Mimouille
Headphoneus Supremus
Thanks. The KSE1500 I paid closer to 2.5k and I felt less conned due to the fact that an amp is included. Tia sounds promising, but this price is a no go for me.
CanJam Singapore 2017 (March 11-12, 2017) Impressions thread!
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WCDchee
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Price aside, I find the Fourte much more satisfying than the KSE, but that is of course a personal opinion. The KSE though does some things remarkably well. But yes the price of the Fourte is something to consider as you have rightfully pointed out. I would not recommend it to everyone. But to those who can afford it and are willing to pay, I would strongly recommend it as a top contender for the spot of the top dog
Mm..the metal band is an aluminum alloy and the color will not fade. That was what I heard from the 64 guy (did not catch his name), which is reassuring to hear. Yes, I agree that the Fourte is special. Shipping this April.
Re: 2nd floor exhibit rooms were more suited for listening to headphones. Less busy and more relaxed.
Re: 2nd floor exhibit rooms were more suited for listening to headphones. Less busy and more relaxed.
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Ray, thanks for your thoughts on the Jam. The part that I liked the most was your dinning experience. Lobster and crab buffet, wow. Had I known that I would be there right next to you.
As for the Fourte, I thought the list price on the Website up till now was $3599.00 how did it get up to $3800.00. So they raised it higher and then give you a bigger discount to make it looks like a good deal? Not cool. I guess the more favourable impressions they get, the higher the price?
Were you able to audition the Dita Dream? Just curious how they compare to the Fourte. I will be going to the SoCal Can Jam in April, I will definitely check out the Fourte compare to my newly acquired Lab 2 side by side.
As for the Fourte, I thought the list price on the Website up till now was $3599.00 how did it get up to $3800.00. So they raised it higher and then give you a bigger discount to make it looks like a good deal? Not cool. I guess the more favourable impressions they get, the higher the price?
Were you able to audition the Dita Dream? Just curious how they compare to the Fourte. I will be going to the SoCal Can Jam in April, I will definitely check out the Fourte compare to my newly acquired Lab 2 side by side.
Can you elaborate why you were underwhelmed by MrSpeaker electrostat ? didn't it offer better bass than the Staxs ?
Did someone else compared the MrSpeakers Ether Electrostatic and the Stax SR009 face off on the Blue Hawaii ?
Impressive !
Has anyone compared the The 64 Audio tia Fourté with the SHURE KSE 1500 electrostatic IEM ?
They are in the same price range, and so far I have always considered the SHURE as the BEST IEM that I have ever listened to !
Assuming Mr Speakers used the same setup that he did at RMAF/CANJAM Denver, the change to the Holo Spring DAC was the game changer for the 009. Having heard his 009 setup a few times before on his blue hawaii, it always was in that rarefied exotic range of HPs but sounded thin and etheric and the master of the classical genre. However, with the Spring DAC the music took flight and added texture and body like I haven't heard before. Think EDM with the 009. The 009 was just at a whole new level.
Does that say that the Ether Electrostat was bad? No, but it is sitting next to the 009 being driven better than ever before. The 009 has that elegance and sound stage that is hard to match. The Ether was great, but a bit more narrow and not as detailed in direct comparison to the 009. I think there is a significant price difference as well.
I tried it at can jam direct from my player. Vs the kse 1500, I really didn't felt it was really special. Maybe there's a need for a much better amp/dac in between, but there's this slight sibilants in some of the tracks I used that never appeared in my kse1500. But have to say, it carries a flagship sound quality in a size that's almost unrivalled. If anything, it's more dynamic and fun while kse1500 is controlled and felt more true to the source. That said, my Friend which went with me preferred it over the kse1500. Nothing new since most if you are not into the kse1500 sound sig, you will find it kinda boring.
WCDchee
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The Dream, KSE and Fourté are to my ears probably the top 3 IEMs on my mind at this point in time and I've tried pretty much most things
They are very different sounding.
The KSE sounds to my ears a little like the HD800 with bass. Smoother of course. I'm a sucker for stats, so naturally, I love that stat level resolution and transparency, along with that remarkable pinpoint imaging answer effortlessness. The Bass is surprisingly full bodied and punchy and Super tight, being slightly north of neutral to my ears so if that's what you're looking for the Shures will do it for you. However the main problem I find with the Shures is in the tonality. They need a really lush and warm source or they get shouty and bright, like the HD800. They could do with a little more lower midrange warmth and fullness and a little less upper midrange brightness. Also, the fact that you're left with no choice but to strap an extra amp on, plus the problems with input volume, make it tough to justify to use. Oh yes and the plastic shells which don't really seem all that tough. Lots of 846's have cracked over a year or two.
The Dream aims to be a true, transparent neutral reference, and to my ears has a more accurate and uncoloured tonality as compared to the shures. It doesn't have that stat like effortlessness, but it is, regardless, remarkably detailed and dynamic sounding. If you have a cold source it's Gona sound cold. If the source is bassy you'll hear it. It only helps that it comes with what is one of the best (to my ears) IEM cables sonically, and is made of titanium which makes them really tough. It's truly a top flight dynamic driver earphone which has somehow gotten past the typical dynamic pitfalls of a potentially overbearing and sluggish bass response and stage congestion. Very open, wide AND deep.
The Fourté now takes a very different approach to things. It's the fun one in the trio. Incredible deep, powerful, thunderous rumbling sub bass with a remarkable slam. It's like a HE-1000's subbass in an IEM. Stage is huge in all axes, separation and layering are phenomenal and the image has this crazy sense of physicality and weight to it. Tonality is wonderfully musical yet still very accurate in the midrange, a tad lusher than the Dream. Thing is, the bass might be a little too much for some, and most people at the show heard them on foam, which I find to really make the bass a little too overbearing and mask their technical prowess.
In terms of tonality from bright to warm (not that the fourte is warm) it's KSE>Dream>Fourté. If you want me to rank them at this point though, all I can say I say that if I had to pick one, it would be either the Dream or the Fourté.
.mm...I was able to audition the Dita Dream. I think that it was a tad brighter than my personal preference and the bass could be a tad more. Very good detail retrieval and the imaging is quite good. I do not have experience with the previous Dita models so I have no idea how it is similar to or whether it departs from the tuning of pre-Dream models. Quick impression: the Fourte is much better than the Dream or the voicing is much closer to my preference.
This impressed me, except for the exterior design (ugly) and at 3k usd for a new brand and from a little known company, I think they are pushing it. Very comfortable to wear for a planar magnetic and I love the self-adjusting mechanism (spring-loaded?) headband of this closed-back.
http://www.avhub.com.au/news/hi-fi/crosszone-cz-1-headphones-445471
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My impressions:
1) Smyth was the first thing I tried, since I'm a kickstarter backer and wanted to take my HRTF measurements. Great localisation, although when they asked me to compare the headphones and the speakers immediately I could tell the HD800 was a bit tripped up in the treble and lacked subbass compared to the Yamaha actives they had set-up. Mike from Smyth agreed, and said that's why they were going to have the option to add EQ to specific headphones, that you could adjust yourself to get your headphones to sound the exact same as the speakers you're hearing. I also felt strangely that the demo worked much better on localising single speakers than when the full-setup was playing, and when talking to Piotr, who tried it right after me, he said that it's because the 'phantom space' in between the speakers weren't as obviously imaged as the speakers themselves. That might be it. But overall, a real game-changer, and really made me think that I'd never reflected on how the speaker experience would be so different from speakers simply because the location of the sound does not change. When one listens to music his head is moving all the time- moving left, moving right, talking to friends, sitting back and relaxing, grabbing a drink, etc... Through all this a speaker setup never changes its location, and so the spell is never broken. Headphones don't do this, at least not until now, so I'd be curious to try with normal 2-channel music when my setup comes.
2) The next thing I tried was the Blu2+ Dave. Coming from the Smyth, I was stunned that this held its own- since I was listening partly to a full 11.1 setup in that room. This was one of the 'sounds of the show' for me. Ridiculously enveloping, all-encompassing, clear, clean, expansive. I actually tried with the LCD2 and wasn't looking closely. I then passed it to my friend and said 'here, try with the LCD4.' He told me it was the 2 and I was shocked. I'd never heard it sounding like that before, and I'd figured it had to be the 4, given how I was hearing something that technically competent. I tried the Hugo2 right after, but then I listened for ten seconds, pulled it out, and laughed at Rob. Then he said, 'it's not the same, isn't it? That's why I lug the Blu2 and Dave around the world with me in my luggage'. Yup. Anyhow, I did later try again, cycling through the four filters, and I must say the Hugo's original filters are much improved. Clearer, less lean, more precise. The latter two filters, the Mojo ones, sound like, well, the Mojo. Warmer, darker, but still more precise than the Mojo. Great portable source, the H2.
3) Soundkey Dac. Nice sense of space, good detail, but ultimately lacking a bit of impact and was quite grainy. But then at its price...
4) I tried the BHSE for quite a while in a bid to compare it to my DIY T2 I have at home. The BHSE's loses out in holography and expansiveness, which was surprising to me since the design is supposed to be derived from the DIY T2. A lot of the magic from the 009, for me, is from this holographic sound, and this wasn't quite there on the BHSE. The bass and impact is better, however, on the BHSE. I can't quite stand listening to pop or rock on the DIY T2, for example, but the BHSE was okay. Bear in mind however that I've never heard the Holo Springs DAC in my life so some of the difference could perhaps be attributed to that vs my Chord Dave and Bricasti M1. Also listened to the Mr Speakers on the BHSE. Now this is merely a prototype and one of the drivers had some issue with it, needing to be pressed in before sounding okay. But I couldn't quite get into it. It seemed to lose some of the speed of the Stax and yet also wasn't quite as fun and impactful as a more mainstream sound. Went back and forth a bit trying to figure out why The Mr Speaker was not quite involving enough and eventually I just moved on.
5) Hifiman. Not really a fan of the Shangri La. At first brush it sounds nice, but then it seems to be a bit too much of a Hifi sound, and a lot of the low level detail retrieval was missing compared to the 009 I had just heard. Perhaps it's the 300B amp? Don't know, can't say since I didn't try it on any other amp. Very much a 'mainstream' take on the Stax sound, good for pop. In general, the Hifiman booth was very hard for me to audition because their playlist had basically nothing of what I listened to. Not much jazz, not much R&B, limited classical music, and of course zero EDM. Anyway, I liked the Edition 6. Good depth, good perception. It's a hard-hitting (definitely much harder than the HEK, closer to HE6 level), neutral can with just a bit more treble presence than I'd like. But still, great potential. In direct AB's with the HEKv2 that was there the ED6 was clearly much better. More realistic, especially in the depth regions, more impactful, and more transparent. Finally, I also liked the RE2000. Very coherent. Strong, impactful sound. The colouration of the driver was quite evident, but it was nice. Great potential, given that it's still a prototype. These things are hard to drive, though- from my iPhone my volume needed to be turned up to the max. Most BA IEMs go to about 50% volume, in comparison.
6) Rhapsodio. Tried the Venus MK2. Very nice, coherent, good decay in the subbass and punchy down low. I actually thought that this might have a dynamic driver down low so was a bit confused since the other parts of the freq response sounded like a BA and I asked Sammy. He said it was a 6-driver BA with a new bass driver that was just released. I also liked how the vocals were extremely airy with no sense of sibilance. Reminded me a bit of my vocal reference, the VE5, in this regard. Sammy then let me try a different version- same exact IEM, he told me, but without a paper filter. This one sounded harsher and unbalanced, with a dip in the lower mids. Sammy agreed, and said he himself was shocked at how big a difference the filter made. He told me this was a successor to his Solar, and that he'd spent a lot of time trying to get the treble to work properly. Apparently in the Solar there are deliberate cuts in the treble to make it non-sibilant, but here he wanted the treble back because he wanted more detail. So it was a real challenge to get that done without sibilance rearing its ugly head again.
7) Kennerton. Tried the Vali and Odin. Both clearly same house sound. Fast, macro-dynamics, impactful, strong imaging. This is the 'hifi-sound' that I speak of. Very exciting, and I can see why it would make a great first impression, like a stunning evening dress. But ultimately for both of them I thought low-level detail retrieval was not good enough. It was a lot of flash-bang, and not much nitty-gritty.
8) Wells Audio Milo. Honeyed, smooth, guilty. Nice frequency response, but the Wells was hooked up to the Dave+Blu2 so I took the chance to AB the two setups, one directly out of the HP out of the D+B2 and one from the Milo. In this comparison it was clear just how much the Milo was giving up in terms of an overly-smoothed sound, and losing detail and resolving ability at the same time.
9) Zeus Adel, R and XIV. Can clearly hear what the two iems are going for, the R being more neutral and the XIV being more fun. Subjectively, I enjoyed the XIV more, but I do think the R may be better long-term. This was a strange audition. They didn't sound great out of my iPhone, but then I borrowed the vendor's player, which had only 5 songs, all either DSD or 24/96, and then it sounded fantastic. So, literally from the worst source to the best one. Anyway out of the good source it sounded silky smooth, detailed, with great low-level resolving ability. In fact, this was low-level retrieval that I've basically not heard from any other IEM.
10) FIBAE 1 and 2. These two IEMs sounded the best out of any I heard out of my iPhone at the show. The 1 was more pure, more clear, more sweet and subtle, and I liked it a lot- as long as you're not putting on crazy metal or complex EDM. The 2 has a bit more bass, is punchier and more dynamic overall. The 2 kinda gains 10-15% more impact but loses 5% of the magic purity. For my money I'd go for the 1, but then I'm not really the kinda guy who uses 1 IEM for everything. Nonetheless there's something magical about a sweet, pure and unaltered 1-driver sound. I also compared it from my iPhone vs the player they had there, and the difference wasn't unbearable, so much so that I completed the audition using my own phone in the end. Piotr says this is specifically tuned to be great from all sources. If, like me, you're increasingly against Brick-Fi, then this is an IEM you have to consider.
11) VE8. Basssssssy. This was an enveloping type of bass, like a dewy, sun half-up, early-morning kind of mist. Did not obscure the other frequencies, which was good, but lacked the magical air of the VE5 and the VE6. The sound overall was also maybe a bit too restrained, laid-back. However on slamming songs the VE8 can still punch hard and reach deep, and I liked that since getting good dynamic contrast between the soft and subtle vs the loud and flashy is not easy, and this IEM does it well. Overall I think Vision Ears does a remarkable job of creating subtle, mature, well-tuned IEMs, and this was another example of that. You're not going to get an 'american' sound here, if you know what I mean. Ultimately though I missed the air, and when I told Amin that, and he said, then you probably like the 5 and 6. Well, yes I do!
12) Ether-Flow. Tried it on the Rag, which is not my favourite amp, and the overall combi was nothing special to me. Reminds me a bit of my reaction to their E-stat, actually. It seems that it's okay in most respects- detail, imaging, slam, but not really wonderful at any. But then again, the Rag (which I once owned) is not my favourite amp. Was never a fan of its soundstage, in particular. So maybe it's a pairing issue...
13) HE-1. Only had two songs to try. The first song was breathtaking. It was the audiophile-type of track, with magically placed drums and instruments appearing from nowhere. The HE-1 showed itself to be great at imaging, fast, emotional, smooth, and had great tonality. The second song, thankfully, had some vocals (Jennifer Warnes). Here, the sound was a slight bit plasticky, like the singer couldn't really open up her voice, especially in terms of depth. Something in the treble sounded coloured. But overall, based on this super short audition, yup, this is great stuff. Pity, the lady before me was listening to some loud JPop. That's the type of song I would have loved to try since I don't generally think that genre does well on Stax. But it was a controlled audition so no dice.
Was only there for a few hours, so missed out on the Tia, the Dita Dream, plenty of prototypes... Always long lines for those. But I still had a really great and fun time!
1) Smyth was the first thing I tried, since I'm a kickstarter backer and wanted to take my HRTF measurements. Great localisation, although when they asked me to compare the headphones and the speakers immediately I could tell the HD800 was a bit tripped up in the treble and lacked subbass compared to the Yamaha actives they had set-up. Mike from Smyth agreed, and said that's why they were going to have the option to add EQ to specific headphones, that you could adjust yourself to get your headphones to sound the exact same as the speakers you're hearing. I also felt strangely that the demo worked much better on localising single speakers than when the full-setup was playing, and when talking to Piotr, who tried it right after me, he said that it's because the 'phantom space' in between the speakers weren't as obviously imaged as the speakers themselves. That might be it. But overall, a real game-changer, and really made me think that I'd never reflected on how the speaker experience would be so different from speakers simply because the location of the sound does not change. When one listens to music his head is moving all the time- moving left, moving right, talking to friends, sitting back and relaxing, grabbing a drink, etc... Through all this a speaker setup never changes its location, and so the spell is never broken. Headphones don't do this, at least not until now, so I'd be curious to try with normal 2-channel music when my setup comes.
2) The next thing I tried was the Blu2+ Dave. Coming from the Smyth, I was stunned that this held its own- since I was listening partly to a full 11.1 setup in that room. This was one of the 'sounds of the show' for me. Ridiculously enveloping, all-encompassing, clear, clean, expansive. I actually tried with the LCD2 and wasn't looking closely. I then passed it to my friend and said 'here, try with the LCD4.' He told me it was the 2 and I was shocked. I'd never heard it sounding like that before, and I'd figured it had to be the 4, given how I was hearing something that technically competent. I tried the Hugo2 right after, but then I listened for ten seconds, pulled it out, and laughed at Rob. Then he said, 'it's not the same, isn't it? That's why I lug the Blu2 and Dave around the world with me in my luggage'. Yup. Anyhow, I did later try again, cycling through the four filters, and I must say the Hugo's original filters are much improved. Clearer, less lean, more precise. The latter two filters, the Mojo ones, sound like, well, the Mojo. Warmer, darker, but still more precise than the Mojo. Great portable source, the H2.
3) Soundkey Dac. Nice sense of space, good detail, but ultimately lacking a bit of impact and was quite grainy. But then at its price...
4) I tried the BHSE for quite a while in a bid to compare it to my DIY T2 I have at home. The BHSE's loses out in holography and expansiveness, which was surprising to me since the design is supposed to be derived from the DIY T2. A lot of the magic from the 009, for me, is from this holographic sound, and this wasn't quite there on the BHSE. The bass and impact is better, however, on the BHSE. I can't quite stand listening to pop or rock on the DIY T2, for example, but the BHSE was okay. Bear in mind however that I've never heard the Holo Springs DAC in my life so some of the difference could perhaps be attributed to that vs my Chord Dave and Bricasti M1. Also listened to the Mr Speakers on the BHSE. Now this is merely a prototype and one of the drivers had some issue with it, needing to be pressed in before sounding okay. But I couldn't quite get into it. It seemed to lose some of the speed of the Stax and yet also wasn't quite as fun and impactful as a more mainstream sound. Went back and forth a bit trying to figure out why The Mr Speaker was not quite involving enough and eventually I just moved on.
5) Hifiman. Not really a fan of the Shangri La. At first brush it sounds nice, but then it seems to be a bit too much of a Hifi sound, and a lot of the low level detail retrieval was missing compared to the 009 I had just heard. Perhaps it's the 300B amp? Don't know, can't say since I didn't try it on any other amp. Very much a 'mainstream' take on the Stax sound, good for pop. In general, the Hifiman booth was very hard for me to audition because their playlist had basically nothing of what I listened to. Not much jazz, not much R&B, limited classical music, and of course zero EDM. Anyway, I liked the Edition 6. Good depth, good perception. It's a hard-hitting (definitely much harder than the HEK, closer to HE6 level), neutral can with just a bit more treble presence than I'd like. But still, great potential. In direct AB's with the HEKv2 that was there the ED6 was clearly much better. More realistic, especially in the depth regions, more impactful, and more transparent. Finally, I also liked the RE2000. Very coherent. Strong, impactful sound. The colouration of the driver was quite evident, but it was nice. Great potential, given that it's still a prototype. These things are hard to drive, though- from my iPhone my volume needed to be turned up to the max. Most BA IEMs go to about 50% volume, in comparison.
6) Rhapsodio. Tried the Venus MK2. Very nice, coherent, good decay in the subbass and punchy down low. I actually thought that this might have a dynamic driver down low so was a bit confused since the other parts of the freq response sounded like a BA and I asked Sammy. He said it was a 6-driver BA with a new bass driver that was just released. I also liked how the vocals were extremely airy with no sense of sibilance. Reminded me a bit of my vocal reference, the VE5, in this regard. Sammy then let me try a different version- same exact IEM, he told me, but without a paper filter. This one sounded harsher and unbalanced, with a dip in the lower mids. Sammy agreed, and said he himself was shocked at how big a difference the filter made. He told me this was a successor to his Solar, and that he'd spent a lot of time trying to get the treble to work properly. Apparently in the Solar there are deliberate cuts in the treble to make it non-sibilant, but here he wanted the treble back because he wanted more detail. So it was a real challenge to get that done without sibilance rearing its ugly head again.
7) Kennerton. Tried the Vali and Odin. Both clearly same house sound. Fast, macro-dynamics, impactful, strong imaging. This is the 'hifi-sound' that I speak of. Very exciting, and I can see why it would make a great first impression, like a stunning evening dress. But ultimately for both of them I thought low-level detail retrieval was not good enough. It was a lot of flash-bang, and not much nitty-gritty.
8) Wells Audio Milo. Honeyed, smooth, guilty. Nice frequency response, but the Wells was hooked up to the Dave+Blu2 so I took the chance to AB the two setups, one directly out of the HP out of the D+B2 and one from the Milo. In this comparison it was clear just how much the Milo was giving up in terms of an overly-smoothed sound, and losing detail and resolving ability at the same time.
9) Zeus Adel, R and XIV. Can clearly hear what the two iems are going for, the R being more neutral and the XIV being more fun. Subjectively, I enjoyed the XIV more, but I do think the R may be better long-term. This was a strange audition. They didn't sound great out of my iPhone, but then I borrowed the vendor's player, which had only 5 songs, all either DSD or 24/96, and then it sounded fantastic. So, literally from the worst source to the best one. Anyway out of the good source it sounded silky smooth, detailed, with great low-level resolving ability. In fact, this was low-level retrieval that I've basically not heard from any other IEM.
10) FIBAE 1 and 2. These two IEMs sounded the best out of any I heard out of my iPhone at the show. The 1 was more pure, more clear, more sweet and subtle, and I liked it a lot- as long as you're not putting on crazy metal or complex EDM. The 2 has a bit more bass, is punchier and more dynamic overall. The 2 kinda gains 10-15% more impact but loses 5% of the magic purity. For my money I'd go for the 1, but then I'm not really the kinda guy who uses 1 IEM for everything. Nonetheless there's something magical about a sweet, pure and unaltered 1-driver sound. I also compared it from my iPhone vs the player they had there, and the difference wasn't unbearable, so much so that I completed the audition using my own phone in the end. Piotr says this is specifically tuned to be great from all sources. If, like me, you're increasingly against Brick-Fi, then this is an IEM you have to consider.
11) VE8. Basssssssy. This was an enveloping type of bass, like a dewy, sun half-up, early-morning kind of mist. Did not obscure the other frequencies, which was good, but lacked the magical air of the VE5 and the VE6. The sound overall was also maybe a bit too restrained, laid-back. However on slamming songs the VE8 can still punch hard and reach deep, and I liked that since getting good dynamic contrast between the soft and subtle vs the loud and flashy is not easy, and this IEM does it well. Overall I think Vision Ears does a remarkable job of creating subtle, mature, well-tuned IEMs, and this was another example of that. You're not going to get an 'american' sound here, if you know what I mean. Ultimately though I missed the air, and when I told Amin that, and he said, then you probably like the 5 and 6. Well, yes I do!
12) Ether-Flow. Tried it on the Rag, which is not my favourite amp, and the overall combi was nothing special to me. Reminds me a bit of my reaction to their E-stat, actually. It seems that it's okay in most respects- detail, imaging, slam, but not really wonderful at any. But then again, the Rag (which I once owned) is not my favourite amp. Was never a fan of its soundstage, in particular. So maybe it's a pairing issue...
13) HE-1. Only had two songs to try. The first song was breathtaking. It was the audiophile-type of track, with magically placed drums and instruments appearing from nowhere. The HE-1 showed itself to be great at imaging, fast, emotional, smooth, and had great tonality. The second song, thankfully, had some vocals (Jennifer Warnes). Here, the sound was a slight bit plasticky, like the singer couldn't really open up her voice, especially in terms of depth. Something in the treble sounded coloured. But overall, based on this super short audition, yup, this is great stuff. Pity, the lady before me was listening to some loud JPop. That's the type of song I would have loved to try since I don't generally think that genre does well on Stax. But it was a controlled audition so no dice.
Was only there for a few hours, so missed out on the Tia, the Dita Dream, plenty of prototypes... Always long lines for those. But I still had a really great and fun time!
Mimouille
Headphoneus Supremus
Price aside, I find the Fourte much more satisfying than the KSE, but that is of course a personal opinion. The KSE though does some things remarkably well. But yes the price of the Fourte is something to consider as you have rightfully pointed out. I would not recommend it to everyone. But to those who can afford it and are willing to pay, I would strongly recommend it as a top contender for the spot of the top dog
Thank you. Did you try it at Canjam or do you have a review unit of the Fourte? it is difficult to put price aside at this price.
WCDchee
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I actually do have a review up here on the pre production Fourté and I've had the chance to hear the KSE and the Dream on many occasions in a quiet environment, especially the dream. I just did up a comparison in my previous post.
I heard the production fourte at Canjam and I think it's an improvement over the prototype in every way due to the chassis material.
You are right, prices are soaring, no doubt about that. I honestly don't find most flagships to be that awesome, some I find downright poor. Whether these three IEMs are worth their price, it's really up to the individual it's not for me to say. What I will say though is that at the very least, I find them to be thoroughly worthy of their flagship status without too many glaring faults.
Hope it helps though
Mm...not necessarily price increase. I believe the price difference is because of 7% government sales tax here plus the Fourte is a U.S.-based product, hence the higher price. Even at 3,600 usd full retail, it still is just 4 Benjamins short of a Focal Utopia. Certainly a factor for those mulling purchase. For me, it was easier since I already have the Utopia.
My first stop was the HeadAmp booth, at which I enjoyed myself immensely. There was an excellent selection of tracks which allowed me to try different genres and classic audiophile type stuff.
A Holo Spring DAC (Kitsune Tuned Edition) fed a BHSE and HeadAmp GS-X MK2. The BHSE fed the Staxes 007 and 009 as well as the Ether Stat, and the GS-X MK2 fed either the LCD4, HE1Kv2 or Utopia. My favourite 2 had to be the BHSE>009 which had the best transparency, detail and effortlessness in the reproduction of sound. The other was definitely the GS-X MK2 out to the HE1Kv2, which had excellent staging height and size, as well as solid bass slam and macrodynamics. I would listen to the 009 for jazz/classical/acoustic and the HE1Kv2 for rock and pop. Well, one can dream... This was definitely my favourite booth.
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