Great stuff guys!
Unfortunately, my tournament finished late and I got stuck in traffic, so I arrived only at 3h45. With the time required to unpack and pack my rig, I only had around 45 minutes listening to stuff, but still that was a remarkable 45 minutes...
My thoughts:
(I listened to all the phones I listed on the Esound E3 + M^3, except the PS1 on Laurent's MP3 player + the Grado amp and on my own rig for movie listening).
HP1 and HP2 : incredible phones, but they didn't impress me right away. I found them on the 'Esound + M^3' to be really close to my AD2000 on the headfive, although they were slightly brighter, and had a more constricted soundstage. They had a tad less lower mids and a bit more mid-treble, but had no real depth and height. However, they had a more neutral tone on acoustic stuff (and I guess on everything, but I only had time to listen to 4 songs on 2 different CDs), as the ATs give a meatier tone to guitar by enhancing the vibrato of the chord. I really believe that they would scale really well with balancing and adding some high-end stuff behind them (to really bring up their neutrality and tone potential, as well as giving them more detail to work with and bass detail and tightness).
PS1 : I embrace these phones as kings of bass as they are able to control even the most over-emphasized bass notes on recordings and give them the power and impact they deserve. However, on neutral recordings, the bass drowned everything (except the peaky treble). You could still hear the midrange, but I had to focus to 'hear' the notes. Enjoyable as temporary phones, but I wouldn't live with these as primary phones.
Nevertheless, I have to point out that these were MADE for the movie 'The Matrix', especially the gunfight scene
.
Vintage RS1: I had a very quick listen with those, but I found them to be really close to my ATs, having more mid-treble and upper treble as well as less lower midrange.
All grados: The fit was quite lose on all of them, but I found all of them to be rattling my outer ear. Even though I didn't have any problems during the 25-30 minutes I listened, I think I would have some problems on the longer run.
K1000: I thought the sound was too far from everything I knew to make a real diagnostic on their characteristics, but in a very inadequate room (full of people talking and walking) and without a sub, I thought they were very good, with bass being stronger and going way lower than I had thought previous of hearing them. Weird fit, but not uncomfortable.
Unfortunately again, everyone in the room wanted to listen to my ATs, but having 45 minutes for 5 different people wasn't quite enough... Most of them were quite fond of the DVD + portable as screen idea. I brought what I use at home : my Toshiba is used as a transport, feeding the Musiland through SPDIF, and through the video output into the video input of a portable DVD player. That way, I have a TV screen on which I can watch movies, and that's transportable as well.
Anyway, good meet.
Shame on everyone who said they would come on the original thread and didn't. 100$ divided in 6-7 is quite expensive...
