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I have started to post impressions here and there so I thought I might start the official report thread.
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For those who don't know, Fujiya Avic, a local reseller of new and used AV gear has been organizing these headphone festivals in spring and fall since a few years ago. The thing has grown so big (over 3 thousand people came to the last one) that it was held over two days this time which helped with the overcrowdedness.[size=medium]
[size=medium][/size]
With the generosity of Fujiya and help of head-fi member sasaki, we could again have a small room to gather up head-fi crowds coming from tokyo, fukuoka and even as far as the bay area! Jude provided us with a bunch of tshirts, got myself a nice cardinal one this time around
. We had a pretty good gathering and I missed most of it unfortunately, hopefully I can do better next time.[size=medium][/size]
[size=medium][/size]
I will let others do the photo report as I really only took a single picture and it's of little interest to most but cute nevertheless [/size]
I had a brief listen to the Stax sr002/srm002 combo yesterday and I liked what I heard a lot!
Granted, I had never listened to baby staxes before so it was mostly a shock of how much stat goodness one can get get for that price. However, I was concerned about these reports about the thin diaphragm / sounding like an omega 2mk2. What I found is that with a proper seal, the bass is just marvelous (more like an omega 2mk1 than mk2 and actually possibly tighter than what I get from my stax amp with the omega 2 mk1. The other nice surprise is that, upon short listen at least, the sound was quite dynamic (reminiscent of my 007A(SZ2)) and fun (foot tapping), while at the same time not tipped up in the highs (e.g closer to an 007mk1 than than my 007A(SZ2) or 009 in that regard). Note that this was using the headphone out from my iphone so maybe one would get bit different impression from a better protable rig.
[size=medium]
Overall, I'd say it was shocking good for the price (there are iems priced 3x as much as the combo at the show and I doubt the best multi way ba + crossovers can beat the transparency of a full range, open back, stat driver. I could easily imagine having a rig like that when I am out of town or at least to go around other zillion rigs at fujiya's headphone festivals and sample sources
![font]](http://files.head-fi.org/images/smilies/smily_headphones1.gif[font=verdana][/font])
.
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Only minus is that the ear plugs are probably too big for my tiny ears even though the design is smaller than the previous generation so earpiece would fall after a while without applying pressure or using the metal headband. I only tried the middle size tips, there are also S and L sizes single flange rubber tips in the box. I can't imagine what this could turn out to be with custom silicone molds! It would not be small but again the multi way BA iems are getting pretty large too
.[/size]
The other item that caught my attention was Mkubota1's AKG K-1000 (original post here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/57805/history-of-the-akg-k1000/60#post_8817119):
Last bit for me is that conversation with Stax: still working on a new amplifier, still needs some time... About the influence of Edifier: there's not been joint development until now (the recent baby stax refresh is still all made in Japan). So, it looks like they've kept their independance, which is pretty cool. Looking into organizing a visit to their office, with an interview that'd be posted on this site, so stay tuned...
That's pretty much it for me, I will let the probably much more interesting reports from others to follow!
Arnaud.
Edit 2012/11/3: The Omega 2 I owned was of type SR007A(SZ2). I bought it in summer 2010, a the same time some 007mk2(SZ3) appeared outside Japan and were coined as mk2.5 with probable change in membrane thickness / increase in brightness.
[size=medium][/size]
For those who don't know, Fujiya Avic, a local reseller of new and used AV gear has been organizing these headphone festivals in spring and fall since a few years ago. The thing has grown so big (over 3 thousand people came to the last one) that it was held over two days this time which helped with the overcrowdedness.[size=medium]
[size=medium][/size]
With the generosity of Fujiya and help of head-fi member sasaki, we could again have a small room to gather up head-fi crowds coming from tokyo, fukuoka and even as far as the bay area! Jude provided us with a bunch of tshirts, got myself a nice cardinal one this time around
. We had a pretty good gathering and I missed most of it unfortunately, hopefully I can do better next time.[size=medium][/size][size=medium][/size]
I will let others do the photo report as I really only took a single picture and it's of little interest to most but cute nevertheless
[/size]I had a brief listen to the Stax sr002/srm002 combo yesterday and I liked what I heard a lot!
Granted, I had never listened to baby staxes before so it was mostly a shock of how much stat goodness one can get get for that price. However, I was concerned about these reports about the thin diaphragm / sounding like an omega 2mk2. What I found is that with a proper seal, the bass is just marvelous (more like an omega 2mk1 than mk2 and actually possibly tighter than what I get from my stax amp with the omega 2 mk1. The other nice surprise is that, upon short listen at least, the sound was quite dynamic (reminiscent of my 007A(SZ2)) and fun (foot tapping), while at the same time not tipped up in the highs (e.g closer to an 007mk1 than than my 007A(SZ2) or 009 in that regard). Note that this was using the headphone out from my iphone so maybe one would get bit different impression from a better protable rig.
[size=medium]
Overall, I'd say it was shocking good for the price (there are iems priced 3x as much as the combo at the show and I doubt the best multi way ba + crossovers can beat the transparency of a full range, open back, stat driver. I could easily imagine having a rig like that when I am out of town or at least to go around other zillion rigs at fujiya's headphone festivals and sample sources
[size=medium][/size]
Only minus is that the ear plugs are probably too big for my tiny ears even though the design is smaller than the previous generation so earpiece would fall after a while without applying pressure or using the metal headband. I only tried the middle size tips, there are also S and L sizes single flange rubber tips in the box. I can't imagine what this could turn out to be with custom silicone molds! It would not be small but again the multi way BA iems are getting pretty large too
The other item that caught my attention was Mkubota1's AKG K-1000 (original post here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/57805/history-of-the-akg-k1000/60#post_8817119):
Jpelg, indeed it is strikingly similar to the back of the k1000 driver! So, Mike (mkubota1) brought his k1000 along on the trip to the Fujiya Avic fall headphone festival in tokyo this week end (many thanks for this mike!!). That was the first time I could have a proper listen and it was an interesting experience. The lack of pads and natural crossfeed makes for a rather special experience, quite enjoyable. Only thing is that you feel there's a speaker right there in front of your ears so this does not quite diseappear like a 009 does for me. I wonder if this is due due spurious vibration of the frame (the whole thing is vibrating significantly with the driver), else strong directivity of the essentially unbaffled driver. In terms of bass, it was definitely clean but lacking (a bit or not so much) depending on the record. Mike said it's a late production model, hence bass lite. I guess I could get used to it if I only listened to that rig. More realistically, I would probably grow frustrated with the lack of bass quantity / extension. One thing I noticed is the presence of a passive circuit in line with the driver. There's an inductance and a surface mount resistance it seems. High pass filter to prevent the driver to go out of bounds at its resonance frequency maybe? I could not notice any obvious midrange coloration but probably it would require a more extensive test to find out. Overall, it's not like I want one badly but at least this has convinced me I need to carry through my investigation of personal HRTF equalization as discussed in the realiser thread ( [size=medium]http://www.head-fi.org/t/418401/long-awaited-smyth-svs-realiser-now-available-for-purchase/2100#post_8805662 ). Mike actually showed me tiny mics that fit at the entrance of the ear canal and may do a fine job to give a taste of the realiser.[/size]
Last bit for me is that conversation with Stax: still working on a new amplifier, still needs some time... About the influence of Edifier: there's not been joint development until now (the recent baby stax refresh is still all made in Japan). So, it looks like they've kept their independance, which is pretty cool. Looking into organizing a visit to their office, with an interview that'd be posted on this site, so stay tuned...
That's pretty much it for me, I will let the probably much more interesting reports from others to follow!
Arnaud.
Edit 2012/11/3: The Omega 2 I owned was of type SR007A(SZ2). I bought it in summer 2010, a the same time some 007mk2(SZ3) appeared outside Japan and were coined as mk2.5 with probable change in membrane thickness / increase in brightness.
mainly bullet points.
!! Not a bad idea to put it in the sig.