I'm not necessarily a bass-head in that in all my tracks, I'm looking for bass. I am not looking for any bass on a piano track, for example. But there are times when I'm looking for that bass slam that's not boomy. Controlled, smooth bass with punch. When the bass hit in the guy's tracks, Mark and I looked at each other because we both knew this will get interesting.

I take picture of you taking a picture of them! The guy is very passionate about not just audio gear - but music. It's something you don't see that often in Headfi-circles, believe it or not. Some lay the charge that audiophiles spend more time listening to their gear than listening to music. Then again, we can draw a similar parallel for overclockers spending more time tweaking overclocks and running Prime95 than fragging people at Battlefield 4. But this guy, he's a DJ, he mixes his own music. Interesting display of songs, unlike the normal stereotypical audiophile type of tracks. These tracks play to the LCD's strengths I think... I can actually hear the bass with these tracks as opposed to Hifiguy528's table. Cool, weed-smoking, chill dude, rocking out to music! My only gripe is that he likes his music LOUD, as a DJ. You could turn the headphones into head-speakers at that point. Yes, they are open so they sound quieter than a normal person would assume from outside. But the volume was loud enough to cause issues to my ear, but not quite loud enough for me to quickly turn down the volume. (Turning down the volume affects his volume as well.) I wish I kept better track of which songs I enjoyed in the meet. The guy had a nice setup that allowed for many headphones to play at once. I'd like that one day. Nice for ABX tests, nice for minimal-hassle headphone switching.

Just a random picture of peoplez. There are a total of... I think 4 women in the entire place. Why are my hobbies so predominately male? (Besides like clothing etc) What exactly do females DO?

Entrance. $20 to get in. They had me marked down as "Dark_wizzie" cuz i'm teh wizzle.

This is Hifiguy528's table. He's a Youtuber. That's me trying out the Audeze LCD3. But the guy has very light songs, so I wasn't very impressed with them at this table. Mark is there trying out the HD700s. Why does everybody there have Macs or iPads? It's kindda creepy.

Hifiguy528's Wooaudio amps, although not my cup of tea, certainly LOOKS cool.

I was very excited to try out the STAX. As you might be able to tell, Mark there has donned the STAX 009, the most expensive headphone I know of - $4000! It is an electrostatic headphone, so its technology is different and requires a different amp. I really enjoyed the STAX 009. I think it does the sound better than my HD800s - but I think the soundstage is shrunk down. I'd still probably try my HD800s for gaming. But the electrostatics are LIGHTWEIGHT! It is way lighter than it looks.

PHOTOBOMB! I made a solemn pact long ago in the Andes Mountains to never smile in a photograph, EVER.

Apart from the Audeze LCDs and the Alpha Dogs, I also enjoyed the Hifiman HE-6, even though they are a real dog to try to amp properly and is one of the few headphones that will make my O2 amp struggle. Mark enjoyed the AKG Q701s, but frankly I didn't like it. For some reason they sounded too harsh on the highs. Mark thought they were very comfortable, but my HD800s are comfortable enough as is. When I'm on the Battlefield, the maps are wide open. So my headphones better sound WIDE OPEN. Can't beat the HD800s for that.

Mr. Speaker's table! He's a cool guy! My second favorite table behind the Audeze table! Mark and I both enjoyed the LCDs more than these but the price gap is huge. We also both enjoyed these headphones even though they were closed. We both preferred the Alpha Dogs over the Mad Dog. The Alpha Dog is the first headphone to be 3D printed! Mr. Speakers (love his name BTW) has a nice selection of tracks too. Nice down to earth guy. When we keep swapping between the two headphones, the wires started becoming more and more tangled. We had to manually detangle them!

Little on-the-move shot of us walking from Headfi room to room in the hotel.

Look at me, I am soo0o0oOOOo0o0oo Audi-O-File! I'm standing behind a water dispensing contraption that contains only melted ice! I'm drinking water from a glass cup! Come at me bro! SNOB SNOB SNOBBERY SNOB SNOB!!!111 

Why am I smiling while pouring water? Anyways, I like this water dispensing contraption! Really cool!

Come to SF, they said. It'll be cold, they said. Then it hit me that it's summer time and I'm in a hotel, not outside being hit by wind from the Bay. 

So to break it down, my favorite headphones from the meet (HD800s not counted): LCDx or LCD3, HE-6, and Alpha Dog. I wasn't expecting much from the HE-6... Reviews didn't seem to be that great and it's a pain in the ass to amp. But I enjoyed it. And the Alpha Dog, which are closed, meaning sound doesn't easily come out. I think open-backed headphones are typically nicer, allows for a more spacious, natural sound, but the Alpha Dogs were quite nice.Ultimate Ears had a table but the guy there said he was a replacement guy. He seemed like the most disorganized person in the room. He had a few earphones placed on a table with no device to try them out with on the table. My two favorite tables are the Audeze booth and the Mr. Speakers booth. Both had a fun dude at the helm and good tracks. I was pleasantly surprised at a wireless headphone table I went to. I forgot the name, but you could charge it via usb cable or use batteries. And the sound plus the wireless capabilities for a price of $175? I'd recommend it! Overall, it has been a fun day. I didn't get to try everything though, because I was time limited to 3 hours before my ride leaves without me.

So about audio in general... I think all things equal, a solid state amp should sound the same as another one. A solid state amp is just a normal amp. Amps amplify the sound, for things like headphones. I feel as far as accuracy goes, the O2 amp is as good as it gets. Well, technically you might be able to find better, but at ridiculous prices and with very minimal gains which shouldn't be audible. NWavguy, the guy who designed the O2 and the Odac, is somebody I respect for his approach to things. He did things by measurements and science and testing, not by hunches or feelings or by ear. Our ears are very fallible - NWavguy has a whole page on it. Of course, we run into problems like... how do we blind test headphones? Even if we could do it normally, from where will the gear come from? And done in a nice, quiet room with no time limit? Anyways. There are tube amps, which are esoteric, etc etc. But for now I'll stick to the O2. Seems fine to me. And I've tried many tube setups at the meet, too.

It's obvious that different headphones sound different. That part isn't argued by anybody. The question is whether you like one over another based on sound characteristics alone - which is a test that can be done. The real placebo, I think, is first and foremost in the cable section, where people spend tons of money on cables. And then the amps which cost thousands of dollars. Why would you make a tube amp, which is to color the sound to your liking, as neutral as possible? If you want that, go grab an O2.

I'm fine with somebody saying, I know my purchase is made on an emotional level - owning such and such makes me feel good, it looks good, I want cool toys, blah blah blah. But once you say, I like these because these sound better, you've made a claim which can be tested. And so I'll quickly go over my opinions on other aspects of audio: 16 bit is all you need, 24 bit is useless. 44khz sample rate is just fine. FLAC is very hard to distinguish from MP3 when both are done properly. Onboard audio on a motherboard is fine for the large majority of users if their motherboard is relatively decent. Blind testing is the golden standard to rule out expectation bias, placebo, mind-fuckery, etc. When buying new headphones, the best thing you can do is to try them out for yourself.

And once again, about the accusation that audiophiles spend more time listening to their gear than their music, this is probably true. But also as I mentioned, there are people who spent more time overclocking their CPU than playing games on it. I guess whatever people wanna do is whatever they wanna do. Of course, I'd still advise many audiophiles to spend a little more time enjoying their music. And carrying over what I mentioned from the "What we can learn from headphonse" blog post, basically, a headphone hobby might sound insane price-wise, if you look at how much a Lambo or a nice house costs, these headphones are chump change in comparison. It's all relative. Do you know that people spend tons of money collecting old coins and stamps or paintings?

And so now about Head-fi: Head-fi has been known to censor people. It's funded by a lot of audio companies, and there's an interest to protect them on the forums. For example, you are not allowed to mention double blind tests in the cable forum. Double blind testing is instead posted in a 'sound science' section of the forum, which gets very few posts. In essence, people are getting half the story here when they ask for advice. NWavguy was banned there and many others. On the other hand, Headfi makes up for it by the numbers. They have so many members. They can start Headfi meets. Others cannot. They get dibs on new gear and have more reviews. I think Headfi is a fine resource if you take the stuff on there with a grain of salt. Hydrogenaudio is great and all, but they focus on science instead of comparing gear to gear and half of the things said on the forum is not intelligible to the average user.