I went to the World of Headphones yesterday and had a chance to listen to some first class headphones.
Very few IEMs there. I saw Technics and UE. On the flyer it said that Custom Ears and CA was there but while I think I may have found them I heard most of the interesting CAs at HighEnd Munich last year and wasn't impressed (including the Trifecta) and there was nobody there so it didn't feel right to grab IEMs by myself.
Headphones on the other hand I had a blast with. Got my hands on Final Audio's D8000 Pro. A nice headphone but to me it didn't feel on the level of an Abyss 1266 TC or a Susvara which I hear it compared to sometimes. It definitely a great headphone.
Got a chance to listen to the Stax X9000 and SR-009 for the first time. Fantastic headphones for classic, blues, pop etc. Still good but not great when I threw Metal or Rock at it. Idk was still fine in midbass but below that it couldn't really reach. Also the bass didn't have enough impact for those genres.
Heard the Dan Clark E3 and Expanse. The E3 is really good for that price. Would recommend a liste. The Expanse even on a Zähl HM-1 didn't do anything for me. It just sounded bland to me.
Listened to the new Raal Immanis. Completely different experience than the other Raal headphones. I really liked it. But it wasn't something that I'd replace my Abyss with. Idk for the price that you have to invest it didn't feel worth it to me personally with my preferences. Someone else might just love them.
I saw some ZMF headphones but without any labels as which was which and me not really knowing the brand I just didn't know which ones would be worth listening to. I'll keep that in mind for the next time.
My personal highlight of the show was the Aperio. Holy cow what a masterpiece IMHO. It gave me He-1 levels of happiness just throwing different music at it and listening. Metal, female pop, classic. You name it and it just took it and handled it. It gave me that electrostat goodness but didn't disappoint me in the bass. It was just wow. It was paired with an Eversolo A8. I wonder if it might be even better with a better DAC. But even so it was exquisite. I would recommend listening if you ever get the chance. I might just drop out of the big headphone game and save for that one. 34k€ but it includes the amp. Very steep and I think I'd be really annoyed if they then released a new flagship just afterwards