Impressions Meet @ Hans from Qables 16-03-08

First of all, a big thanx to Hans for organizing this great day! The food was great, everything was available as in lots of it! The room was set-up real well, enough tables and the practical like. It even got an outside where the die-hard addicts could smoke
Really wel done and I enjoyed it very much. Already looking forward to the next one as this one went very fast. It was over before I knew it !

My impressions will come gradually as I'm really tired now, I'll start with the pics. They're not all made by me, my bf shot some of them as well.







The iQube:










Sorry Rik for the cable in front of your face, no offense ;-)


Lovely:


Life through headphones:


Life through Blow-Up Beyers:






Absolutely part of the rig that completely blew me away. What a bloody nice set-up that was (not visible on this pic though..)


My first encounter with Ergos. As you can see I liked them a whole lot.


The rest of the rig I was talking about:


Table of Dex:


Enoyins set-up:

And the last pics as there were too many to put in one post:

You are very welcome, Hans. You did a great job handling all this loons at your place haha! Awesome day!

I'll start with an impression on the Ultrasone HFI-780. I posted this on another forum as well, and since I'm too tired rewriting it you'll have to do with this:

The impressions will be kept somewhat short because of that but I listened to the 780's today and....I don't like them at all. I don't understand the hype about them after listening to them.
The bass is simply toooooo much. The highs feel more pronounced (didn't think that was possible after hearing many people complaining about the Proline-highs, but it is) and at times they even hurt my ears. The headphones were fully burned in, like had 500hrs on them so that's not the problem. I listened to them via the Larocco and Ipod.

The music I listened to was Talkie Walkie from Air, some stuff from Pleymo to check out how they handle the metal-part and to see how they would cope with more 'busy' music. I also listened to Pink Floyd.

With Air, the song was Alone in Kyoto for example, it sounded not too bad except for the bass. Compared to the Proline 750's they are less transparant, have more pronounced mids and highs and because of that I think it's more difficult to listen to each part in the music seperately which is something I really like about the 750's. (I don't know if it's because of that, I'm not knowlegable enough to describe it properly I guess).

I decided to feed them Pleymo which is really heavy stuff, with lots of different things in it to see how they would handle it. Disgusting. The bass went real low but it sounded muddy and absolutely awfull. Way too much there. You have a certain string in one song which was so piercing they hurt my ears. They have absolutely no control when it gets heavier in the music. The 750's are much calmer to listen to and you can focus on everything seperately without losing harmony. Their bass is not bloated and stays very controlled whatever you throw at them. Yes, I am a 750 fangirl, simply because I like them. If you find the 750's to bright or not like fun and because of that you wanna hear/have the 780's please look into the Proline 650's. Much more pleasant to the ears.

I also don't understand why they are being compared with the ED9's, they are totally different animals. Qua presentation of sound, control and transparancy the Prolines resemble them way more.

Oh, one good thing about them, they were really comfy!

P.S. please forgive my noobish way of descibing my impressions, but I hope they make sense and you can catch my drift.

I am still looking forward to your review, Dex, as you are more capable of describing what you hear in a proper way and I'm interested how you feel about them compared to your other Ultrasones. I feel like I have been bashing the 780's which is not the intend but I was really dissapointed with them after all the raving going on here.

That's about it for now I guess. I'll slowly work on the rest.

Stax SRM-T1S & Stax Lambda Nova Signature = wow! Best set-up I have heard in a while. I was really impressed by these. Very detailed, didn't lack impact and sounded very controlled. They were really comfortable as well. Too bad they're open for me or I might have even considered them, really awesome stuff and thanx for sharing!

Riks PMB-500 was amusing to listen to. It sounded quite canny and I suppose you can get used to that. They lacked the bottom end and impact but the voices sounded really pretty with them.

The Ergos....lovely as well!
I don't remember which I wore most, I believe the mod2. The other one was heavier and felt not really comfortable on my head.
But the one I listened to, my god, I liked it a lot. Lacked impact for me when listening to drumsessions and the like, but with, for example, Erik Claptons Stairway to Heaven, wow, really good smooth warm touch to it. I think they work really well with acoustic stuff although with electronic music they wouldn't be for me I guess.

Ow, I almost forgot...the iQube!
So far, best portable amp I've heard except for the Larocco (luckily for my wallet ). Very neutral, very detailed and smooth, combine that with long battery-life and you have an absolute great amp here.
Sounds very spacious and has an enjoyable sound.
It looks and feels great as well. I was surprised by this little one. It lacks impact and speed but it's being powered by 4 AAA batteries so. Because of that I still prefer my Larocco although they drain the batteries like a madman haha!

A big thanx to the representative from Ultrasone as well, for taking my broken 750's with him and fixing it more rapidly than I could have ever dreamt of. Hopefully they'll be back by tuesday / wednesday and that's really fast. They even helped me out while I lost my official receipt of the purchase, and that's being really appreciated