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Headphone Festival 2011 in Tokyo May 7th, 2011

post #1 of 7
4/11/11 at 10:26am
Thread Starter 

This is a trailer that was from Ultrasone on my Facebook, and for you that dont have a Facebook or dont check Ultrasones website every day, you can see it here. Here it is (round of a plause);http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9OqNylpV78&feature=player_embedded

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post #2 of 7
4/29/11 at 7:26pm

THANK YOU for posting this!  I can't believe my luck- I will happen to be there that week.  I'll try to take lot o' pics and report back!

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post #3 of 7
4/30/11 at 2:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mkubota1 View Post

THANK YOU for posting this!  I can't believe my luck- I will happen to be there that week.  I'll try to take lot o' pics and report back!


Your welcome, Head-Fi would be very appreciative to look at the headphone extravaganza

 


Edited by cifani090 - 4/30/11 at 6:13pm
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post #4 of 7
5/8/11 at 3:55am

I could free myself up to attend the festival for a little while and meet Mike (mkubota1) at the same time which was really cool. I have been too lazy to snap any picture but Mike has a load of them to share it seem ;).

 

For my impressions, I really only sampled few things:

 

1. I could drool again on the Stax SR-009 (marantz cdp, 727a amp). I quickly compared it against the Omega 2 mk2, listening to a drum xrcd recording. Well, it does not take a golden ear to take notice of the step up in every direction... I really really need to start saving... It's so much more lively/dynamic/impactful/and correct sounding than the o2mk2. The interesting thing is that while it is definitely brighter sounding than the omega 2 through this stax amp, the treble or maybe upper mids have a quality that makes it totally stress free as if the o2 had some slight coloration or distortion in comparison. From discussion with the Stax staff, it's only 1dB more sensitive than the o2 but it feels more like 2-3 dB, probably due to the change in tonal balance and very significant increase in impact.


2. I asked Stax about potential new amp to pair with the sr-009, and something will indeed be released at some point, but certainly not this year and probably not next year either. Waiting in line for a BHSE from Headamp doesn't sound like a bad option suddenly! From what I understood, Stax isn't even decided on which route to go (ss or valve) as various markets have differing preferences and Stax will need to settle... 

 

3. Listened to go-dap 4 prototype for iphone4, the design is really cool but apart from tightening up the bass with my iem (Sensaphonics 2-XS), there wasn't sufficient gain in SQ to justify the added weight / size. I even thought it might be a tad too warm sounding for my already quite dark sounding iems... The price sounds about right (35,000JPY) and it includes SPDIF optical out so you can use it as a transport. It works at 48 or 96kHz, 16 or 24 bits. I assume it can read 96/24 stream from the ipod. More info here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/533084/venturecraft-go-dap-gd-04-for-iphone-4

 

4. Briefly listened to Hifiman's HE-6 from Sasaki's table and I thought it sounded pretty good although difficult to judge without my source material. If I was still into dynamics, I'd probably look that direction. It was driven balanced by a headroom home amplifier I believe with Audiophillea as transport (and d/a?).

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post #5 of 7
5/8/11 at 9:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnaud View Post

I could free myself up to attend the festival for a little while and meet Mike (mkubota1) at the same time which was really cool. I have been too lazy to snap any picture but Mike has a load of them to share it seem ;).

 

For my impressions, I really only sampled few things:

 

1. I could drool again on the Stax SR-009 (marantz cdp, 727a amp). I quickly compared it against the Omega 2 mk2, listening to a drum xrcd recording. Well, it does not take a golden ear to take notice of the step up in every direction... I really really need to start saving... It's so much more lively/dynamic/impactful/and correct sounding than the o2mk2. The interesting thing is that while it is definitely brighter sounding than the omega 2 through this stax amp, the treble or maybe upper mids have a quality that makes it totally stress free as if the o2 had some slight coloration or distortion in comparison. From discussion with the Stax staff, it's only 1dB more sensitive than the o2 but it feels more like 2-3 dB, probably due to the change in tonal balance and very significant increase in impact.


2. I asked Stax about potential new amp to pair with the sr-009, and something will indeed be released at some point, but certainly not this year and probably not next year either. Waiting in line for a BHSE from Headamp doesn't sound like a bad option suddenly! From what I understood, Stax isn't even decided on which route to go (ss or valve) as various markets have differing preferences and Stax will need to settle... 

 

3. Listened to go-dap 4 prototype for iphone4, the design is really cool but apart from tightening up the bass with my iem (Sensaphonics 2-XS), there wasn't sufficient gain in SQ to justify the added weight / size. I even thought it might be a tad too warm sounding for my already quite dark sounding iems... The price sounds about right (35,000JPY) and it includes SPDIF optical out so you can use it as a transport. It works at 48 or 96kHz, 16 or 24 bits. I assume it can read 96/24 stream from the ipod. More info here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/533084/venturecraft-go-dap-gd-04-for-iphone-4

 

4. Briefly listened to Hifiman's HE-6 from Sasaki's table and I thought it sounded pretty good although difficult to judge without my source material. If I was still into dynamics, I'd probably look that direction. It was driven balanced by a headroom home amplifier I believe with Audiophillea as transport (and d/a?).


N2, that looks like a cool product for the iPhone 4. My question is (for iPods, etc) why instead of making amps smaller, they make them wider and thinner so they fit the (iPod's,etc) perfectly in size? To me (without ever holding one) it would feel odd in the hand, since it would drop down half way onto the iPhone. Just my $.2

 

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post #6 of 7
5/10/11 at 12:37am

It seems on my way to Tokyo my plane went down and I died and woke up in Headphone Heaven.  Simply put, the show was too much- which I know is like saying 'too rich' or 'too beautiful'.  I did meet up with Arnaud- a really cool guy who's life I envy!  ;-)  Anyway, I'm a bit too jet-lagged to even go through my photos let alone upload them and write about them.  But I will get to it later this week.  I don't like to do reviews or impressions so it will mostly be headphone porn.  In the meantime I will leave you with this photo of a guy apparently from a headphone club in Japan, and his collection.  I think we may have found |joker|'s Japanese counterpart:

 

IMG_2483.jpg

 

IMG_2481.jpg

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post #7 of 7
5/10/11 at 7:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mkubota1 View Post

It seems on my way to Tokyo my plane went down and I died and woke up in Headphone Heaven.  Simply put, the show was too much- which I know is like saying 'too rich' or 'too beautiful'.  I did meet up with Arnaud- a really cool guy who's life I envy!  ;-)  Anyway, I'm a bit too jet-lagged to even go through my photos let alone upload them and write about them.  But I will get to it later this week.  I don't like to do reviews or impressions so it will mostly be headphone porn.  In the meantime I will leave you with this photo of a guy apparently from a headphone club in Japan, and his collection.  I think we may have found |joker|'s Japanese counterpart:

 

Woweek.gif, that is alot of headphones. I think most of them are vintage 
 

 

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