aerius
Banned
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2002
- Posts
- 2,365
- Likes
- 26
Thanks to the generosity of an aquaintance in the Toronto area, I finally had a chance to the hear the pinnacle of the headphone art, the Orpheus.
Well, where do I start...here in my hands I was holding The King of Headphones, and to say I was anxious would be a huge understatement. First off, the detail, holy crap, previous to this the Omega II was the benchmark in presenting low-level detail in music with a natural organic flow. Well, the Big O raises that bar, and adds dynamic life & sparkle, and even more realism. Horns have the most realistic bite & tone I've heard to date, they can cut through the music in a way that I've only heard in real life. Sarah Slean's "Bank Accounts" gains a whole new life from the way the trumpet & French horn accent the piece, the horns now blast out accent notes instead of just playing them out. It's silly grin material.
Soundstaging was not what I expected from an electrostatic, the presentation was closer to my modded K340 than anything else. Instead of the airy floating in the background sound which many associate with electrostats, it's more of a solid upfront presentation. It doesn't have the weight & solidity of say, the PS-1, but it's enough to sound real instead of ethreal. And yes, it can rock, I don't think it's particularly happy doing so, but it does a nice job, better than every other electrostat I've heard. It doesn't have the magical meaty guitar tone of a Grado & the PRaT which makes those killer for rock & metal, but it still has pretty darn good drive and the way it flows out the details and presents them in a realistic acoustic space does make for a very satisfying presentation.
If there's one thing which upsets me about the Orpheus, it's the bass. I like having heavy slamming bass, like on the PS-1 and unfortunately I've yet to hear an electrostat, including this one do that. I don't pretend to know the physics behind it, but for whatever reason only dynamics can do that big slamming bass. The Orpheus bass is the fastest I've heard, it can separate low piano notes in both time & pitch in ways I've never heard before, it never blends notes together unless the recording was muddled in the first place. And yet, it proved unsatisfying, there just wasn't enough of it and it didn't rumble and fill the soundspace the way I'm used it.
Overall, I don't think I could justify owning one. There are many things which it does spectacularly well, but I'm not willing to give up my bass & groove. I can see why they're acknowledged as the best headphone ever made, in many respects they are, but they're just not for me.
Well, where do I start...here in my hands I was holding The King of Headphones, and to say I was anxious would be a huge understatement. First off, the detail, holy crap, previous to this the Omega II was the benchmark in presenting low-level detail in music with a natural organic flow. Well, the Big O raises that bar, and adds dynamic life & sparkle, and even more realism. Horns have the most realistic bite & tone I've heard to date, they can cut through the music in a way that I've only heard in real life. Sarah Slean's "Bank Accounts" gains a whole new life from the way the trumpet & French horn accent the piece, the horns now blast out accent notes instead of just playing them out. It's silly grin material.
Soundstaging was not what I expected from an electrostatic, the presentation was closer to my modded K340 than anything else. Instead of the airy floating in the background sound which many associate with electrostats, it's more of a solid upfront presentation. It doesn't have the weight & solidity of say, the PS-1, but it's enough to sound real instead of ethreal. And yes, it can rock, I don't think it's particularly happy doing so, but it does a nice job, better than every other electrostat I've heard. It doesn't have the magical meaty guitar tone of a Grado & the PRaT which makes those killer for rock & metal, but it still has pretty darn good drive and the way it flows out the details and presents them in a realistic acoustic space does make for a very satisfying presentation.
If there's one thing which upsets me about the Orpheus, it's the bass. I like having heavy slamming bass, like on the PS-1 and unfortunately I've yet to hear an electrostat, including this one do that. I don't pretend to know the physics behind it, but for whatever reason only dynamics can do that big slamming bass. The Orpheus bass is the fastest I've heard, it can separate low piano notes in both time & pitch in ways I've never heard before, it never blends notes together unless the recording was muddled in the first place. And yet, it proved unsatisfying, there just wasn't enough of it and it didn't rumble and fill the soundspace the way I'm used it.
Overall, I don't think I could justify owning one. There are many things which it does spectacularly well, but I'm not willing to give up my bass & groove. I can see why they're acknowledged as the best headphone ever made, in many respects they are, but they're just not for me.
