Here is my new Planar IEM collection: Celest Pandamon, TRN Kirin, Tinhifi P1 Max and 7hz Timeless. Long story short, here is my ranking: Preferred sound signature: P1 Max > Kirin (reference) > Kirin (transparent) > Timeless > Pandamon > Kirin (atmospheric) Technicality: P1 Max > Timeless/Kirin...

Thanks, that's all i need to know.

how does the speed and detail retrieval compare to focal utopia?

The one big reason why I am no longer interested in planar and dynamic HP that is they are generally going into ridiculous pricing territory, with little or no technical improvement, especially true for TOTL HPs. Take Sennheiser for example, from their HD800 to HD820, the same transducer is used...

The staxs are really fast. After accustomed to l500 sound, swapping with LCD-X I can immediately hear a loss of speed and clarity, a loss of fidelity. I have sold my Utopia a long time ago and based on memory, I think the stax is still faster. I have no interest in dynamic and planar headphones...

I am using Denafrips Ares 2. Definitely not a bright source and I don’t use any silver interconnect. Using the same source I do find l500 and 800S has around the same brightness for vocal.

I have just gotten my first electrostat gear (l500 with 252s). While I enjoy the clarity and the "big sound" (for a lack of words) for this pairing, I find the l500 too bright, like HD800S type of bright. This makes vocal sounds too plastic-ky. I am now wondering if upgrading to l700 will bring...

talk about earpad, I hope there are third party manufacturer making earpad for utopia. Not willing to pay $200 just for a pair of earpad.

Tidal also recently came up with 24 bit master recordings although the selection is extremely limited. I'm pretty disappointed that only Tidal offers lossless streaming and I am not a fan of their interface nor amount of songs in their database.

I spent a lot of time fighting the Utopia's treble. What worked for me is to set a couple of jumpers on my audio-gd dac-amp to balance the treble. On top of that, I also need to make myself a custom cable made of cross section > 4 x 18AWG wire to lower the treble further and to increase...

I find the improvement is more apparent in tube amp, next will be class A solid state amp. Not so much for class B and D amp.

I already have a Bada LB-5510 so I won't be looking for a conditioner anytime soon. I just wonder what I am missing out from a regenerative power such as an online UPS which convert power from AC to DC and then back to AC again for perfect sine wave.

Belkin website quote a price of $169, though it's out of stock http://www.belkin.com/onlinestore/aafes/product/?p=607183# Even without battery I consider it a steal. Most conditioner of this price range will only comes with one or 2 transformers shared among all outlets. This actually has a...

http://www.laaudiofile.com/belkinpf60.html The internal looks really well made compared to other conditioners on the market. The price is decent too. Thanks for sharing

Here you go http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-SRT-1000VA-120V/P-SRT1000XLA http://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/categories/power/uninterruptible-power-supply-ups-/network-and-server/smart-ups-on-line/_/N-pgx5ae

HE-350 seems very expensive for what it does. One can get an online UPS which output perfect sine wave for $1k, which I think does a better job.

Until I see measurement from a third party I trust, I will remain skeptical. I wonder why there is a lack of measurement data for DAC and it has been this way for years.

There is a difference in sound between cables. I custom made a lot of cables for myself and found cables are capable of drastically changing sound. I experienced quite a bit on my HD6XX where the connectors are cheap enough for me to buy in bulk for experiment. Even if the fly by wire to the...

Currawong, would you be kind enough to do a comparison with the Yggy you have?

I have both 800S and Utopia. Utopia treble does not rolled off as much compared to 800S. Doing a frequency sweep with my ears shows a peak at 8-9k, 11k and still have plenty of energies beyond. The 4khz peak is not too much of an issue but I guess the high trebles are. Most of the mastering are...

Not true, BA drivers just lack decay, that's all. The unnatural tone of BAs makes instruments and vocal sounds like coming out from a synthesizer; all nuances are removed leaving a soulless sound fitting for a hearing aid.

I demoed this hp at canjam it was paired with a dac-amp I am not familar with. They only have a few Japanese songs for demo which I am not familar with too. The price set at that time is around 2k. General impression is the comfort is top notched and the sound is rather slow and mushy. I...

I know there is a big price gap between Dave and r2r-7, but since both are using FPGA for sound processing, I would like a comparison. Then again I think the chance a person has both the dave and r2r-7 is quite small...

Me too. My description will be even though 800S is a brighter phone, the Utopia seems to be darker except for vocal. Vocal on Utopia is brighter than 800S. There is definitely something wonky about the frequency response, and I am guessing there are certain peak/s of death here and there.