Yessss I love prog metal! Just found out that my stabilized Caldera from the last drop is coming on Tuesday, so I'm eagerly planning the first playlist now. There will be some Polyphia and Caligula's Horse for sure. I think the first song will have to be one of Ne Obliviscaris's many masterpieces...

Never had a ZMF before, but I've been lusting over the idea of having a stabilized Caldera for the better part of a year now, and managed to score my first choice in the drop this morning! Can't wait to see and hear these beauties in person... 🤤

I had the same issue with Xelastics and Crystals. I had good seals but they still just killed the bass. Final Audio Type E Clear/Red brought back the bass but veiled the treble too much. Finally landed on Radius Deep Mounts and it's been so good - best treble clarity and bass slam and rumble out...

I have the Arya SE with the Soloist 3XP and Bifrost 2. I use medium gain because I can't comfortably go past 10-12% on high gain and that just seemed a bit excessive lol. I find the Arya SE to already have enough speed and dynamics, which people usually cite as the benefit of high gain / power...

My favorite track from that EP is The Reticent. Really enjoy how atmospheric it is, and that synth hits so good.

All my Arya + Class A amp homies should check out the A Humdrum Star album by GoGo Penguin. Man what a sumptuous feast for the ears. Excellent resolution on the attack of the drums no matter how fast they get, cymbals really showing off the soundstage and delicate treble response, and such...

I think for Rock/Metal, any dynamic driver may be disappointing after you've heard the wicked speed of the Arya. The Arya is actually endgame to me for metal once it has more punch and slam, which is what the V3 does (even better with some help from the Bifrost and a slammy amp) This symphonic...

Yeah Fleshgod Apocalypse is not my cup of tea either. I'm actually coming at this from the other side - symphonic metal is my favorite style but it's kind of a stale subgenre outside of the big name acts with lots of derivative stuff (Seven Spires is a notable recent exception). Fortunately...

Symphonic death metal - lots of really strong tracks in this one. Damn that's some good musicianship. The Devils of Loudun - Arcana Imperii

Thanks for taking the time - all the details in your post about your impressions of the Arya's siblings are really helpful. As a fellow Arya SE and Monarch MkII owner, I totally agree with this. Dollar for dollar it's been my best audio purchase. The tuning is just magical. There are djenty...

Interesting. That does match up with DMS's review as well. His tastes don't really match mine, but he seems like one of the more credible YouTubers.

The Modius, which is honestly a very impressive DAC for 200 dollars. It's pretty smooth and I never heard any treble glare with it feeding the Soloist and Arya, and only occasionally when it was feeding the Magnius. Soundstage was wide, just somewhat shallow, though not completely flat. Clean...

The Bifrost 2 unlocked the holographic quality of the Arya even more for me. With Chocolate Chip Trip, before it was not as obvious that the intro tones were orbiting my head - center channel imaging was a bit fuzzy and directionality was both a little vague (whether it was front vs back) and...

This just reminded me that I haven't heard any good headphones and IEMs that Demons and Wizards don't sound like ass on. The ride cymbals were EQ'd with the "ice pick to the eardrum" filter or something.

Good call! Plus they look pretty nice too. They're the Bluecell aluminum speaker feet on Amazon. I actually found them through Xerosnake plugging them on Reddit.

Nice, looks super clean!

Have other fellow Bifrost 2 owners played with the invert phase button much? I randomly used it on a couple of songs and didn't notice a difference. Curious if anyone has found a track it really makes a positive impact on - or how one might judge which tracks it might work well on.

So, the Soloist and Bifrost 2 stack gets pretty toasty when they're right on top of each other - too much so for my liking, even with some spacers between them. So I ended up getting a small set of shelves for them. Now I'm comfortable that the Soloist is not gonna cook the Bifrost! I'm sure it...

Hear hear! They are truly amazing with their versatility for all genres. I just added a Bifrost 2 to the Arya and Soloist and with this last touch of soundstage and richness, I feel like my setup is now complete for the next couple of years at least. It can't possibly get better than this...

Well nothing's theoretically unmeasurable, but AFAIK we haven't figured out how to measure punch/slam, soundstage size, imaging, texture, instrument separation...either these are all one big collective delusion, or audio science still has some work to do :)

Plugged the Bifrost 2 in last night for the first time and listened for a couple of hours on my Arya V3 driven by Soloist 3XP. First impressions, coming from the Modius: - I was expecting it to sound slightly darker at the top end based on reviews, but I actually noticed more treble detail on...

I finally got a chance to plug in the Bifrost 2 (coming from the Modius) and listen last night, and wow, first impression is the Soloist probably doesn't need power amp mode when paired with the Bifrost and driving the Arya V3. There is quite a bit of punch and slam already - bass guitar + drum...

The person you're responding to wasn't the one who called the Soloist aggressive, that was me (and I was talking mostly about others' descriptions of power amp mode). Let me clarify because I know that was an oversimplification - I meant the Soloist has a very quick attack - though it hits the...

Yeah I've noticed the people who like power amp mode on this thread tend to have headphones like Verite Closed or Meze Empyrean/Elite. I didn't notice any Arya owners like us who prefer power amp mode, but would be helpful to hear from someone like that if they're out there (maybe I missed it)...

I feel like this part of the review really sums up the main difference: I really related to that - I felt like the Stealth is a more relaxed listening experience (even though paradoxically it has a more energetic presentation) and therefore more enjoyable, because I don't have to focus as hard...