Greetings. I just got home from RMAF. Spent most of the day in the headphone room. I got to listen to darn near everything today. At the last meet I spent most of my time with IEM's. Today was mostly full size cans (with the exception of the JH5 and JH13).
Some highlights:
My favorite amp overall was the balanced EHHA. Just excellent. My favorite cans on the EHHA were balanced HD800's. The AKG K1000 earspeakers are excellent on the EHHA as well. It may possibly be the best amp for the K1000's period.
Another favorite rig was the Stax O2's on the Woo. Great synergy. I like O2's better than Lambda's, by a fair margin. That may be blasphemy. If so, apologies.
My favorite DAC was the Lavry DA11. Just a crazy amount of transparency and detail. I was skeptical of the difference between DACs, but the DA11 is very nice.
As far as manufacturer booths, I visited Beyerdynamic, Audeze, and JH Audio.
Beyerdynamic had the 770, 880, and 990 there in 250 and 600 ohms. My favorite of all of them were the 250 ohm DT880's. They are the most open and have the best soundstage, and have great bass. Their A1 amp that they had everything hooked to, honestly sounds like ass though. No offense, but I was not impressed with the A1 at all. I was very tempted by the DT880's, and they had show discounts on them. Willpower was required to walk away without buying them.
Audeze had their LCD1 and LCD2 orthodynamics there. Very impressive. They were using a
Woo amp (EDIT: It was a ZDT, not a Woo. Aman and HPA corrected me below), which is great combination. I took my homemade 485 orthos over to have the designer of the LCD2's listen to them. He was quite impressed by their lack of suckage, and even made some recommendations regarding earcup mods. Wonderful people all around.
And last but not least, I listened to the JH5 and JH13 universal versions. Very very nice. I made it a point to listen to the JH5's first. They are quite good. The JH13's are excellent however. I listened once standing up at their booth, and then made a second trip back with my CTH amp in hand and asked if they'd let me listen through it. Jerry Harvey set my amp up next to their couch, fit the monitors into my ears, and I listened to 3 complete songs from Oceanlab. The JH13's are amazing. I'm probably telling you something you've already heard. But really, they are.
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Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Quite so..
Also any impressions on the new stat amp, eXStatA from Cavalli Audio?
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Yes, I got to try the eXStatA (tube version) with Lamba LE's, O2's, and Sennheiser HE60's. It's very very good. The Woo had slightly better synergy with the O2's. It had a more balanced presentation, whereas the eXStatA brought the vocals forward just a touch. But the eXStatA was better than the Woo IMO with the HE60's and about equal with the Lambda's. With the O2's I'd say the eXStatA is about 95% of the Woo, and quite a bit less expensive. With Lambdas or HE60's I'd say the eXStatA is a no-brainer.
How is it with your Koss 950's?
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Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif
thanks JP..others that perhaprs Sherwood might be interested is the Rethm loudspeakers from India. They are Lowther based horn speakers. Jacob George is the guy who owns it...nice man..worth a visit.
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I met Jacob George briefly. He's Aman's father. Nice guy. I didn't go hear his speakers, but Aman had an awesome headphone amp that Jacob built. It sounded great, and the workmanship was even more impressive. Hopefully someone will post a picture of it.
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As a side topic, there was a freak power outage today where the power to the whole neighborhood went off, including the stoplights. I'm hoping it was coincidence and not a side effect of RMAF
. Was a great opportunity to leave for lunch, though I had to go out of the neighborhood to find a restaurant with power. (Went to Sushi Club on Arapahoe. Good stuff.) When I got back everything was back on.
Overall, excellent show. Awesome gear and great people. Still another day for anyone that is in the area...
