T.H.E. Show headphonium in 2015?
- Thread starter Allanmarcus
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^^^^thanks! Had a great time out here in Cali and at the show. Great chatting with you!
Here are my impressions from THE Show 2015. Mostly headphone stuff, but I’ve added some speaker impressions as well.
- ZMF Omnia prototype. I loved the sound of these – very musical and not at all harsh or sibilant. Beautifully made, very light and comfortable as well. For those of you who love musical (rather than analytical) headphones you owe yourselves to listen to these.
- Mr Speakers Ether. I got the opportunity to listen to these using three different amps: Woo Audio WA5, Schiit Ragnarok and Cavalli Liquid Glass. I would encourage anyone who thinks headphone amps sound alike to listen to a setup like Mr Speakers had at THE Show. To my ears the WA5 is very seductive, the Ragnarok is clean and crisp, and the Liquid Glass – wow, what an amp! Organic, liquid, musical – it sounded wonderful with the Ether. I really like how the Ether sounds and I think it’s impressive that it so clearly conveys the differences between the amps – quite an achievement!
- Interestingly, both Woo Audio and Mr Speakers had the Ether connected to the WA5 at their respective stands, but the Mr Speakers amp was connected to the Schiit Yggdrasil DAC, which gave me a way to indirectly listen to and compare the Yggdrasil, and I came away very impressed. Effortless musicality without any tiring glare. I think the Yggdrasil might just be something really special.
- Woo Audio WA6 with Beyerdynamic T1. I have the T1 and I find it astoundingly transparent, but frequently too harsh in the treble. It sounded great with the WA6 - warmer, lush and inviting. The WA6 is on my short list for next amp purchase.
- Cavalli Liquid Carbon. I preordered one of these and I can’t wait to get it. Not quite Liquid Glass, but the famous Cavalli sound at a price that I can actually afford. The Cavalli folks recommended that I try the HifiMan HE-1000 with the Liquid Carbon. I’ve heard the HE-1000 before and didn’t quite like it, but it came alive through the Cavalli amp. Great bass and articulate mids. The highs were a bit bright for me (I’m very sensitive to bright-sounding headphones), but I see what all the fuss is about.
- ELAC by Andrew Jones. This was the show sensation – incredible sound from a $229/pair speaker! Great bass (I was looking for the sobwoofer) and overall great sound. They have more speakers coming (floorstanders, bookshelf and center channel), including a series of subwoofers with some clever room calibration technology where you use your cell phone as a mic to set up the subwoofer via Bluetooth.
- Zu Audio. I love the sound of their speakers (I have the Omen Dirty Weekend), but mostly I came to listen to the music they play as part of their demo. I think I got more ideas for new music from Zu than from any other room at the show.
- McIntosh. Classic design, blue watt-meters and warm, musical sound. McIntosh is for those who use their equipment to listen to music, as opposed to the other way around. Love it! (But can't affort it, alas.)
- Dan d’Agostino amps + Wilson Audio Sasha speakers. This room was one of my favorites. They played a violin piece and I could almost feel the presence of the violin in the room. Impressive! And I got to meet Dan d’Agostino himself – quite a thrill!
This was hands-down the most jaw-dropping demo I heard at the show. Everyone in the room was absolutely stunned by what they were hearing!
The spectacular resolution, imaging and bass quality (& unbelievable quantity) that those little ELAC's were producing seemed quite simply impossible. But they are very real, and all for $229!!!
These speakers totally reset the bar for what is possible at anywhere near their price.
My hat is off (once again) to Andrew Jones and his latest amazing accomplishment.
And to anyone who is in the market for an affordable pair of speakers, the ELAC Debut B5 (and for a few bucks more, the B6 as well) is now my absolute top pick in the $500-and-under category.
The ELAC rep mentioned that they should become available in September.
This was hands-down the most jaw-dropping demo I heard at the show. Everyone in the room was absolutely stunned by what they were hearing!
The spectacular resolution, imaging and bass quality (& unbelievable quantity) that those little ELAC's were producing seemed quite simply impossible. But they are very real, and all for $229!!!
These speakers totally reset the bar for what is possible at anywhere near their price.
My hat is off (once again) to Andrew Jones and his latest amazing accomplishment.
And to anyone who is in the market for an affordable pair of speakers, the ELAC Debut B5 (and for a few bucks more, the B6 as well) is now my absolute top pick in the $500-and-under category. They should become available in September.
Any idea how ELAC will be selling the speakers in the USA? What stores?
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The Trip started wirth a Cancelled Flight from phoenix and a Road trip in the Desert
Jimmy Moon showcasing the new AK380
AK President Owen Kwon-The man who always smiles and for good reason. AK keeps putting out reference caliber products.
Brannan Mason Co-Owner of Noble always showcasing terrific products and Art form from Noble is inspiring and unequalled.
Darin Fong Software is making waves so much so I bought it for personal use.
Little Fatih performed and was awesome . Sponsored by Bruce Ball and the Questlye Team
Gary form Questlye had the display of all the new portable DAP which are available and sound fantastic.
Tidal was all over the show making music with their high-end streaming service.
Marc from Audeze had the Audeze lineup covered
Campfire Audio was showing the new IEM lineup
Burson Timekeeper
Synergistic Research had a neat HD800 cable with an enhancement extension.
Gavin Fish was talking about the LH Labs DACs and streamed down V2
Jeff Well has a fantastic &K headphone amplifier and has a new Integrated with Headpone Amp coming
Vinnie Rossi LIO wes making music with the LIO and Harbeths paired with and Acoustic Signature Table making music.
Awe inspiring and terrific tonality.
Hoger Stein from Stein Music had an incredible Integrated amplifier 10K
Hoger's room treatments had this room totally disappearing
Raymond and his partner George Lenz had their 5W 50 amp driving these Babies
Amplifier was priced at $7500- Stay tuned for more information on some interesting amps these gents are designing.
Rogue Cronus Magnum !! showed up and is in my listening room for a near-field system review we are doing for early fall.
I hope you enjoyed the drive on the 10 going past Morongo. I went past it Saturday going out to Agua Caliente, then on the way back. It also appears you took the 60, that's such a joy at night. They don't have any street lights.
One of the ELAC reps mentioned that they are currently working on their US dealer network. He also said that they eventually plan on making them available for purchase on Amazon.com.
My hat is off (once again) to Andrew Jones and his latest amazing accomplishment.
I completely agree. I have the 1st generation 7.1 speaker set that Andrew Jones designed for Pioneer that I use in my TV room. The speakers are great (especially for the price), but the ELAC speaker is in a different league altogether. I was floored by what I heard at the show.
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Posted Sunday impressions in anime thread again, took some parts and still a bit general and unserious at times. Posting in few other threads more tailed impressions.
T.H.E. Show today was a lot less uneventful than it was Saturday. Mostly was hanging out with people and checking out some uninteresting speaker systems. Didn't take many pictures anyway as I was mostly repeating some booths. Some new things, some neat things, some impressions.
He-400s pads, very velour.
New thing, JDS Element
My o2 for scale
O2 and x5 for scale
Usb in, rca in (I think), gain switch, power button, power cord in
So it is square with rounded edges, volume knob is is a circle. Tad daa~ But seriously it is a dac amp combo and I turned the volume knob to around 10-11 o'clock and that was plenty loud enough for me. Iems I was hovering around 9 o'clock with my noble 4. Sound was very nice and I enjoyed it a lot. So it is $350~ iirc. Dac is very similar to the dac in c5d and amp is very similar to the o2 and c5 in the Jds Labs guys words. It was very cool and minimalist desktop amp/dac, solid metal finish and smooth volume wheel. I liked it.
Shiny woo amps and the he-1000 in the special woo room.
Shiny abyss to the shiny woo monoblocks that was also going to a shiny sony home media player type of thing. I can at least now say I have heard a $22k audio setup. It sounded alright.
I thought this ad in the hall was funny.
Out of focus fiio x7 picture. It wasn't working or anything but an early model showing off a big touchscreen and on the bottom of the unit a replaceable amp system in the works or such. Don't remember everything he mentioned about it. Played with the x5 ii and then with the e12a with my x5. E12a is good with iems like it was magically designed for it or something magical like that. Also had the new renamed fiio amp dacs. The successor to the e07k and e6 with changed names and shapes. Didn't get good pictures of them.
Then spent the rest of the day at questyle with Andre and ended up inadvertently working there for several hours. Older QP1 model internals, slight changes since then on newer models. Heard some interesting stuff from questyle and talked to many people from questyle. The questyle QP1 and QP1r I listened probably many many times these 2 days on. Probably my favorite new dap now and really interested in getting one when they are ready in production.
The Shelby that was in the room during break down time. The owner drove it out the back doors and the whole room smelled like gasoline. It was very American and patriotic.
Hung out in the questyle room afterwards with Andre and moe. Limited time they were going to sell the show computers for people that were to buy one of the dac or amps. Think they are still doing the deal now.
But in the questyle room I talked to the developers and showed them my x5 with its custom firmware, showed then different case, ways to stack fiio daps with amps, my amps, general feedback and learning about the QP1 and QP1R. Nice dudes and we went to dinner afterwards with warren and mercer along with questyle.
Hifiman he-400s impressions
Headband is very nice and comfy, weight is a lot less than the he-400 and with the headband it is a whole lot more comfy. Cable as others have mentioned has been changed to the he-1000 connectors and the cable this time is pretty nice. Pads are also not the old he-400 velour or the focuspads but an entirely new earpad. Overall comfort and weight is very much improved but that has kinda been the case since the 560 and 400i.
The sound is a lot closer to the 400 than the 400i. Strong bass presence, more so midbass but did extend pretty well into the subbass. Wasn't hearing upper recession but environment was tad loud to completely accurately tell. The treble wasn't as forward as the original 400 and wasn't hearing sibilance on tracks I playing around with. Very nice headphone and those I talked to liked it also and some weren't a fan of the original 400 or the 400i. Prefer the 400s over the el8 from what I heard of that phone.
Questyle QP1 and QP1R impressions
UI was absolutely easy to use, took just a quick glance at everything and then I was all set to work. Took out my micro sd to put it in the unit to listen to my personal music for reference with my noble 4 and it sounded positively wonderful on both the QP1 and QP1R.
The QP1 I believe is in the top picture, the corner icons has haptic feed when pressed. The scroll wheel is metal and super solid feeling unlike my x5's tad flimsy plastic wheel. Response time in comparison to the x5 was very fast. At the end of day Sunday I showed the developers my X5 and when they tried to use it they were surprised how there was some lag between pressing a button and the action occurring.
The volume knob at the very top of the unit was on a tad looser side but when I asked them about this Questyle said they were aware of this issue. The factory that was making prototype shells of the unit made the volume knob hole too large and thus led to a loose wheel which during the actual production run will have a much more solid feeling volume knob.
Sound wise I had my fiio x5 for a-b comparison and found I much prefer the sound quality of the Questyle over my own x5. I had tested and played with the astell and kern daos earlier in the day before trying the Questyle daps and thought sound quality in my opinion was around the ak 240 and the ak 380 was only tad better sounding.
At the end of the day Sunday I was talking with the questyle guys working on the QP1 line. I talked about the times and locations I used my dap. How the stacking for the fiio daps looked with amps on their backs. Showed my custom UI on my x5 and the general features on the unit, my general complaints and what I felt the x5 did well. I walked through some of the history of my experiences with daps, what the x5 did wrong in the beginning and how firmware patches starting fixing things. Discussed possibilities of custom firmware like that of the x5 on the QP1 line. In general some popular portable amps people are using. They were very responsive to feedback I was giving towards my unit and their unit and telling me their general design philosophy. Questyle is just a fantastic company with many great people working for them and when the QP1 is ready I am very much so looking forward to the QP1 or the QP1R.
Some personal shoutouts I want to make.
Warren and Mercer big shoutout for making headphonium possible! Was only planning on coming Saturday but I am quite happy that I went Sunday as well.
All those at Questyle! I enjoyed talking daps, amps, dacs, headphones, everything! Real big shoutout to Gary, was fun talking and helping around with taking apart the booth.
Nina from from Wywires! Saturday night was plenty for fun and thank you so much for the drinks and in general for being so swell!
Jeff at Hifiman for putting up with my antics.
And last but most certainly not least Moe and Andre! Fun hanging around, talking audio or just in general talking. Good to catchup with everyone and hope to see everyone soon~
(Also Andre keep me informed with the he-500!)
T.H.E. Show today was a lot less uneventful than it was Saturday. Mostly was hanging out with people and checking out some uninteresting speaker systems. Didn't take many pictures anyway as I was mostly repeating some booths. Some new things, some neat things, some impressions.
He-400s pads, very velour.
New thing, JDS Element
My o2 for scale
O2 and x5 for scale
Usb in, rca in (I think), gain switch, power button, power cord in
So it is square with rounded edges, volume knob is is a circle. Tad daa~ But seriously it is a dac amp combo and I turned the volume knob to around 10-11 o'clock and that was plenty loud enough for me. Iems I was hovering around 9 o'clock with my noble 4. Sound was very nice and I enjoyed it a lot. So it is $350~ iirc. Dac is very similar to the dac in c5d and amp is very similar to the o2 and c5 in the Jds Labs guys words. It was very cool and minimalist desktop amp/dac, solid metal finish and smooth volume wheel. I liked it.
Shiny woo amps and the he-1000 in the special woo room.
Shiny abyss to the shiny woo monoblocks that was also going to a shiny sony home media player type of thing. I can at least now say I have heard a $22k audio setup. It sounded alright.
I thought this ad in the hall was funny.
Out of focus fiio x7 picture. It wasn't working or anything but an early model showing off a big touchscreen and on the bottom of the unit a replaceable amp system in the works or such. Don't remember everything he mentioned about it. Played with the x5 ii and then with the e12a with my x5. E12a is good with iems like it was magically designed for it or something magical like that. Also had the new renamed fiio amp dacs. The successor to the e07k and e6 with changed names and shapes. Didn't get good pictures of them.
Then spent the rest of the day at questyle with Andre and ended up inadvertently working there for several hours. Older QP1 model internals, slight changes since then on newer models. Heard some interesting stuff from questyle and talked to many people from questyle. The questyle QP1 and QP1r I listened probably many many times these 2 days on. Probably my favorite new dap now and really interested in getting one when they are ready in production.
The Shelby that was in the room during break down time. The owner drove it out the back doors and the whole room smelled like gasoline. It was very American and patriotic.
Hung out in the questyle room afterwards with Andre and moe. Limited time they were going to sell the show computers for people that were to buy one of the dac or amps. Think they are still doing the deal now.
But in the questyle room I talked to the developers and showed them my x5 with its custom firmware, showed then different case, ways to stack fiio daps with amps, my amps, general feedback and learning about the QP1 and QP1R. Nice dudes and we went to dinner afterwards with warren and mercer along with questyle.
Hifiman he-400s impressions
Headband is very nice and comfy, weight is a lot less than the he-400 and with the headband it is a whole lot more comfy. Cable as others have mentioned has been changed to the he-1000 connectors and the cable this time is pretty nice. Pads are also not the old he-400 velour or the focuspads but an entirely new earpad. Overall comfort and weight is very much improved but that has kinda been the case since the 560 and 400i.
The sound is a lot closer to the 400 than the 400i. Strong bass presence, more so midbass but did extend pretty well into the subbass. Wasn't hearing upper recession but environment was tad loud to completely accurately tell. The treble wasn't as forward as the original 400 and wasn't hearing sibilance on tracks I playing around with. Very nice headphone and those I talked to liked it also and some weren't a fan of the original 400 or the 400i. Prefer the 400s over the el8 from what I heard of that phone.
Questyle QP1 and QP1R impressions
UI was absolutely easy to use, took just a quick glance at everything and then I was all set to work. Took out my micro sd to put it in the unit to listen to my personal music for reference with my noble 4 and it sounded positively wonderful on both the QP1 and QP1R.
The QP1 I believe is in the top picture, the corner icons has haptic feed when pressed. The scroll wheel is metal and super solid feeling unlike my x5's tad flimsy plastic wheel. Response time in comparison to the x5 was very fast. At the end of day Sunday I showed the developers my X5 and when they tried to use it they were surprised how there was some lag between pressing a button and the action occurring.
The volume knob at the very top of the unit was on a tad looser side but when I asked them about this Questyle said they were aware of this issue. The factory that was making prototype shells of the unit made the volume knob hole too large and thus led to a loose wheel which during the actual production run will have a much more solid feeling volume knob.
Sound wise I had my fiio x5 for a-b comparison and found I much prefer the sound quality of the Questyle over my own x5. I had tested and played with the astell and kern daos earlier in the day before trying the Questyle daps and thought sound quality in my opinion was around the ak 240 and the ak 380 was only tad better sounding.
At the end of the day Sunday I was talking with the questyle guys working on the QP1 line. I talked about the times and locations I used my dap. How the stacking for the fiio daps looked with amps on their backs. Showed my custom UI on my x5 and the general features on the unit, my general complaints and what I felt the x5 did well. I walked through some of the history of my experiences with daps, what the x5 did wrong in the beginning and how firmware patches starting fixing things. Discussed possibilities of custom firmware like that of the x5 on the QP1 line. In general some popular portable amps people are using. They were very responsive to feedback I was giving towards my unit and their unit and telling me their general design philosophy. Questyle is just a fantastic company with many great people working for them and when the QP1 is ready I am very much so looking forward to the QP1 or the QP1R.
Some personal shoutouts I want to make.
Warren and Mercer big shoutout for making headphonium possible! Was only planning on coming Saturday but I am quite happy that I went Sunday as well.
All those at Questyle! I enjoyed talking daps, amps, dacs, headphones, everything! Real big shoutout to Gary, was fun talking and helping around with taking apart the booth.
Nina from from Wywires! Saturday night was plenty for fun and thank you so much for the drinks and in general for being so swell!
Jeff at Hifiman for putting up with my antics.
And last but most certainly not least Moe and Andre! Fun hanging around, talking audio or just in general talking. Good to catchup with everyone and hope to see everyone soon~
(Also Andre keep me informed with the he-500!)
coastal1
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How was the HiFi-Skyn? Any comparisons to other portables?
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I stopped by on Fri morning for a few hours as I was in Irvine the day before. Hadn't been to previous ones so can't comment in comparison to other years, but it was in a good sized pavilion that's outside the hotel.
I was able to stop by and have a good listen at Audeze (heard the EL-8 open and closed backs, they also had all of their various LCDs), Cavalli (who was showcasing their Liquid Carbon $599 amp and Liquid Silicon $300 amps, connected to a Chord Hugo and with a number of headphones - HE1000, MrSpeakers Ether were the ones I remember), Centrance (they had their production model HiFi-Skyn iPhone 5 cases), MrSpeakers (big booth with at least 6 listening stations with Mad Dogs, Alpha Dogs, Alpha Primes, and many Ethers).
HiFiMan had a big booth in the back left with a HE400i, HE560, 2 HE1000s, and they were showcasing their new as-yet not on the market HE400s, which they said will be priced at $299 (vs $499 400i) and are meant to be driven much more easily, and can be plugged in directly into your smartphone or DAP. Chatted a bit with the guy there, and sound quality not supposed to be at 400i level, and more directed at the average consumer.
Astell&Kern also had a big booth showcasing all their DAPs, including their new AK380.
I went early on the first day, so it wasn't too busy. Had 30min+ listening sessions with the Ether, HE560 and HE400i which are on my list. MrSpeakers had nice DAC/Amp Decks on display (lot of Schiit and Bryson), but I did most ot my listening with my iPhone 5s / HiFi-M8 to get a sense for how I would listen. I know it has been said a lot, but I really loved the EthersHiFiMan booth was using their own DAP / DAC / Amps. Wish I would've had more time!
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