[money4me247]

  Jude praises everything.  
 
Tyll only reviews headphones he likes, which is respectable.  It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't review the new Audezes (at their current tuning).  He also probably wouldn't have made the same comments regrading the new Audezes on Head-Fi so easily as he did on the other forum.

Yes, this.
 
Jude is positive about all headphones. Tyll has a strong preference for a warm sound signature. Tyll saying something is too bright doesn't mean much as his tastes are for darker headphones.
 
However, Tyll saying there is not enough bass along with a lot of the other comments around here not really mentioning anything positive about the bass (which is typically a planar magnetic's strength) does make me a bit more wary about these headphones. Will definitely need to demo for myself to see what's up.
 
It's funny, because if you spend enough time around this site, you kinda get a sense of people's biases & preferences, which is helpful to see whether their review is relevant to you personally. I find that reviews that are not all positive or all negative & has some direct comparison's to the sonic characteristics of other competing headphones to be the most useful.
 
My personal thoughts from the more neutral reviews is that these are probably a bit over-priced for its sonics at $700, but still gather a lot of interest as its relatively inexpensive for the Audeze brand. Seems like interest here is due to the brand name & new lower pricing tier over actual sonic performance per dollar.
 
edit: I am personally just interested in an closed portable orthdynamic headphones, so looking forward to direct comparisons of this new EL-8 vs the upcoming Oppo PM-3.

 

[Uberclocked]

  Jude praises everything.  
 
Tyll only reviews headphones he likes, which is respectable.  It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't review the new Audezes (at their current tuning).  He also probably wouldn't have made the same comments regrading the new Audezes on Head-Fi so easily as he did on the other forum.

We should get him the original Beats Studio/Beats Solo HD to review.  I'd love the hear his response.

 

[JRoMan]

It's funny, because if you spend enough time around this site, you kinda get a sense of people's biases & preferences, which is helpful to see whether their review is relevant to you personally. I find that reviews that are not all positive or all negative & has some direct comparison's to the sonic characteristics of other competing headphones to be the most useful.

Yes, this.

 

[TMRaven]

Altho I do remember Jude saying he didn't like the Shure 1540/1840 so there's always that.  Or it mighta been the 940.

 

[DreamKing]

Yeah, I don't think the impressions of Jude or Tyll's are relevant to the ranking of the el-8 we will see after they get released among headphones in a similar price bracket. Nothing concrete is gonna come out of this but at least you know more or less what to expect so I'm thankful of everyone's impressions. Without them I would be clueless as to what to expect and generally people are more prone to impulsively buy the new thing from a brand with a strong track record.
 
DigitalTrend's award didn't help anything either, just generates more hype whether it be positive or negative. Their written piece about the el-8 didn't compare it to anything else at the show. And did they even talk about any other headphone present at CES on their website? Not one post about the HE-1000...The hype here is mostly just from brand name like anything else. It's to be expected in the tech industry.  
 
So February-March and consequently the coming months after that, we will see if these are a hit or not because people will be listening and directly comparing them with their gear. We will see if they come down in price like the HD700, TH600, etc. 

 

[Uberclocked]

  Altho I do remember Jude saying he didn't like the Shure 1540/1840 so there's always that.  Or it mighta been the 940.

Altho I do remember Tyll saying he did like the Shure 1540 so there's always that.
 

  I meant 1440 oops.  Jude likes the 1540.

 

[TMRaven]

I meant 1440 oops.  Jude likes the 1540.

 

[knowhatimean]

So how recent are Tyll's comments about the EL-8 & if they are that recent wouldn't there be some mention of them on his Inner Fidelity website ? Tyll has mentioned his reluctance to reviewthe HE-560 (that he finds to be bright) so as not to offend those who like their sound signature.(his words published on his website)
 
I will occasionally become a bit disheartened over comments I read on Headphones I had hopes for being what I was looking for. Only temporarily though , as I recall all the hundreds of postings about how superior the Senn HD800 are.(shame on me for finding them lacking in "Musicality")
 
At this point I remember to use these threads for little more than information on what new equipment is now available & my equilibrium (along with my initial interest) is restored.

 

[NZtechfreak]

 
It's funny, because if you spend enough time around this site, you kinda get a sense of people's biases & preferences, which is helpful to see whether their review is relevant to you personally. I find that reviews that are not all positive or all negative & has some direct comparison's to the sonic characteristics of other competing headphones to be the most useful.
 
My personal thoughts from the more neutral reviews is that these are probably a bit over-priced for its sonics at $700, but still gather a lot of interest as its relatively inexpensive for the Audeze brand. Seems like interest here is due to the brand name & new lower pricing tier over actual sonic performance per dollar.

 
This post sums things up extremely well for me.
 
You can see the value of the brand power in many of the posts expressing sentiment along the lines of "Oh, wow, I can't wait until I can finally get some Audeze!". It is clear their reputation and pricing have placed them as an 'aspirational' kind of product for many, so the chance to own them in itself is a draw, quite apart from how they actually sound.
 
As someone who owned the LCD2.2 and didn't really enjoy it that much, outside of a fairly narrow genre bandwidth, the brand holds no particular appeal in and of itself for me (I have since heard the LCD3f and thought they sounded great, if still not as good as my HE-6, and also had the LCD-X for a week or so on loan and felt a bit nonplussed about those).
 
These are still a very interesting headphone for me, as I like to have very good closed cans also - I will look forward to auditioning them myself and hopefully seeing some feedback from some trusted ears with similar preferences in sound to my own.

 

[grizzlybeast]

Anyone just a bit puzzled as to why Jude would praise the EL-8, comparing it to the LCD-X, and Tyll has it sounding like crap?

I think Jude is an enthusiast at heart and can take the good with the bad. But in his videos his facial expression says it all and he is pretty easy to read. I miss his more in depth coverages but there is a lot going on right now.

Also if I ran a website like this it would be very hard for me to go in depth and not piss anyone off. This is an extremely powerful site in the hp world. Im thankful for them hosting such a forum and dont think it fair to rely on him for merciless descriptions of products made by premier sponsors. <--- that is an unfair expectation.

Jude praises everything.  

Tyll only reviews headphones he likes, which is respectable.  It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't review the new Audezes (at their current tuning).  He also probably wouldn't have made the same comments regrading the new Audezes on Head-Fi so easily as he did on the other forum.

Its respectable and may also earn him some more power in the review world because a rave review from him will be more valuable. However there are products such as this one with tons of expectation behind them that need accurate descriptions that he can give.

I'm more concerned about his saying that the open ones lack bass.

Fingers crossed for the final release being different and AUDEZE reading impressions.

 
I'm more concerned about his saying that the open ones lack bass.

.

+1, Tyll's taste in treble is at odds with mine (sometimes), but, his finding that the open EL-8 is lacking in bass is a big concern.

It is at times with me too for the fact that any mid-hi fi headphone that is somewhat bright never gets a recommendation even if it has redeeming qualities. However he and some of the guys at headfonics provide the most comprehensive reviews available.

 

[Stillhart]

  Yes, this.
 
Jude is positive about all headphones. Tyll has a strong preference for a warm sound signature. Tyll saying something is too bright doesn't mean much as his tastes are for darker headphones.
 
However, Tyll saying there is not enough bass along with a lot of the other comments around here not really mentioning anything positive about the bass (which is typically a planar magnetic's strength) does make me a bit more wary about these headphones. Will definitely need to demo for myself to see what's up.
 

 
I've been reading a lot of comments like this.  I think it's important to note that "bass-light" isn't the same as "not enough bass" and "strident treble" isn't the same as "too bright".  
 
Personally, I find the LCD-2 to be somewhat "bass-light" compared to my HE-4.  And "strident treble" isn't necessarily a bad thing if you prefer a brighter sound.  But it's up to each of us to take Tyll's one sentence of objective observations and decide whether we think that's good or bad for our uses.

 

[Beagle]

If you actually read a post where he calls them "crap", you read a different one than I did or have been able to find.
 

 

Well the EL-8 does sound more like the LCD-X than the other two. And Tyll didn't say it sounded like crap.

 
I never quoted Tyll saying they were "crap". But at $700, I'd say "bass light" "strident" and "bright" could be construed as crap...definitely.

 

[DreamKing]

   
 
I never quoted Tyll saying they were "crap". But at $700, I'd say "bass light" "strident" and "bright" could be construed as crap...definitely.

Well he also finds Hifiman headphones bright and never reviewed any of them, does that mean all of their headphones are crap? Sound signature is subjective. The price is irrelevant. 

 

[Stillhart]

   
 
I never quoted Tyll saying they were "crap". But at $700, I'd say "bass light" "strident" and "bright" could be construed as crap...definitely.

 
Well, as I said in my impressions, it's not a BAD sounding headphone, it's just not a $700 headphone.  If you handed them to some dude with an M50 or even a K7XX, he will probably be very impressed.  Hand it to someone with any other Audeze or TOTL HiFiMAN, and not so much.  It's all relative.
 
I did not like them.  I won't get them.  But I certainly wouldn't call them crap.  There are 24 letters between A and Z.  

 

 

[Beagle]

  Well he also finds Hifiman headphones bright and never reviewed any of them, does that mean all of their headphones are crap? Sound signature is subjective. The price is irrelevant. 

 
Price is irrelevant?
 
Wowzers....