[Pwn3r4Life]

I listened to these at Axpona today across three different amps, all of which were running off the Schiit Yggdrasil DAC. I listened on the Woo Audio WA5 with some fancy "Sophie" or "Sophia" tubes that apparently cost $1,200 a pair. I also used the Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson which is a tube hybrid and the Schiit Ragnarok.
 
To describe the Ether in a word, great. Simply great. While I was volunteering at the mrspeakers booth, one person was actually comparing them to the HE-1000, if that gives you any idea of how good they sound. I haven't heard the HE-1000, so I will make no such comparison. That said, the Ether sounds nothing short of incredible.
 
Please keep in mind that these impression come from the show floor and with ~30 minutes of total head time. YMMV
 
I first listened on the Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson, a tube hybrid amplifier. And the detail was what you would expect from a $1500 headphone. What really surprised me is how lifelike they sounded. It didn't sound unnatural or artificial at all. Quite frankly, it didn't sound like headphones, it just sounded good. The bass was present, extremely linear, and quick. I wouldn't say that it sounds "fast" like the HE-400's bass or the HE-560. That isn't a bad thing. I actually prefer the bass of the Ether over both of these headphones as it sounds more lifelike. The bass notes don't sound unnaturally quick with instantaneous decay. It just sounds right.
 
And I think that's the best way to describe these headphones, just right. The vocals of both males and females was not forward, nor recessed. Nor was the highs. It didn't sound flat, it sounded "just right".
 
Then I tried the Schiit Ragnarok. I'm not a big fan of solid state for the same reason I dislike the HD800, to me it sounds too clear and too unnatural. I prefer a headphone to sound lifelike. This amp brought out the micro-details that the Ether's are capable of producing. It sounded excessively technically precise to my ears, very different from the Cavalli Audio.
 
Onto the Woo Audio WA5 with the expensive tubes. Smooth. Like, really really smooth. Like so smooth that if this headphone were my bed, when I'd crawl in at night I would slide off. Yes, that smooth. One gentleman who came to booth, who was a lover of tube amps and vinyl records enjoyed the sound of this set up so much that he said he was planning on ordering the WA5LE and the Ether. That smooth.
 
I later tried the Ether on my iPod Video 5.5g and Fiio E11 rig and it sounded a lot better than it should have out of that rig. The treble sounded a little hot to me though. I did not experience this on any of other set ups though.
 
I must say, the Ether is so transparent that it is hard to pick out which frequencies are emphasized because they all sound good.
 
And finally, for those of you who like comparisons. The first time I listened to the Audeze LCD2.2, I was unimpressed. Same thing with the HD800, I wasn't impressed. The Ether impressed me, it really did. Now I'm sad that I can't afford one.
 
If you have any questions, just ask. I'm pretty active on the forums and will help as best as I can. I really enjoyed these as did everyone I talked to who listened. Happy headphoning!

 

[buson160man]

  The Ethers are too transparent with upstream gear to get an accurate idea of how they sound. That is something I noted at CanJam 2015 before other people started posting the same thing. When I talk of this mid and bass slam that was superb I am speaking of the Rag/Yggy combo I heard and I would even throw in Dan's Liquid Crimson/whatever DAC he was using as it was much similar to Rag/Yggy. Auralic stack sounded noticeably different, more anemic much like the average non-Anax 2.0 HD800

 Well here goes another opinion that runs contrary to yours. I liked the ether so much that I ordered a pair. I myself found the ragnarok at least with the ether to be disappointing. I thought it sounded boomy with the ether. I preferred the woo wa5 better and the cavalli even more. The cavalli was clearly better sounding than the ragnarok at least to my ears. The cavalli was their cheapest desktop unit but not inexpensive. The cavalli had the best top to bottom reproduction of the three amps at least with the ether. It was very natural sounding with no exaggeration .

 

[wahsmoh]

 
 Well here goes another opinion that runs contrary to yours. I liked the ether so much that I ordered a pair. I myself found the ragnarok at least with the ether to be disappointing. I thought it sounded boomy with the ether. I preferred the woo wa5 better and the cavalli even more. The cavalli was clearly better sounding than the ragnarok at least to my ears. The cavalli was their cheapest desktop unit but not inexpensive. The cavalli had the best top to bottom reproduction of the three amps at least with the ether. It was very natural sounding with no exaggeration .

well we both had different experiences with the Rag. I liked the presence in the sound of the Rag/Yggy and Ether, it really made instruments come to life more like speakers. Maybe not as neutral as some people would like but natural sounding. I think one thing we can all agree on as I noted was that they scale to whatever gear they are being listened on.

 

[MattTCG]

I've owned the hd800, lcd-2, he-560 among many many others. I heard the nicely broken Ethers at the Nashville under relatively calm conditions compared to Can Jam. I have both loved and hated the hd800 for reasons that most owners are all too familiar with. The Ether was breathtaking out of the gate with relatively little pomp and circumstance. I said it before and I'll say it again, the Ether is in no way bass light/shy. The hd800 can impress with sound stage and transparency IF the source is right and the amp also. The hd800 loves well recorded hi res music. The Ether just loves music. 
 
I tried the Ether out of Dan's exquisite Woo wa5 and it was one of the very best experiences I've had listening to reproduced music, ever. But the real kicker was how impressive the Ether was from the $600 Carbon amp and how much it continued to impress down the line when I tried the Ether out on my own modest mid tier amps. 
 
I spent the afternoon and then some the night listening to the Ether with lot's of different music...vocal jazz centered pieces, electronic, folk, rock. The Ether was not tripped up with any kind of music. I let Dan know at the end of the day that the Ether was my end game hp. 

 

[NZtechfreak]

At CanJam we had several units that had to be rebuilt right before the show due to a tolerance problem, says the horse. More important is that at CanJam some of the phones weren't broken in, as they were by Nashville.

Thanks for confirming. Interesting, since the Nashville feedback has been pretty uniformly 'wow'. Some of that feedback was from ears that hear things like I do, it was enough to push me to pre-order. I can't wait to hear them, I'm expecting they'll sound great out of my CMA800R monoblocks.

 

[money4me247]

  This is getting to be like the EL8 threads.  Wildly different characterizations of the sound signature.  Some saying the Ether has great slammin' bass, others saying it's bright and anemic in the bass region.  Anybody read about these more widely than me, maybe at other sites, too?  Is there anything close to a consensus view on the sound signature of these 'phones?

variation in opinions is also because people don't do relative comparisons, so you have no idea what their reference point is when describing the sound.

 

[akhyar]

I heard HD800, LCD-3F, and Ether at the same event. HD800 has the hollower / cavernous soundstage. Music tends to have a wider presentation, sometimes too wide to be intimate. The Ether has more presence, but I wouldn't call it intimate either like some people suggest. Ether also has noticeably more mid and bass slam than the LCD-3F, more similar to the Abyss but without the excessive weight and awkward fit.

If it has more mids and bass slam than the 3F and more similar to the Abyss, I'm game.
I sold my LCD-X as I prefers the mids of 3F but the weight of the LCD's can be a bummer and the price of the Abyss are beyond my reach.

 

[Sonic Defender]

+1 you make a very good point. At the price of some of the headphones, one should not have to mod a stock set of a 1 k to 1.5 k $ headphones. They should sound nice out of the box, and if one wants to mod their cans, to stress, a particular sound signature cool. But the idea one must mod to make a stock set of cans sound good is almost absurd.

The stock 560 is excellent sounding and pretty darn balanced. Nobody would ever need to mod them, they would want to mod them. Or, the sound signature was wrong for them, but that does not mean the headphone was wrong (although it could be).  To be fair the 560 can be had for under $800 new so that should be factored into things. I think for the price point that it came in at the 560 is a top notch price to performance headphone. Keep in mind that the Ether is a full $500-700 more than the 560 so that is closing in on double the cost. Based on what I am reading while it sounds like the Ether is being heard as the better sounding headphone of the two, it really isn't significantly so. Didn't wildcatsare1 say that he enjoyed the 560s bass more? Now seeing as how bass is a very important aspect of a headphone, and that the other reported improvements with the Ether are modest I'm not getting the picture of a butt kicking of the 560 at all, more of a slight improvement. When the 560 hit at it's price point it laid a butt kicking on the field around it, and you can bet that the tuning of the 560 and the feedback Dan would have read about the 560 helped him tune the Ether.
 
The 560 still remains to me one of the best price/performance efforts in quite some time. My opinion only, yours may vary. Not referring to you reddog, but in general. I just quoted you as you were responding to somebody else's opinion.

 

[DreamKing]

 
The stock 560 is excellent sounding and pretty darn balanced. Nobody would ever need to mod them, they would want to mod them. Or, the sound signature was wrong for them, but that does not mean the headphone was wrong (although it could be).  To be fair the 560 can be had for under $800 new so that should be factored into things. I think for the price point that it came in at the 560 is a top notch price to performance headphone. Keep in mind that the Ether is a full $500-700 more than the 560 so that is closing in on double the cost. Based on what I am reading while it sounds like the Ether is being heard as the better sounding headphone of the two, it really isn't significantly so. Didn't wildcatsare1 say that he enjoyed the 560s bass more? Now seeing as how bass is a very important aspect of a headphone, and that the other reported improvements with the Ether are modest I'm not getting the picture of a butt kicking of the 560 at all, more of a slight improvement. When the 560 hit at it's price point it laid a butt kicking on the field around it, and you can bet that the tuning of the 560 and the feedback Dan would have read about the 560 helped him tune the Ether.
 
The 560 still remains to me one of the best price/performance efforts in quite some time. My opinion only, yours may vary. Not referring to you reddog, but in general. I just quoted you as you were responding to somebody else's opinion.

 
Bill-P also mentioned to me: "Yeah, I think Ether is a good upgrade from the HE-560 if you don't want to have to bother with modding."

 

[Sonic Defender]

   
Bill-P also mentioned to me: "Yeah, I think Ether is a good upgrade from the HE-560 if you don't want to have to bother with modding."

Good upgrade doesn't mean significant improvement. Of course that depends on what one means by significant, but I think in head-fi speak a good upgrade may still refer to a small, but audible difference. You are also surely going to hear from some 560 owners that the still prefer the 560, especially if the bass is actually still more satisfying on the 560 for some. I say wait for a while and see once the dust settles, I'll guarantee you people will be modding the Ether to improve this aspect or that, no design is perfect right? Safe to say both are excellent headphones, but for such a large price differential, and it is quite large, I would still suggest a case should be made that the 560 still delivers the better performance return on investment. Of course I have to qualify this as I have not heard the Ether. I'm following this thread as I just might pick one up in a little while. I have my TH 900 coming so a nice airy powerful planar would be a good compliment. 

 

[lamode]

  Now seeing as how bass is a very important aspect of a headphone, and that the other reported improvements with the Ether are modest I'm not getting the picture of a butt kicking of the 560 at all, more of a slight improvement.

 
That's not a logical conclusion at all. Midrange and treble are a lot more important to SQ than bass, which is why so many audio systems can skimp on bass and still be highly regarded.
 
Having good bass alone is not enough to make any headphone listenable and certainly not enough to put a headphone on a par with other headphones with superior everything else. The fact that you only identified one user who thought the 560's bass was superior should also be food for thought. From everything I'm reading here the 560 is beaten and by a significant margin.
 

  Good upgrade doesn't mean significant improvement.

 
Seems to me that's exactly what it means.

 

[money4me247]

personal preference & diminishing returns w/ TOTL headphones. everyone's mmv

 

[DreamKing]

 
Good upgrade doesn't mean significant improvement. Of course that depends on what one means by significant, but I think in head-fi speak a good upgrade may still refer to a small, but audible difference. You are also surely going to hear from some 560 owners that the still prefer the 560, especially if the bass is actually still more satisfying on the 560 for some. I say wait for a while and see once the dust settles, I'll guarantee you people will be modding the Ether to improve this aspect or that, no design is perfect right? Safe to say both are excellent headphones, but for such a large price differential, and it is quite large, I would still suggest a case should be made that the 560 still delivers the better performance return on investment. Of course I have to qualify this as I have not heard the Ether. I'm following this thread as I just might pick one up in a little while. I have my TH 900 coming so a nice airy powerful planar would be a good compliment. 

 
 
I viewed the quote as meaning a slight but good upgrade IMO and that for him you'd have about the same performance just modding the HE-560's. it's just one opinion, but interesting.
 
I've had the HE-560 for about a month and am greatly pleased, especially for the price paid. Still very interested in the final production (don't know if the Canjam/current models are finalized) reviews with comparisons to the HE-560 for the Ether, though. If they convince me, I'd be waiting for B-stock/near new condition prices a year or so from now. 

 

[money4me247]

  I'm personally just waiting for B-stock/near new condition prices a year or so from now. I've had the HE-560 for about a month and am greatly pleased, especially for the price paid. Still very interested in the final production (don't know if the Canjam/current models are finalized) reviews with comparisons to the HE-560 for the Ether, though.

I don't think Mr. Speaker does B-stock sales (though I can be wrong, I hardly ever see his stuff discounted).

 

[Max Minimum]

Ha, you're welcome!

For reference, to exclude Head-Fi I appended this at the end of the search string:

-site:head-fi.org

I mostly use it without the minus sign to be honest, since Googles search is typically better than websites own internal search engines.

I bet consistent tensioning would be pretty difficult.  I'd think very small variances could lead to significant differences in sound. 
 
And you're right about Google's search results.  For lots of sites, theirs is better than the site's own search.  Some sites have truly horrible search functionality.