3 Musketeer Mini Meet Impressions (11/3/12 Austin, Texas) - Page 2  

Thanks Morbid, great impressions

Edited by zeinharis - 11/4/12 at 5:54pm

Well done, thanks for sharing. I already have a LCD-3 to use with my forthcoming LG, and am hunting a good deal on a used HD 800 for classical music. Tube wise, I've got a RCA red base pair on the way, a pair of POPE on hand and am currently stalking another head-fi'er for his Mullards (you know who you are). This should provide sufficient madness considering I won't even have time to listen for more than an hour or so a week.

Was it the first SR-009 listen for anyone that was there? Doesn't seem like it would have been, but I would like to hear their reaction if it was.

Great write-up.  I'll have to search out a LG to listen to sometime.  It's probably the most interesting dynamic amp I've read about in awhile.

 

It was my long-awaited first listen of the 009. Been slammed at work. I will be posting my impressions of it, and a mini-comparison between it and my TH900 in a bit. 

I would like to first thank MorbidToaster for opening up his equipment and home, and to both dmcs414 and MT for the good chats, knowledge shared, and insights gleaned. Big thanks to Alex for the equipment loans.

 

I mostly agree with MT on his assessments from the mini-meet. I'll add my own thoughts:

 

 

LF Vs LG:

I own the LF. They largely sounded much more similar than different. The bigest difference for me was the strength in the high-end, and most likely due to the tubes in place. My Gold Lion in the LF are known for having a pretty smooth and warm high end on them. The LG had a smidge more sparkle up high. I can see the LG would be a lot of fun for those that like to tube roll. 

 

HD800 Vs HiFiMAN:

I mostly preferred both the HE-500 and HE-6 to the HD800. The HD800 soundstage was nice and massive, and that imaging razor sharp, but the planar sound won me over. I found them more musical to me. I agree with MT in the regard that I think the HE-500 is smoother, less fatiguing. I saw how the HE-6 could be bright and fatiguing with some stuff. However, the HE-500 definitely has more grain to the sound despite it being smoother - if that makes sense. It would be a toss up for me on which one I would actually pick up. HE-6 is just a bit cleaner. I would have to spend more time with them. 

 

SR-009 Vs TH900:

This is what I was most interested in. I liked the TH900 more than any other headphone there, save the 009. I thought they were far more musical, engaging, lively, fun, clear and more organic sounding than everything else. There is no question as to what I preferred. However, it is just not the 009. It's just not. The 009 is superior in most every way. There is no denying that, it's a phenomenal headphone. The soundstage is just beautiful with everything in it's right place, and not overly large, like the HD800 can be. The imaging is natural and precise. The bass has so much texture and control it's unbelievable. The mids are clean and pull you in. I remarked many times how it's just such an enveloping sound, pulls you in to the music. It was clean up top and not as bright as the HD800 or HiFiMAN. I was expecting more from the high end as I've read how some think they're bright... and they aren't. I am pretty sensitive to that. 

 

However good the 009 is, the TH900 is most of those things. It isn't there, but it can be close. On some stuff, the soundstage is so congested and muddy sounding next to the 009. On some stuff, the bass gets in the way and it's really annoying. For anything Classical, acoustic, ambient, most of the experimental electronic music I listen to, the 009 would be my go-to choice by a long shot. BUT, for electronic dance music, like trance or chillstep, it just doesn't have the lively slam I crave. There is no doubt the 009 is great, but I won't be selling my dynamic rig to finance it, and I appreciate and love my TH900 even more after hearing what I does against the greatest. Don't get me wrong, the 009 DID ruin my TH900 to a certain extent, but also validated it to a certain extent. Even the mids had a certain engaing lively fluidity to them that just rocked with electronic. And the rest of the genres were far from a failure by comparison. For electronic dance, I would reach for the TH900 almost every time. I would feel something missing if I only had the 009 as my main rig. That was what I needed to answer Saturday. I am in no crazy rush to get my 009 rig, but it will definitely be something I work toward as soon as is feasibly attainable.  

I was there, and have been dying to leave my full impressions, but like SoundFreaq I've been utterly slammed with work since I got back to Dallas. Everything there was new to me except Liquid Fire, HD800, HE-500 (mine) and the EF5 & E17 (also mine).

A note on the SR-009- Nothing could have truly prepared me for this experience. As Morbid will surely tell you, I'm an avowed basshead. I'm from the 'neutrality is for sissies' camp. I've never owned a pair of headphones where I wouldn't have been happier with a touch more bass. A touch cleaner, a touch richer. That's not to say I'd be terribly happy with recessed mids or lack of sparkle, soundstage, imaging, etc. In fact I seemed to gladly suffer through it for 2 years with my previous Thunderpants. That's one of the main reasons I am presently quite in love my HE-500s. They allow me to EQ my bass where I like it, and not have that bleed into the rest of the spectrum and enjoy a very well-rounded sound signature that works with all genres.

But I digress. When I heard the astounding detail present in bass through those SR-009s - the seemingly endless layers of texture, all those little subtleties in the bass I had never before heard (even lacking the typical level of bass quantity I often seek) - it was nothing short of a revelation to me. I realized in that instant that I'd gladly trade any quantity for that kind of quality. I've spent plenty of time listening to headphones renowned for their bass like LCD-2, TH900 now, my old TP1s, but never heard a fraction of the kind of bass I heard through the SR-009s. And that's not even going into how I felt about everything else in the headphones' presentation of sound.

A note on the HE-6- I, too found these excessively bright, fatiguing and frankly somewhat un-listenable on the LG (Granted, Squarepusher and perhaps not the ideal test track) with the tubes it had in it at the time (Shanguang Treasures I think). But I don't think this is the fault of the HE-6 at all. (Or the LG/tubes for that matter) My experience and Morbid's reflected exactly what others report when listening to HE-6 when underpowered. That said, I will reserve final judgement and make no determinations on these phones from the initial listen, and seek to hear them on an amp that pushes at least 8+ watts into each channel. A speaker amp ideally. Even better, MY speaker amp.

A note on the HE-500- These sounded downright stunning on the Liquid Glass, with any type of tube. That experience instantly made me start thinking about an upgrade, which will consume my headfi hobby for the foreseeable future. A truly lovely match.

More later. I have lots of thoughts on the TH900, PerfectWave, HD800, etc. but those will have to wait. Huge thanks to Morbid for an awesome weekend and SoundFreaq for coming and sharing your treasures with us; it was a real pleasure to meet you and look forward to seeing you both again at Austin meet or before.
Best,
Dave

5W into HE-6?. if you can get 1W into HE6 without going deaf i'd be very surprised. now that takes considerably more than a 1W amp, but I think most would be very surprised just how little power a 100W speaker amp designed and biased for 4-8ohms speaker loads puts into the HE6 much higher impedance

 

 

I know the Liquid Gold would have no problems in this area - right Alex??