Hi guys,
Axpona was epic as usual. I went to all three days and still didn't have time to listen to every room. Probably because I spent most of my time in the headphone room listening to the Campfire Audio Andromeda.
I was so impressed by them, I spent a fair amount of time bouncing from booth to booth to see if anything could wow me the ways these little green guys could. A lot came close, but there's something special about these things, they matched my preferences almost perfectly. I expect them to make an impact and have a good share in the market at their MSRP. There's an elite amount of extension and wide soundstage in these, it must be heard to be understood why I "hypesoundfied" the snot out of them.
The new Noble universal shells are a step up in quality, but a step down in terms of fit. Still I would rather take the new aluminum shells over the old ones. To my ears the name and housings may have changed, but the tunings have not. The Savant is ridiculously good. The K10 is a beast of an earphone that I always enjoy having a chance to listen to.
I headed over to the Shure booth to check out their offerings. The KSE1500 is the summit of in-ear sound quality in my opinion. It's a shame that it's in a plastic shell and costs three grand. If it had a metal shell and sold for two grand, I might consider risking spending the next two months sleeping on the couch because I bought a pair. Hell, if that happened I would have time to listen to them
The rest of the Shure lineup doesn't wow me (YMMV). Aside from the KSE1500, I think my second favorite from Shure is the SE215. To this day there's still great price to performance ratio in that pair of earphones.
Zach's booth had a lot of great gear pushing his cans.
Something that looks promising was the prototype Amplifier he's working on. Zach says he's going to do some more tweaks to it. From what I heard it sounds pretty damn good the way it was. I'm sure he got tired of me walking over to him and sarcastically asking him "where's the Beats booth?" Haha, thanks for letting me store my crap behind your booth Zach. If you let me do it again next year I'll bring doughnuts all three days.
I finally got to try the ER4 from Etymotic. Yes they are incredibly natural sounding. It's a shame I had to poke the side of my brain with a triple flange tip in order to get a seal. I also checked out their new variants of the ER4, the SR and XR. The XR stands for "extended response" and it holds true to its claim. I think many people will really like them.
I had a nice chat with the Etymotic rep, and told him to please make an over the ear version of the ER4. I also threw a dig in there that I would like to do a review/comparison of the new line and compare it to the old ER4. I think the Head-Fi community would benefit from a write up on this.
Cleer Audio was there and showcasing their headphone line. The most notable thing was that they have incredible build quality in all of their cans. I am going to be reviewing their noise canceling cans. They are boomy, but I will say they have a sub bass presence that Bose can't touch. That combined with the superior build quality makes me say that if I'm going to be flying and had to pick between the two, I would probably pick the Cleer Audios and leave the Bose at home. The noise canceling on the Cleer is phenomenal.
I also am checking out their two driver over the headphone. Again, they are a little thick in the midbass, but the build quality is great.
The best new friends I made were the guys from the Cavalli audio camp. They had the "bro table." What I mean by that is they had no signs, no flyers, no business cards that I saw. What they did have was a bunch of kick arse amps, and just about every high end headphone in existence.
The Cavalli Liquid Tungsten prototype was in attendance. Until Axpona, I had never heard the Hd800 and been very impressed by it. It seemed like people were hell bent on pairing them with top end Schiit stacks, and they always sounded bright to my ears. Well, the tungsten rocked the Hd800 like I have never heard. I was kind of in awe of this combo. Another great pairing was the Ether (another headphone that was always too neutral with other gear) and the Cavalli Liquid Carbon. Long story short, Cavalli rocks and the only thing cooler than their amps was the guys behind the booth.
warrenpchi it was an honor and pleasure to meet you. Cavalli is in good hands with you steering the ship. I forgot the other guy's name, but dude, you're cool too
Thanks for hanging out after the last day of the show guys! Next year come get some doughnuts from me!
Here's a picture of a couple of really expensive headphones from the Hifiman booth. I'm putting it here just because.
Boom, on with the next...
JH Audio was in attendance. I offered them doughnuts. They all turned down my offer. I'm going to be a conspiracy theorist and say that when you work for JH Audio, you have to sign a contract that says you aren't allowed to eat doughnuts. Anyways, It was fun to try out the Siren Series. The adjustable bass knobs are pretty awesome and allowed me to dial in just the right amount of bass for my preference. Well done JH Audio!
The Onkyo Dp-x1 is a boss of a DAP, and it appears the latest firmware update has addressed any bugs that people were reporting. THIS THING NEEDS A REVIEW FROM A TRIED AND TRUE HEAD-FIER. I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE! If not me, maybe someone else. For real, the sound quality on this thing is phenomenal, dynamic and rich with enough detail and sparkle to say that it's awesome. I was content with my recent LG V10 purchase until I heard this DP-X1. Now I have order envy.
This is what a half million dollar stereo looks like. It's the MBL room. I listened to a Rolling Stones concert there and spent the whole time wondering how they got it to sound better than if I was at the concert.
Here is another stereo I will never be able to afford. It's the Legacy audio room. The sound quality and midrange I heard coming from their speaker setups is incredible. This might have been my favorite room to hang out and listen. The sound quality from their rigs were just flat out awesome.
Here are some speakers I can afford (and plan on buying). The Elac UB5 bookshelf speaker is a masterpiece. The legendary Andrew Jones was there showing these babies off. He played us some Deadmou5e, and when the bass line hit I uncontrollably belted out some profanity. Despite the embarrassment, it got Andrew to chuckle. These UB5 sell for $500, but sound like towers that cost many times more.
So, I'm walking along minding my own business and I hear someone say "Are you Hisoundfi?" I'm like "ya what's up?" The guy says "I'm
moedawg140, nice to meet you." We chatted for a good while and walked away friends. Maurice is an awesome dude and I was honored to be able to meet the guy.
The best thing about any headphone meet is the people. This isn't just a hobby where a bunch of dorks cram into a room and listen to headphones. It's a hobby where us dorks cram into a room and listen to headphones, then talk about them
The conversations lead to friendships, and those friendships become bonds that make me look forward to attending the next meet.
zach915m,
AxelCloris,
Hansotek,
warrenpchi, and two dudes who's names I can't think of (dudes I am so sorry), and myself all went for deep dish Chicago pizza, recapped the weekend, scored free t-shirts, and ended an awesome weekend of great gear and conversation.
And this is my 2016 Axpona convention in a nutshell. I hope this will inspire more peeps to attend the event next year, and I hope the expo continues to grow. It's an epic event and a grand experience for anyone interested in Hifi.
Cheers