[jude]

  Thank Jude for this presentation.
 
It's funny, because unlike video with Jude and the Stax Sr-009 (http://www.head-fi.org/t/560425/stax-sr-009-best-headphone-ever-made-head-fi-tv-episode-008), in this video of the presentation of the Abyss, nobody dares to wear this headphone it on the head, or even manipulate with both hands. This headphone remains mostly planted right as an I on his pedestal.
Is not, ultimately, a post-industrial art object for rich collector?

 
Hit play on this one, and about four seconds in...
 

 
Then click on this one below, and it will take you right to the point in the video where, if you wait a little for it...
 
 

 

[eric65]

Back from the supermarket? (first video)
 
I love ! 

 

 

[Anda]

@eric65

Your aversion towards the Abyss is kinda worrying. If the sound is as good as Jude, Tyll and other people say, and if it's comfortable enough, I couldn't care less about the looks of the headphone.

 

[eric65]

  @eric65

Your aversion towards the Abyss is kinda worrying. If the sound is as good as Jude, Tyll and other people say, and if it's comfortable enough, I couldn't care less about the looks of the headphone.

 
It is good ;  it is still happy for a headphone of this price ! but its presentation bothers me (look, no height adjustment) and I must admit, also the measures (objective) performed (not good). From the subjective is important in choosing whether or not this headphone. One likes or dislikes.

 

[rrahman]

The entire reason I got into headphones over speakers was because I could reach the upper strata of audio quality without emptying my bank account.  Cavalli audio makes great amps and I might even buy one someday, but their business strategy seems like price gauging.  They purposefully release a very limited supply of amps, driving the price of their products very high and providing large profits for a relatively modest manufacturing cost.  Companies like this worry me about the future of headphone enthusiasts.  Then again maybe I'm wrong and Cavalli's profit margins are alot more meager than I think.

 

[Currawong]

rrahman: To set up a production line with staff and a sufficient supply of components, manage customer service and all that is horrendously expensive. It is not at all hard to imagine a half- to one-million dollar investment before an amp is sold. A single person doing it at home could manage with far less if customers don't mind a huge wait and very slow replies to emails. Every single component has to be bought in large bulk, as a single one going out of stock or becoming end-of-life can completely ruin things. A manufacturer will typically deal with half-a-dozen suppliers for a single product, any one of which could have issues. Given Alex has a proper factory with staff making products for a very niche market for which he has to take huge risks, I'm not going to criticise him for his prices, even though, for me, the LG costs way more than I would wish to pay for a headphone amp.

 

[rrahman]

rrahman: To set up a production line with staff and a sufficient supply of components, manage customer service and all that is horrendously expensive. It is not at all hard to imagine a half- to one-million dollar investment before an amp is sold. A single person doing it at home could manage with far less if customers don't mind a huge wait and very slow replies to emails. Every single component has to be bought in large bulk, as a single one going out of stock or becoming end-of-life can completely ruin things. A manufacturer will typically deal with half-a-dozen suppliers for a single product, any one of which could have issues. Given Alex has a proper factory with staff making products for a very niche market for which he has to take huge risks, I'm not going to criticise him for his prices, even though, for me, the LG costs way more than I would wish to pay for a headphone amp.

At 6.5 k a piece he only needs to sell 150 amps to make a million in revenue.

I agree with almost everything your saying. The task is risky and monumental, but so many companies still manage. All I'm saying is the absurd price point, slow trickling out of amps with so much hype is highly suspect.

 

[MuppetFace]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this pairing, Jude.
 
The Abyss and Liquid Gold are my current reference, chosen to be so because I think they are, quite simply, the best performing combo currently available in this hobby. I actually prefer the Sennheiser Orpheus HE90 + HEV90 in some respects, namely their grandiose rose-colored presentation which sounds larger (and prettier) than life, though that particular pairing is even MORE than this one---maybe even twice as much---if you can even find a set on the used market. Even then I still prefer the Abyss + LAu in a sense because it sounds truer to life to my ears, more like a good two-way speaker system.
 
I own Stax gear as well, and I am quite familiar with the Blue Hawaii SE, yet I would still take this combo over them. The SR-009 is a truly marvelous headphone in its own right, no doubt, but personally I prefer the Abyss for a number of reasons. There is no perfect headphone, even at these price points: it's less a function of "the sad state of the industry" in my opinion and more about our tastes differing. Both the SR-009 and Abyss present an incredible aural experience, they just go about it in a different way.
 
As for Cavalli's profit margins: there're not large. Believe it or not, Alex is making enough to stay afloat, and that's about it. The casework that people so dismissively call "DIY" is actually incredibly nice when you see it in person. There are something like 30 manufacturing steps involved in making the front panels alone, and pictures / video do not do them justice. Between the cost of all this assembly work, the quality parts used inside the amps, and the dealers wanting to be paid too, you're not looking at a lot left over.
 
Finally, I think it's a bit odd when folks bring up hype regarding the Abyss. Supposedly there's runaway hype for it? Er... where? Not here on head-fi, at least. In fact most of the posts about it so far have been negative and made by folks who haven't even heard it.

 

[Currawong]

 

rrahman: To set up a production line with staff and a sufficient supply of components, manage customer service and all that is horrendously expensive. It is not at all hard to imagine a half- to one-million dollar investment before an amp is sold. A single person doing it at home could manage with far less if customers don't mind a huge wait and very slow replies to emails. Every single component has to be bought in large bulk, as a single one going out of stock or becoming end-of-life can completely ruin things. A manufacturer will typically deal with half-a-dozen suppliers for a single product, any one of which could have issues. Given Alex has a proper factory with staff making products for a very niche market for which he has to take huge risks, I'm not going to criticise him for his prices, even though, for me, the LG costs way more than I would wish to pay for a headphone amp.

At 6.5 k a piece he only needs to sell 150 amps to make a million in revenue.

I agree with almost everything your saying. The task is risky and monumental, but so many companies still manage. All I'm saying is the absurd price point, slow trickling out of amps with so much hype is highly suspect.

 
Only 150 $6500 amps. Only. And for revenue, not profit. 

 

 

[arnaud]

Finally, I think it's a bit odd when folks bring up hype regarding the Abyss. Supposedly there's runaway hype for it? Er... where? Not here on head-fi, at least. In fact most of the posts about it so far have been negative and made by folks who haven't even heard it.

The sole purpose if this thread is to raise awareness though . The video is nice but, given the lack of descriptives besides the gear sounding "bester among the bestets", that certainly could be interpreted as hyping.

As for the stax sounding ethereal, oh well, hello cliche...

Arnaud

 

[Asr]

At 6.5 k a piece he only needs to sell 150 amps to make a million in revenue.

I agree with almost everything your saying. The task is risky and monumental, but so many companies still manage. All I'm saying is the absurd price point, slow trickling out of amps with so much hype is highly suspect.

 
And how many amps do you think are actually sold in this ultra-niche market of high-end headphone audio? Most vendors who build amps in this space don't sell very many units and would be extremely lucky to sell 50 over a year. What you're calling a "slow trickling" is a long period of time required for vendors to order & collect parts for a limited number of amps for a limited number of buyers. These kinds of products don't come off an assembly line, they have to be built by hand.
 
And as MuppetFace said, I haven't seen much, if any, hype for the Liquid Gold, or any other Cavalli products for that matter. If anything, harsh criticism of his products tends to outnumber the posts that say anything good about them by a huge margin.

 

[eric65]

The sole purpose if this thread is to raise awareness though

. The video is nice but, given the lack of descriptives besides the gear sounding "bester among the bestets", that certainly could be interpreted as hyping.

As for the stax sounding ethereal, oh well, hello cliche...

Arnaud

 
"ethereal" It is a matter of definition 

 
If Stax headphones can make a man crying (*), it is perhaps due to the famous nature of the "ethereal sound" of this headphone.

(Nb: etheral: Synonyms: pure, immaterial)
 
(*) http://www.head-fi.org/t/666765/the-jps-labs-abyss-ab-1266-appreciation-and-impressions-thread/870#post_10194775

 

[MuppetFace]

The sole purpose if this thread is to raise awareness though

. The video is nice but, given the lack of descriptives besides the gear sounding "bester among the bestets", that certainly could be interpreted as hyping.

As for the stax sounding ethereal, oh well, hello cliche...

Arnaud

 
 
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but you come off as incredibly condescending in your post. You're damning with faint praise and basically taking the video down a few pegs by using idiot-speak that implies Jude is so smitten by the gear he's not able to even articulate himself in an intelligent manner.
 
Jude said in the video both the SR-009 and Abyss have a number of excellent qualities (he listed them: detail, tonal accuracy, etc.) but that it was a sense of physicality that specifically made the Abyss appealing to him. This is a descriptive, and I suspect you caught it because you criticize the implication that Stax are more ethereal (which would be the opposite of physical). Unless you're actually referring to my description of the Sennheiser Orpheus by chance. In either case: cliches are problematic because they're tired and overused, not because they're necessarily untrue.

 

[arnaud]

MF, thank you for the vocabulary lesson, but please hold your horses before putting words in someone else's mouth. I felt Jude's video was well made as always and true to him actually since he that enthusiastic when I see him in person. Now, I also feel it's rather void of much analysis, hence I felt this was more made for the purpose of making an endorsement than providing much insight on why is this that special a phone. Yet again, I would be the last person on earth being able to express how I hear gear through a video so indeed that's not my position to criticize.
 
For the positioning of SR009 as ethereal, you wanted to bring some contrast between it and the abyss, I get it. It's unfortunate though that, by putting it this way, while you make the abyss look good, you also spit on the 009 and stats in general by propagating the same old (untrue to these ears) cliche. 

 

[eric65]

About the "physicality" of the sound.
 
A French just bought a used Abyss at an U.S man. This is an Abyss who apparently served only two hours. The reason for the sale? This American prefers apparently upgrade its speakers. Maybe this headphone was not enough "physical" for his taste for replace the speakers?