[Jazzkammer]

Atticus is $999 and Eikon is $1,299. Both of them are superb. Gorgeous mids and super impactful bass. Big thumbs up!

 
$999 and $1,299 for headphones that use modded Fostex T50RP drivers, are you kidding me?  Why do all these modded T50RP headphones cost so much? 

 

[echineko]

   
$999 and $1,299 for headphones that use modded Fostex T50RP drivers, are you kidding me?  Why do all these modded T50RP headphones cost so much? 

Yeah... no. These are proprietary drivers, 100% custom-designed for ZMF using TPE (Atticus) and biocellulose (Eikon). There's nothing modded/pre-existing about them. You're referring to the earlier models.
 
Edit: This might help, also:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/821782/atticus-and-eikon-the-new-dynamic-driver-headphones-from-zmf

 

[Jazzkammer]

  Yeah... no. These are proprietary drivers, 100% custom-designed for ZMF using TPE (Atticus) and biocellulose (Eikon). There's nothing modded/pre-existing about them. You're referring to the earlier models.
 
Edit: This might help, also:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/821782/atticus-and-eikon-the-new-dynamic-driver-headphones-from-zmf

 
Thanks for the clarification! My interest is piqued now.  

 

[echineko]

 
Thanks for the clarification! My interest is piqued now.  

No worries, and cheers! By all accounts, people seem to really like these, looking forward to trying them too.

 

[brent75]

  ^^^ That room is too small for those tower speakers. Are those a pair of 4-12" woofers at the back? That must sound amazing.

 
Yup. Identical tweeter/mid towers in the front, and woofer towers in the back. It looked somewhat ridiculous (they were at least 7' tall)...but sounded amazing.

 

[wuwhere]

   
Yup. Identical tweeter/mid towers in the front, and woofer towers in the back. It looked somewhat ridiculous (they were at least 7' tall)...but sounded amazing.

 
With external crossovers as well.

 

[miceblue]

XD as it turns out, I'm on the same flight as moedawg140!

 

[Effusion]

  Yeah... no. These are proprietary drivers, 100% custom-designed for ZMF using TPE (Atticus) and biocellulose (Eikon). There's nothing modded/pre-existing about them. You're referring to the earlier models.
 
Edit: This might help, also:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/821782/atticus-and-eikon-the-new-dynamic-driver-headphones-from-zmf

 
 

   
Thanks for the clarification! My interest is piqued now.  

 
 

  No worries, and cheers! By all accounts, people seem to really like these, looking forward to trying them too.

 
I'll also add that Zach was awesome and very friendly who really went out of his way to make sure not only your listening experience went well, but also that your questions were met with prompt attention.  I could also tell from talking to him that he may have went out on a bit of a limb with these two new in-house designs recently, sort of like when Dan from Mr. Speakers did a few years back, so he was very interested in any and all impressions/thoughts.
 
I think it's great to see smaller companies from the modding community take on bigger risks with their own designs, which are then met with positive feedback and reassurance.  The big boys can throw tons of money on prototypes to end up just trashing most of them in the end, but when you're just the little guy on the block, throwing caution to the wind means more than just a few potential percentage drops in market share/sales, let alone the money put into r&d; one risk could mean everything if it's not met well.  I myself really enjoyed both versions at the show and all the luck to Zach and ZMF in the future.

 

[moedawg140]

XD as it turns out, I'm on the same flight as moedawg140!

Well lookie here, I've got you cheesing, right before we are about to fly!



There's another show-goer that I spoke to yesterday at RMAF that's on the same flight as well!

 

[Floss99]

It's great to see all these positive impressions of the new ZMF's.
 
Has anyone had the chance to compare either the Atticus or the Eikon to the old Blackwood? I saw it sitting next to the omni in one of the pictures.

 

[Allanmarcus]

I did. I even A/B listened with the HA-1, which they where using as the amp. To me, they sounded exactly the same. I had the HA-1 for a while, so I was fairly familiar with its signature. It's certainly possibly it might sound better with hi res DSD files, or something. For regular old cd quality files, it sounded the same to me.

The sonica has a different set of features, but you can read about those on the oppo web site.

 

[phase0]

  I know the bulk of this board/discussion is all about headphones/IEMs/DACs/AMPs/etc...but obviously an enormous part of RMAF is the non-CanJam stuff. So after I spent my time in the tent, I made sure to traverse the floors of the Marriott and pop into as many room demos as possible. I saw and heard some truly insane, insane stuff --- things that I had no idea even existed. Obviously the sound and performance is otherworldly, but what blew me away was how gorgeous the craftsmanship is. That being said, two of my absolute favorite rooms happened to be two that focused on price/affordability. One was getting to spend time with Dr. Hsu in his room, as he demoed his amazing subs but also some new bookshelf speakers he has coming out. It sounded phenomenal, and was made all the better because he's such a nice/humble/appreciative guy.
 
The second was my favorite room/person/demo overall, and that was ELAC led by the legendary Andrew Jones. He's a super funny guy and very enjoyable to be around. But man oh man, his $1,000 Uni-Fi towers sound AMAZING...and I would have put them up against any other speakers I sat in front of that day. It was unreal...like sitting in a concert, or jazz club, or whatever genre he happened to be demoing at the time. It was cool to hear about their news regarding Audio Alchemy, and then have Andrew share some of the other upcoming developments they have planned.
 
Here are some of the pics I grabbed of just a few of the rooms I made it in. Just thought I'd add, since this is a recap thread...
 
 

 

 
That was one of my favorites too! It's from Vos Loudspeakers and runs about $135K. There's two stacks of 4 woofers back there. It sounded phenomenal. Here's a couple of my pics:
 

 

 
The other one that was one of my favorites was Seaton Sound. Their's looked a bit more human affordable. Check out their 18" woofer in the back right corner! I wish they could have turned both of these systems up louder!
 

 
Those were the highlight of the show for me.
 
Canjam was a little bit noisy and chaotic. I was quite happy to hear the Fostex TH-900. Really liked that one. The big surprise of the headphone section was 1more 3 driver IEMs, they're better than the UE triple.fi 10s I've been running for years. I had to LOL at the Abyss with the Lotoo. It sounded okay and then I thought the Skrillex track might show off the bass a bit. It was screeching unbearably bright. That's probably more the track mix than the equipment's fault but that and a couple other cans actually repulsed me. Abyss on the WA22-SE was ok but I thought Abyss was fantastic on the WA5 and WA234. Mike told me the WA22-SE is still in prototype. For the expected $5-6K price tag I would pass on that config and go for a WA5. I think a lot of the bits of the headphone world really just set in my head some justification for buying the Focal Utopia. I feel better about the decision after listening to other stuff. I think I would have been happy with the Abyss too but the weirdness of the fit and adjustment hasn't endeared me yet.
 
There's a lot of stuff there I wish I could just buy immediately but I can't quite justify. Rupert Neve amp being one of those things I was impressed with. I would have been more impressed with Mr Speaker stuff I think if it had been quieter and if I hadn't been listening to the Utopia the last several weeks. His electrostat sounds like it has a lot of promise. Also loved the Cavalli Tungsten amp. I enjoyed the Sony setup, maybe it's what people said, it's very polite and rolls off the treble? I was a bit hmm but couldn't put my finger on it. Nice but not on my shopping list. Their new DAP was nice too. My issue with it: heavy! I wouldn't buy it just for that. Though if you need a rock to throw at an attacker this fits the bill. I wish I could have visited more stuff. I missed a lot of things I wanted to check out, but I suppose next year... next year...

 

[luvmusik]

#Allanmarcus
 
#Effusion
 
#brent75
 
Thank You Guys !

 

[trappedintime]

I did. I even A/B listened with the HA-1, which they where using as the amp. To me, they sounded exactly the same. I had the HA-1 for a while, so I was fairly familiar with its signature. It's certainly possibly it might sound better with hi res DSD files, or something. For regular old cd quality files, it sounded the same to me.

The sonica has a different set of features, but you can read about those on the oppo web site.

The website didn't clarify all of them. Any mention of Roon support over Ethernet? Is it analog preamp and does the analog input get digitized? The site mentioned listening to your vinyl over wifi which made me think the signal may not remain analog.

Also, Although I have 2 HA-1's I don't think the headphone amp is particularly stunning. It's good but not something I'd put up against many discrete amps. So I'd want to A/B the HA-1's DAC vs the Sonica with one or more amps to really see where the differences in the DAC lie.

 

[luvmusik]

Sonoma Acoustics Model One may warrant comparison to other TOTL electrostats ! Interesting.