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Montreal 18/10/2008 Impressions

post #1 of 32
10/19/08 at 2:29am
Thread Starter 
Starting the thread

Photos will be posted by gp_hebert.

Impressions are to come, especially for the ESP9
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post #2 of 32
10/19/08 at 3:30am
















































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post #3 of 32
10/19/08 at 4:21am
Looks like a ton of fun. Especially with those electrostatic 'phones around...
Some impressions would be nice!
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post #4 of 32
10/19/08 at 11:57am
First of all, thanks to Laurent for hosting the meet at his place. The atmosphere was friendly, and we had everything we needed, with the sole exception of beer glasses. Dammit, I had to drink my delicious Dieu du Ciel IPA straight from the bottle.

Quote:
Looks like a ton of fun. Especially with those electrostatic 'phones around...
Some impressions would be nice!
I'll try to post impressions later today, I'm pretty slow to write long texts in English. I have quite a few things to say about those Koss ESP9.
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post #5 of 32
10/19/08 at 1:00pm
Who cares about the headphones... how did you like the ESL? The Koss ESP9 has potential if they were gutted and driven like a Stax phone (not this pseudo single ended stuff). The ESP10 "Auditor" is also very good...
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post #6 of 32
10/19/08 at 3:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by spritzer View Post
Who cares about the headphones... how did you like the ESL? The Koss ESP9 has potential if they were gutted and driven like a Stax phone (not this pseudo single ended stuff). The ESP10 "Auditor" is also very good...
What the hell, the ESP9 were the best thing we had at the meet. It totally smoked the ESL57, SR-007, Quad 12L2, etc. It sounded like forest nymphs licking your ears. If god exists, he must be in the form of a Koss ESP9.



Now, seriously, the ESL57 are the best speakers I've heard to date. The placement was probably less than ideal, but the sound that came out was fantastic. In a few words, I'd day these are the opposite of "harsh". Smooth sound, natural tone, awesome for vocals and the bass presentation is very nice. The key word here is "natural", it doesn't sound forced, it's not thin nor thick, it was just right. I wish I had a pair of these sitting next to me so I could give more detailed impressions, I was very pleased with what I heard last night.

If I had to put some criticism, I'd say the sound was maybe a little bit too grainy and it could use more sparkle. This was quite noticeable when we compared the ESL57 to the 12L2. Also, I could use more low bass, but maybe this can be arranged only by modifying the position of the speakers. We tried integrating a subwoofer, but we didn't manage to get it to work unfortunately. I don't know if that makes sense because I don't have a lot of experience with high-end speakers, but I had the feeling that the ESL57 had the same kind of presentation compared to other speakers that the SR-007 have compared to other headphones.
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post #7 of 32
10/19/08 at 4:55pm
The ESL and the SR-007 share the same effortless sound but the position did the ESL no favors. They also need more power then the Quad II can dish out and getting off the floor is paramount to stop the early reflections.

The ESP9 isn't comfy but the ESP6 brings the lack of comfort to new heights. Strapping nearly two pounds of headphone to the head with a tiny wretched headband says something about dedication... Bar none the craziest headphones ever made with the diodes just out of the corner of your eye.
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post #8 of 32
10/19/08 at 6:02pm

Great meet!

Thanks to Laurent for letting us squat his appartment, that was a great meet (can we say meet with 4 people?)! If you add all the equipment, here is what you get:

Stax Omega 2 x 2
Koss ESP950
Grado SR-100 hot-rodded
Ath-Ad2000
Koss ESP9
Etymotic ER-4p
Sennheiser E60

Stax transfo box
Stax 007t
Soha
ASL HB1

Quad ESL57
Quad 12l2
Some weird kind of subwoofer

Cambridge 840A
Nakamichi preamp
Quad II Monoblocks

Apogee Duet
Shanling T-1000se
PS1
Creative Zen Vision M:
Thorens TD160 + Cambridge 540p

Various cables

The value of the whole stack would easily be over 15-16 grand. Divide that per the number of attendies, and you get 4000$/person!

Unfortunately, we had some stuff that didn't work during the meet, namely all the vinyl stuff, the senns and the sub, but we still had enough stuff to keep us busy all night.

More to come
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post #9 of 32
10/19/08 at 6:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by papomaster View Post
The value of the whole stack would easily be over 15-16 grand.
That's true with the actual market value of the Koss ESP9. In a few months/years, I wouldn't be surprised to see something more like 18-19k$.
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post #10 of 32
10/19/08 at 6:54pm
Highlight of the meet : Definitely the 3 seconds I've spent listening to the wonderful Koss ESP9 with the stock transformer box connected to a Trends T-Amp sourced from a Creative Zen, what an experience, it was like playing with the stars while being totally on earth, you know, that kind of feeling only felt in dreams but I was totally awake !!! This setup made all the other ones sound like $1 toys.
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post #11 of 32
10/19/08 at 7:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gp_hebert View Post
What the hell, the ESP9 were the best thing we had at the meet. It totally smoked the ESL57, SR-007, Quad 12L2, etc. It sounded like forest nymphs licking your ears. If god exists, he must be in the form of a Koss ESP9.



Now, seriously, the ESL57 are the best speakers I've heard to date. The placement was probably less than ideal, but the sound that came out was fantastic. In a few words, I'd day these are the opposite of "harsh". Smooth sound, natural tone, awesome for vocals and the bass presentation is very nice. The key word here is "natural", it doesn't sound forced, it's not thin nor thick, it was just right. I wish I had a pair of these sitting next to me so I could give more detailed impressions, I was very pleased with what I heard last night.

If I had to put some criticism, I'd say the sound was maybe a little bit too grainy and it could use more sparkle. This was quite noticeable when we compared the ESL57 to the 12L2. Also, I could use more low bass, but maybe this can be arranged only by modifying the position of the speakers. We tried integrating a subwoofer, but we didn't manage to get it to work unfortunately. I don't know if that makes sense because I don't have a lot of experience with high-end speakers, but I had the feeling that the ESL57 had the same kind of presentation compared to other speakers that the SR-007 have compared to other headphones.

I hope you listened to some early Maiden on the ESLs
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post #12 of 32
10/19/08 at 7:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by J-Pak View Post
I hope you listened to some early Maiden on the ESLs
Nope, I didn't bring a lot of CDs and the "heaviest" thing I had was Epilog by Anglagard which is really more prog with a hard edge a la King Crimson. Papomaster had the first Sabbath album though, and that sounded great on the ESL.
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post #13 of 32
10/19/08 at 7:49pm
Looks like you guys had a great time. The ESP9 impressions are hilarious, keep it up.
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post #14 of 32
10/19/08 at 11:09pm

Soha impressions

First, the amp impressions :

With an upgraded tube, the SOHA went up one notch, coming very close of the ASL HB1 in terms of performance. It had a more dynamic approach, with wider soundstage and slightly more powerful bass, but still was beat up by the ASL in tone, imaging and clarity, especially in the mids where the SOHA seemed to blur things a bit.

The quad monos coupled with the nakamichi preamp were very good with both Quad pairs. They did well on tone, microdynamics and bass presence, but they had a slightly smeared lower midrange and lacked macrodynamics (again, I'm not sure whether it is caused by the sensitivity of the speakers or the lower dynamic swing of the amps) compared to my Monitor audio + set combo, and got smashed there by the horn + SET. VERY smooth sound, but lacked the detail and soundstage I usually get from more recent designs.

Koss FTW!
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post #15 of 32
10/19/08 at 11:28pm
Wowow les boys, je suis vraiment malheureux pour une coupe de jour au moins d'avoir manquer du bon stock de meme. Ca me fait saliver, en plus de hebert qui mentionne la dieu du ciel!
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