[WoollyGeezer]

FWIW, as someone who was impressed by the Stealth, I can't listen to most of the Audeze lineup because they're too bass heavy for me, even though I know they're held in high regard by many.

The tracks I demoed on the Stealth were "Three" by Massive Attack and "Madam I'm a Darling" by Karan Casey and John Doyle. My only quibble was that they seemed a bit vocal forward.

Does this include the LCD5?

 

[Blackrao]

VC: king of bass, lush sound throughout audible range, you will miss many subtleties of any recording due to Lush presentation and extension into what should be separation between sounds. Very pleasant experience but warm warm warm on bass.

Rognir: VC lite, less bass but more of the recording revealed, more natural timbre, but less natural fidelity in mids and vocals, can tell an off-normal coloration here

Stealth: Less bass than above two, but of all most accurate bass (each note has strum, rise and decay, rather than lush or bloom or shortened single note feel), mids and vocals extremely natural and most accurate to music/voice in a room, treble is fast and accurate and well defined but never harsh or fatiguing. NOT A BASS HEAD CAN. If you are not willing to EQ and you are going to feel like you don’t get the warm ness of a VC, but it can be added back.

Stellia: impactful throughout whole audible range, MUCH more treble centric/bright than others above, to my ear a tuning aimed at airiness and energy but ultimately fatiguing, neither bass lush nor easy to listen to nor accurate IMO.

I was listening to the Stealth and Stellia with you! I’m definitely going to go track down the VC and Rognir today!

 

[earthtodan]

Does this include the LCD5?

No, an important omission. I'll see if I can correct that.

 

[Jon L]

The LCD-5 is a better headphone IMO . The Elite would be a killer 2-3k unit.

Isn't Meze Empyrean Elite like $4K?
BTW, can anyone else confirm the $1900 price for Raal circumaural ribbon 'phones?

 

[WoollyGeezer]

Isn't Meze Empyrean Elite like $4K?
BTW, can anyone else confirm the $1900 price for Raal circumaural ribbon 'pI

If I'm going for that big of a purchase... I would rather spend 4500 than 4000 and be happy.

 

[XERO1]

Dca stealth seems polarizing.

My biggest issue with them isn’t their tuning (which is quite good), it’s their complete lack of any dynamic contrast and snap. No matter how loud I turned them up, they sounded so flat and boring to me. But as with all things high-end audio, YMMV.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Guys, there will be TWO LCD5s for demo at the Audeze booth today. Hopefully we'll have more of you experience it.

 

[frix]

My biggest issue with them isn’t their tuning, it’s their complete lack of any dynamic contrast and snap. They sounded so flat and boring to me. But as with all things high-end audio, YMMV.

I had the same issue with the noires

 

[jarnopp]

Dca stealth seems polarizing.

WRT this, I think there are two basic camps. Those that value transparency and accuracy (flat tuning, single-driver speakers, minimal electrons like Chord philosophy, etc.) those that value euphonics and the impact that comes from obvious deviations from flat, colorations from tube amps, etc. This seemed apparent even in the designer seminars yesterday, where these philosophical and design differences were obvious. The two just have to agree to disagree, so it really helps to state preferences when giving opinions.

 

[zach915m]

I listened to all the closed cans (zmf VC, Rognir, Stellia) vs my stealth, and they are just not bass emphasized. This is all obviously matter of opinion but I see the VC as a wholly enveloping and obviously heavily extended bass range, where Stealth is much more realistic, like the bass actually sounds out if an instrument, in stead of a signifier that is bass centric.

These are all taste preferences, but the way I see it, you can EQ Stealth bass way up, but there is no way to EQ out the bass of VC down to Stealth’s delivery, that’s why I prefer the stealth, both for accuracy to instruments and ability to add the bass character of other house sounds.

One quick note - we sent the VC to canjam (the one with @ampsandsound) with the auteur stock pads which are bassier pads. Aside from lowering the bass with EQ which you could do, we make a number of earpads for each headphone that change the timbre and response. Most of the other pads that work great on VC are more linear, with less "bass hump."

Since we're not at canjam we didn't send all the other pads as we didn't want to include the burden of constant pad changes on it. We hope to be at the next one!

 

[xirxes]

One quick note - we sent the VC to canjam (the one with @ampsandsound) with the auteur stock pads which are bassier pads. Aside from lowering the bass with EQ which you could do, we make a number of earpads for each headphone that change the timbre and response. Most of the other pads that work great on VC are more linear, with less "bass hump."

Since we're not at canjam we didn't send all the other pads as we didn't want to include the burden of constant pad changes on it. We hope to be at the next one!

I heard 3 pairs from other can-jammers and didn’t find your pair at the show, but I can appreciate your reference of pads affecting tuning, I still insist your bass is large sir!

 

[Precogvision]

Impressions of all the IEMs that I heard on Day 1: https://www.headphones.com/community/reviews-learning-and-news/canjam-socal-2021-iem-impressions

 

[omniweltall]

My biggest issue with them isn’t their tuning, it’s their complete lack of any dynamic contrast and snap, no matter how loud I turned them up. They sounded so flat and boring to me. But as with all things high-end audio, YMMV.

Goodness.

Still? I always had that issue with Dan's headphones, even the Ether 2. Was expecting this new TOTL to finally reverse that trend.

Dynamics ranks amongst the very top of my priorities, as it is what makes listening more emotional. And it is harder to get right (especially micro dynamics), compared to many other sound aspects.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

What amps are you guys enjoying?
Any standouts?
What I don’t understand is why are they getting so expensive, stereo amplification is still decently priced.

For @warrenpchi too, I came to CanJam looking to purchase a new Tube amp to replace my bottlehead crack. I felt pretty confident that I was going to purchase an Ampsandsound tube amp. I listened to the Forge, WA7, MHA200, Rockwell, Agartha and Nautilus. I liked them all with the exception of the WA7 which I thought wasn't very good at all. I decided to buy the Rockwell. It's the lowest level of the tier above the Forge and it has 5 taps instead of just 2. This is important to me. I hemmed and hawed about the Agartha and Nautilus, but it was a bit more amp than I wanted to buy right now. With the difference in price, I can upgrade my HE1000SE to Susavara which is probably what I am going to do.

 

[Chefguru]

what was pushing the CRBN? Someone mentioned a Mjolnir, what model?

Mjolnir Carbon