I had a chance to demo both the open and closed EL-8s today in Ann Arbor at a Head-Fi meet. Jude brought these and they were quite popular. I had a chance to grab both to compare back-to-back. Unfortunately, as meets are generally rather loud, I didn't get great impressions of them. I can say, however, that they are extremely more comfortable than the LCD line. I was quite happy with the comfort after the half hour I spent with them. I was running Foobar > Oppo BDP 105 > Ragnarok > EL-8 and they sounded very good. Personally, I preferred the sound of the open vs. the closed. But, since the conditions weren't optimal, I won't speak too much to the sound. I will say, though, that I am very excited to receive my open EL-8s in the next week or two. I think they should easily dethrone the HD600's that I keep at my desk at work... that is if they make it away from my home rig.