Had the pleasure of attending the meet up near Nashville. What a absolutely spectacularly full day of head-fi, whiskey, good food, and great people that is! The expansive spread of top-tier gear brought in courtesy of Headamp was overwhelming in the best way. All the stuff I’ve only ever seen or heard of here on the forum or on YouTube.
Audeze CRBN, driven by a HeadAmp Blue Hawaii Special Edition, with Bricasti Design M3H DAC
Immediate impression is a very full lush sound, natural. I think this was the first set up I listened to that day. What a start, right? It was a lot to take in, so I had to just sit there with my eyes closed.
RAAL SR-1A, driven by a VM1A amp and the same Bricasti Design M3H DAC.
I think this was the first one that really caught my eye as I was walking in. I do most of my listening in my home office by myself while cosplaying as a productive, hardworking team member, so I don’t need to consider sound leakage at all. Very open sound, very comfortable. A little difficult to get the fullness in the low end, but I can imagine pairing this with a super clean, nearfield studio subwoofer. Constantly fussing with the angle of drivers which is fun but distracting. The thought of having a set up this comfortable, that sounds this close to a full set of speakers, without having to worry about things like room treatment, is very enticing.
Meze Empyrean Elite driven by my own SMSL SP200 and Schiit Bifrost 2
This is the one that haunted me. Definitely spent the next several days trying to to justify buying these. I need this in my life. Feel that personally I tend to enjoy more warm and fun sounding headphones then the more clinical flat stuff, and this Elite was a perfect fit. I selfishly hogged these for several minutes. Throwing several of my favorite songs at it, from jazz to rap to black metal, and switching back-and-forth between the Elite and my Audeze LCD – X. The Elite was noticeably more full sounding, more natural, and more detailed. The natural vocals were there along with all the low end slam I could want. Wow.
That’s it off the top my head. I’m sure the Kimber power cables, their interconnects, as well as the digital cables do add a certain sense of clarity and weight to the sound.