Thanks for joining and sharing.
What amps and DACs were used for the HE1000?
Any chance crazy DACs like Nagra HD DAC, Berkeley Reference or somewhat crazy like Chord Hugo TT were used?
Please also compare the imaging of the HE1000 versus the SR-009, LCD3 and HD800.
The HD800 won as far as sound stage width was concerned. It was wide but compared to the HE1000 seemed a little unnaturally wide. The LCD-3 was the about the same imagingwise as the HE1000 (the was the first of 6 headphones that I listened to that day so I could be transposing a memory here). For the SR-009 They were very precise but lacked the low end body that the the LCD-3 and HE1000 had. I can't remember where they stacked imaging wise because I was rather put off by the lack of low end so I had already relegated them to the "not for me" pile.
Below is a list of what I wrote up on the LH Labs forums about my demo day:
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Monday I had the pleasure of going to HiFi Trader in Newtown (near Sydney, Aus) and it was phenomenal. Great service and a great selection of headphones to listen to. Originally went in to demo some LCD-3s to see if they were worth the upgrade from my LCD-2s but then the demo bug hit me. I went on to try the HE-1000, Abyss, SR-009, and the Ether. I liked the HE-1000 best of all including the HD800 and LCD-2 that I brought with me. It felt like the best parts of the HD800 and the LCD-3 (with the Cardas Clear cable) had been combined. The body of the LCD-3 was present in the HE-1000 (with the Cardas Clear cable) as well as a sound stage nearly as wide as the HD800. I will say that the sound stage being nearly as wide wasn't a detractor and was actually a plus because it felt more natural. I guess the best analogy i can come up with with is the HD800 put you in the conductor's position where as the HE-1000 put you in the front row which seemed more natural.
Other quick notes:
The SR-009 seemed to not be as engaging because they lacked body due to less on the lower end of the frequency scale.
The Abyss were the first and so far the only headphones I have listened to that were able to make sounds seem like they were coming from slightly behind me. The Abyss headphones bass reproduction seems a little to heavy and "boomy" for my tastes but it was very interesting that the bass production was HIGHLY dependent on the headphone orientation. I guess it is possible that with enough tweaking I could have attenuated the bass to my liking but not probable.
I only listened the Ethers (with the DUM cable) briefly since they were the second to last headphones to try and I had a pretty good idea they wouldn't stack up to the others. What I did note is that the sound stage was severely lacking compared to the rest of the field. Detail retrieval wasn't bad though.
So in conclusion, I am selling my LCD-2, HD800 and Alpha Primes to finance a move to the HE-1000 once I get back from deployment. I plan on making one more trip out to HiFi trader on Sunday to get another taste of the HE-1000!
Equipment used:
2013 Macbook Air
Resonessence Labs Invicta DAC
Violectric Audio HPA V281
The Blue Hawaii was used for the SR-009
I highly recommend checking HiFi Trader out if you are in the area.