I wanted to thank Paul and Wendy for offering myself and my intrepid audiophile @dill3000 the opportunity to make ourselves at home in their beautiful surroundings 3 minutes drive from the A1 , 1 hour drive from London with the wind in your favour.
I thought this might be the best way I can do the visit justice. It was an opportunity to view a lifetimes worth of Headphone Collecting in a day. And it occurred to me that anyone in our green and pleasant land can do it any time they want (best to make an appointment to make the most of this-this isn't Currys). And Paul and Wendy are not your average sales people. They are on another level. When it comes to headphone stuff they are at the high end.
Ok , I'm still pinching myself. When I tell you that I had the opportunity to listen to a full size setup that left me speechless(for at least 10 seconds)
We sat down and were transfixed by Hallelujah Jeff Buckley
What a way to start ! I will admit to being rusty when it comes to speaker setups - I am almost exclusively Headphones . But I know beauty when I hear it. And I have never heard Jeff Buckley sound so heavenly.
I had a look at the 360 degree photo in Google Maps so I instinctively went to the room across the stairs to listen to the goodies. To my amazement all it had in it were some grotty Focal(who?) speakers and some other wooden boxes like that. Probably a few quids' worth. How they are going to lug that lot down those stairs is anyone's guess.
Let me explain - Paul is Hi fi Lounge and Wendy is Highend Headphones. We had turned up at Hi Fi Lounge and we though it turned into Highend Headphones once you walked up the stairs and turned right. Wrong.
Wendy informed us that Highend Headphones had it's own premises. A place pretty much the size of Hi Fi Lounge and 2 buildings away. This was going to get interesting.....
We were shown in to PARADISE
Think of how you would set up your house with only showcasing the biggest collection of Headphones in the World as the design aspect , and then think of where in the Country to put that place. This is the room , this is the where it should be....
Every headphone placement has been thought through. There are listening places in some of the most carefully thought out nooks and crannies you're ever likely to see. This is a Mcintosh listening corner. We will meet up later on.
These little touches are everywhere . It's enchantment. You can be sentimental here . It's perfectly ok.
The Daps are on the left as you walk into this huge airy wooden dream of a store. Qestyle , Astell and Kern. The AK380 had the amp module on it too. The AK380 , freely available for the 2 of us to listen to whenever we fancied. But there were only 2 people here!!!!! Did I mention that? We had very little time and a lot to get through , so we had some time with the AK380 because you HAVE to. But there were other things to get through of great importance....
The Focal Elear. My first step. Paul and Wendy apologised - such is the strength of headfi they had been left in the situation where they had so many orders to fulfil there was no Utopia available to demo because they had to honour their customers first. Highend Headphones do try and make their customers come in and listen first before they decide to spend serious money on a headphone they have not auditioned. This is sound practice and it demonstrates integrity and professionalism. It is what I preach continuously. The Utopia has thrown the Industry upside down at the moment.
This thread will highlight the Headphones I got to hear. This was the first time I've heard an Elear having been so disappointed to miss the National Audio Show , CanJam 2016 and Indulgence! What luck I have had this year...
The Focal Elear is classy, it is built to a high quality finish , is extremely comfortable to wear. Undoubtedly it is right up there in it's price range . It is £800. The Utopia is a little bit more than that..anyway, we move on. The Elear's sound signature - classy. Bass is lifted slightly mids are easy to pick out and there is plenty of presence in the higher ranges creating a soundstage well up there with most contenders. I had my HD800s with me - I have had them for 5 years and have modded them once with a half lambswool mod and the day before our visit they were improved again with a full lambswool mod courtesy of some leftovers from @dill3000. 90% of these impressions were done with an Ibasso DX100 and Mojo connecting the pretender in port 1 and the King in port 2. Then it's simply a case of a brief volume match and plonking one headphone on immediately after taking the other one off. The Elears , against such opposition , were more sensitive , so don't need so much to drive them , but had a veil covering some of the detail in the upper mids and higher ranges which brought the soundstage in compared to the Senns. I have no doubt some will prefer the tonality of the Elear over the HD800 and the intimacy of the soundstage is arguably more realistic. I was expecting to be impressed by them and I was impressed. But not shocked or amazed.
That was where I sat for 5 blissful hours. What a place.
The next ones up for grabs were the Mr Speakers Ether. I have listened to these before at another memorable trip when I met up with @ejong7 at @PhilW's store on the outskirts of London. That for sure needs another visit , now it's been rebranded and rebuilt and remodelled as Audio Sanctuary. In time it will come. He's a great guy too and so knowledgeable.
The signature of Mr Speakers Ethers are light and airy with plenty of space between the instruments. There is some good bass there. It hasn't necessarily got slam but there is linearity there. The sparkle in the higher ranges that gives that certain tingle of excitement when you put on a set of HD800s is not there for me. Tonally the Ethers are arguably a more linear presentation of what is on offer. Side by side I am so used to my HD800s any headphone has it's work cut out. Sorry to say that on this day of days Takeanidea preferred the safety of familiar phones. Please feel to there and listen for yourself , they have Mojo's and more there so a dual duel is a piece of cake.
Does this look like the view from your average Marks and Spencers? Who wants to go clothes shopping, hands up!
On with the show , next up the Audio Technica W1000Z. They are beautiful, as you can see. I thought they were plastic. What philistine I am! They are polished wood. When you see them up close you'll realise how easy it is to think they are teak effect. They are real teak. These were one of the stars of the show for me . They are £649. They are significantly more sensitive than the HD800, a full second press was needed to change the colour from Indigo to Yellow. Shown below using is the testing equipment, with the Mojo sporting a Chord carry case which is really elegant looking and comes free for a limited period with every Mojo (not jealous not jealous), and the Ibasso DX100 using a coaxial cable. It's almost sacrilegious to suggest it , but dare I say that the W1000Z may be loud enough for our smartphones....
The sound signature of the ATs is not that of a closed phone. There is no roominess in the bass no muddiness in the mids and there is plenty of range in the highs.
There is punch in the bass , not enough to distract from hearing what else is going on. Of all the phones I heard I like the voices and the upper mids of these the most. There was enough sparkle in the high ranges without harshness or fatigue to give a wide soundstage with micro details relatively easy enough to pick out. Tonally , there was scant evidence of any particular veil being pulled subtly over the music. I was so pleased that something that looked this beautiful could do justice in it's sound quality. I have not heard a better closed headphone. I have not heard them all. But I have a Mr Speakers Alpha Dog which is no slouch for a closed and I have heard the Ether C and the Alpha Primes at length too. The Alpha dogs are going and these need to be a part of my life soon.
The grain on these was so good I dismissed them as artificial and even told Wendy as such. I don't mind being wrong when something looks this good.
The suspension adjustment on the W1000 means there is no need for adjustment. You cannot feel them on your head.
Up against the HD800s they held their own. Not as wide not quite as detailed but those female voices were absolutely sublime.
This was a moment during listening to "And Dream of Sheep" from The Hounds of Love. The sun came out for us that day. Just a little.
Next up were the McIntosh MHP1000s. These are apparently a closed back version of the Beyer Dynamic T1s with a few bells and whistles thrown in. They retail at £2200 and were placed beside their amp. That is retro design in all it's glory. The MHA150 headphone amp retails at £5500.
The McIntosh went through the same Mojo testing that as usual. It sounded lovely, there was a nice balance and poise there a pleasant warmth had been put around the music. I suppose I was expecting to be wowed following how good the closed Audio Technica was. The HD800 still was my preference, I wouldn't have swapped them.
They were extremely comfortable and did look minimalist. I was surprised they were this price but the T1s are a good open headphone and these have had a lot of work done to get them to being decent closed versions.
You just get a glimpse here of an amp that I had to use on some other phones which were looking for a bit more juice than the Mojo could deliver. I got some great results from them with it.
I'd always wanted to try the Ultrasones and have never really had the chance. Here I had their top ones at my beck and call. So I pulled this one from it's perch. Did it have wings? Welcome to the Edition 5 Unlimited Headphones. £1599. So called because at 32 ohms and 98 dB they will play on a phone.
They needed roughly the same setting as the ATs; down to yellow on the Mojo. I found them to be harsh sounding just too much forward energy in the highs with the bass and mids fighting to keep up. There was a wide stage and lots of detail but it sounded like a steely edge was there. My Vinyl rip of The Hounds of Love had so much rumble present it was all but unlistenable. I suppose you can have too much detail retrieval. Ultrasone has detail retrieval in spades.
There were 3 pairs of headphones , if I had to , I would have swapped there and then for my HD800s. Even with all the history we've had together and the Mods @dill3000 and I have pained over. This is one of them.
The Pioneer SE Master 1 Headphones at £1699 , have an awful lot going for them in my opinion. There is proper bass punch here , vocals are fantastic , instrumentation can be easily picked out and the soundstage is wide enough for there to be a live feel.
They are constructed extremely well and have that feel of durability to them. If my Senns beat them in tonal accuracy and soundstage , the HD800s if anything sounded slightly harsh in the highs compared to these. I could definitely live with the Pioneers. They are unsung heroes. I listened to them briefly at CanJam 2015 so I made up for it here. I loved them no question.
A comparison showing the lamb wool and driver of the Senns and the Se Master drivers. they look quite similar. Both extremely comfortable.
They were other precious moments I shall mention , without the supporting pics because time news getting so short. The £3599 Audeze LCD4s were my favourite headphones.
I put on Chocolate by Snow Patrol on the £2195 Trilogy 933 Headphone Amp I realised that the Mojo's had too much on their plate with these. The optimal power requirement for these is 1-4W apparently. For driving rock and pop with lots going on , these were effortless. The bass just felt perfectly balanced and everything else was wonderful. Nothing felt congested and yet the song is one I had always found to be that way.
The Sennheiser HD800S was there.
At £1199 it beat my HD800s (at the time) convincingly. I had that instant feeling when I sat down with them that I preferred the sound signature. It made the HD800 sound thinner. I spent 30 minutes ABing. The HD800 has certainly had a facelift with these and not just the colour. The sound signature even compared to mine which has been modded, is warmer in the signature with lots of detail and plenty of that magical width Sennheiser managed to pull off. The mids and upper ranges have had some of the harsher elements in the FR taken back with the engineering that has gone on here. The HD800 sounded crisper and wider , the S sounded more refined and bassier. I have since done the Resonator mod on my HD800 so I think the gap between the 2 will be lessened. Between the 2 standard models I would certainly encourage anyone to listen to an S model before they commit to the HD800.
With a final thanks to Wendy and a parting of some money for the cable pack and case for the Chord Mojo , we parted our ways. But what a wrench it was. Am sure it won't be the last time we visit there.
