Going to try these side-by-side with Stealth, Expanse and Empyrean 2+Empyrean elite in the coming days. Quite exciting from reading the thread. I've tried the expanse and stealth previously, but against the epyrean 2+elite - is there anything in particular I should be listening for? Will report back either way!
So I had about 3 hours with the Stealth, Expanse, E3 and Empyrean 2 the other day. For transparency the setup used was using Roon/Tidal (FLAC) playing on a Kalista (Dreamplay Stream) DAC connected via RCA to my Topping L70 with gain set to low for all headphones. Unfortunately a mix of balanced and unbalanced connectors for the headphones, but there's enough juice in the L70 to power them to approximately the same volume keeping the low gain anyway (~-25 to ~-7 dB depending on connector, headphone and type of music). My personal belief is that the equipment used, since plenty powerful in the ability to output W and being solid state, matters little/none in the equation of the sound being produced through the headphones. I'm stating this so that you are aware of my biases, not saying that I'm right. I had already tried the Stealth and the Expanse (albeit with another amp) previously so I was somewhat familiar with their sound going in. I'll try and list all songs I listened to at the end of this post and I'd be happy to expound on any detail since I'll be writing quite summarily of my impressions. I did not have time to listen to all, but most, songs on all headphones.
Before I start - all four headphones are extremely competent and whichever way you lean you'll be happy with them thanks to EQ. I listened to all of them without any EQ but they're all so technically advanced that whatever impressions I give below are not set in stone - you can achieve essentially similar signatures through EQing one towards the other. What I'm discussing below is also a comparison between the headphones and I'd not recommend against buying either of them individually, although I do believe they represent different amounts of bang for the buck. All those things said;
My impressions were that both Stealth (to a greater extent) and the Expanse (to a lesser extent) felt a bit on the bassier side of things. The sound is of course still close to reference, but the bass is more prominent. The mids felt comparatively recessed - especially female vocals suffered from this. The treble was also quite tame (don't mistake this for it being absent - it was there, just not in a prominent role) which made me think that they'd be very comfortable for longer listening sessions - a sharp treble is the most fatiguing factor in listening for me. In comparison, both the E3 and the Emp2 had more of a recessed bass, where I'd say that the E3's was the most while the Emp2 was somewhere in-between. A large difference was in punch - obviously both the Stealth and Expanse had lots of it, the Emp2 did too. The E3 was more of a "I can hear it but can't feel it" kind of experience.
The largest difference however, was rather in how the mids and upper mids were presented; my impression of the E3 is that it's an *extremely* vocal-focused headphone. Especially female vocals stood out - almost like they were singing right next to me, which was a lovely feeling. However, this clarity also came with a cost - remember what I said about the treble? Yeah - the E3's treble felt a bit sharp to me. Not a problem for shorter sessions, but for longer (say 45-60 minutes plus?) I'd definitely want to EQ it a bit. The Emp2 really hit the sweet spot here - vocals were put in front of the presentation, but since the lows are not as recessed as on the E3 it came out as more of a balanced listen to me (V-shaped is probably the term many of you'd be thinking of here here - but it didn't *feel* that V-shaped but simply more balanced). I could see the Emp2 losing out on some technicalities here, but since I didn't have *that* long to test it wasn't something that stood out to me at the time.
All things must end with a ranking, right? In terms of performance, from my preferences:
Emp2 (it's just a LOT of fun listening to music with this headphone! Well balanced, may be losing some detail but I honestly couldn't really tell from my listening)
Expanse (non-fatiguing treble combined with a nice little bass-bump around 100-300hz makes for a very comfortable and revelatory listening experience - I'd describe it as "reference retaining a signature sound")
E3 (the wow-factor hearing female voices made all other headphones' presentation of them seem, frankly, dull - it was like they all had a "veil" but they didn't - the E3 was just THAT good!)
Stealth (honestly I was disappointed because I remembered the stealth as better than it sounded this time around? Perhaps also because the sound signature is kinda on the other end of the E3, where the latter is so hyper focused on clarity while the former is more of a powerhouse on the bottom-end of the spectrum)
However most of us have a wallet as a constricting factor. Then the ranking becomes;
E3 (EQ this headphone to remove the tiny pointy edge of the treble, perhaps also boosting the bass a tad, and you have a 10/10 listening experience for half of what you'll pay for the Expanse/Stealth)
Emp2 (so so so so much fun, if all you're looking for is a headphone that makes music sing - splash on this even though its a fair bit more expensive than the E3)
Expanse (honestly I'd love to own this headphone even if it's more expensive and not as fun as the Emp2. It's just that good.)
Stealth (the pricetag seems a bit high now that the E3 is out, but this is still a really, really good headphone. If you listen to or like music with a lot of bass then this will be right up your alley & a definite step up from the E3)
Track listing:
Olivia Rodrigo - drivers license
The Roots - Long time
In flames - Satellites and astronauts
Regina Spektor - Half life (live at R1 Reaktorhallen)
Zhou Shen - 起风了
Audioslave - Like a stone
Talib Kweli & 9th wonder - Don't be afraid
The weeknd - Hardest to love
)
!
