Bloodwood, stock pads (boring, I know, but I didn't want to drop all that money at once...)
1/8th inch plug (Here's my biggest complaint...)
Sorry for the poor photo quality. Here are some of my initial thoughts:
- Fresh out of the box: Strong smell of glue, there is some glue visible on the inside of the headphone, as can be seen above. Speaking of the inside, isn't this usually also wood on the Thunderpants? It looks like plastic on mine, did we agree on this for the group buy? I can't remember, and if it's like this on all sets, I don't know, I guess I'm fabricating memories...
- First inspection of the headphones, the wood overall, looks very nice, much better than I could capture in the photos. There are a few visible faults in the wood itself, most very subtle, but most notable is a dark spot towards the rear of the left cup (shown above), which also has a slight indentation in the surface, but this is still very minor.
- I'm not sure what the parts connecting the cups to the copper rods are on mine, obviously not bloodwood, but the left one looks like it might have been in two parts at one point, this too however, is fairly subtle.
- The leather strap added to the headband is amusingly, and very obviously, taken from a belt, but it gets the job done.
- The cable: I'm not a huge fan of this stuff he has covering the cable, I don't know how others feel about it though; it seems stiff and I think I'm pretty neutral on how it looks compared to a plain cable.
- The one problem that's actually worth mentioning is the headphone plug. I ordered an 1/8th inch plug so that my pair could be used as a nice set of transportable cans, and to that end, they seem to work well. I've been moving around the house with them this afternoon as I listened, and they fit securely and comfortably on my head. Based on what some people have said, I almost expected neck strain from the weight of the thunderpants, but they're really not very heavy in my opinion. Anyway, you can kind of see in one of the pictures, the connection of the plug to the cable isn't very secure, there's a segment of heatshrink a little bit above jack, the part that meets the covering, that's hacked up a bit, no clue why this might be... After that there's a tiny bit of plain cable showing, followed by another section of heatshrink that goes into the plug a very short way. If the cable bends at the plug slightly in any direction bare copper wire is visible. This happens easily because of the weight of the cable. However, the connections seem to be alright, and this can all hopefully be fixed with some hot glue and heatshrink...
So anyway, that's my nitpicking on the physical appearance. Really, overall, they're nice looking, though obviously a DIY venture rather than a mass produced product.
The sound: I like the sound of them so far. A lot actually. They don't seem to add too much character of their own into the sound.
My playlist thus far has been:
Can - Tago Mago (40th Anniversary)
Steve Reich - Kronos Quartet - Different Trains
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Currently Listening, this is one of my reference albums for gear.)
So far, very happy with their performance, and at some point I might do a comparison with my STAX 2050 II system, which I consider one of the best values for this price range (I bought it several years ago for around $400-430 in Japan, can't remember the exact price...) Based on what I've heard so far, the edge in detail probably goes to the STAX, but the thunderpants seem to be taking everything I throw at them very nicely.
I've been running them from an ipod 5g video into a Leckerton UHA-4, which will be their companion until the ODA becomes available. The Leckerton seems to have plenty of power for the task, I thought I'd have to switch it to high gain, but I haven't. That's it for now, I've probably forgotten some things, but now there is beer to be brewed...
