A few quick notes, speaking only for classical music. As always, in my opinion, given my taste, biases, prejudices, what I had for lunch, etc.
- Tungsten and Gold are both great, but I couldn't hear a difference on the AKG K1000, at least not with the 3 classical pieces they had. Tungsten was more powerful, seems to sound better with HE-6.
- I absolutely love K1000. We need to get the engineering specs and bring them back on a DIY basis. That schiit has the most holographic soundstage in the biz short of speakers. I wish I could have A/B'd with Stax. Probably my nominee for once and future king of classical, though being in production, being 9000x more comfortable, and perhaps having more bass heft make HD800 stiff competition.
- Orpheus clone was cool. Wish the CDs provided hadn't been scratched up so badly.
- I could hear no audible difference with audiophile cables. My verdict: bullschiit.
- SR009/BHSE isn't night and day beyond HD800/GS-X (or HE-6/GS-X). But when a solo double bass plays (ala pantomime leading up to death scene in Verdi's Otello), they render that bass SO WELL. Oh my God. The low orchestral strings, especially by themselves, are ridiculously immediate. I see SR009 in my future, but it's a far-off future.
- HE1000 is better than I thought it was. I still find it lacks the detail retrieval and clarity of HD800, but the round, forgiving tone is seductive.
- HE-X is a crippled waste of money and engineering. Wooly bass, unremarkable treble and mids. Get an HD650 and call it a day.
- Why didn't Schiit send a rag/yggy stack?!?!
- HD800S is a step backward. It smears details and guts the treble. With a multibit DAC and a bit of EQ, the peakiness is easily tamed.
- HD630VB is a weird one. Noise cancellation is a prerequisite for travel phones for me, but I didn't hear much of an effect from the bass dial, and didn't find the sound all that much better than Bose. Heresy, I know.
- The new WA22SE apparently stands for 'special edition,' and is balanced the whole way through. That beast has a lot of power. HD800 at 9am, HE-6 around noon, Abyss at 11:30. Amazing tone, one of the best engineering feats I saw today. My pick for best dynamic headphone amp I've heard, ever, period. K812 maybe 8:30.
- That said, it's still hugely overpriced (estimated 5K), and I almost certainly won't be buying one.
- Abyss is kind of hilarious. For certain tracks (Lisitsa playing Rach 2) there's so much bass in the recording that it's bloated and gross in the bass. In others (Vivaldi's Gloria in D Major, R. 589), it's a very treble-heavy recording, so the effect is incredibly open and refreshing. All in all, so hit and miss for classical that they could never be recommended at their list price.
- K812 has unequivocally lost classical war to HD800. I cannot think of a situation in which I would recommend them over HD800. They're more immediate, placing you on the podium rather than in the audience, but that's really just a roundabout way of saying the soundstage isn't holographic and kind of surrounds you (the soundstage criticism is my only one for 009). The tone is shrill and sibilant, and the overall effect is not very transparent, not especially neutral, and certainly not euphonic. In the Benchmark school of sound, they seem to be harsh for the sake of being harsh. Also, single ended for the sake of being single ended.
- LCD4 is cool, and more amp dependent than previous models. On GS-X, neutral-ish (as it is NOT with WA-5), but A/B/C/D/Eing with 009, HD800, HE-6, HE1000 it just can't compete in classical.
- On that note, that five-way listening sesh was the highlight of the meet. Go HeadAmp!