[lukeap69]

The Ether may take a lot of sales away from Hifiman HE1000, depends on reviews of the sound though, but anything close to the HE1000will sway a lot of buyers.  I know I would never pay $3000 for a headphone no matter how good.  The Ether is looking very tempting.  Can't wait until comparisons start coming in.  I sure like the looks and design better than the HE1000!

Exactly what I was thinking...

 

[webstaa]

Now all Dan's got to do is bring these to Japan so I can demo them properly!

 

[amigastar]

They look beautiful, would love to hear them.

 

[ejong7]

Would be interesting if the Ether will have something like a Prime upgrade of sorts and whether previous owners would be able to upgrade to the newer versions like past products. But it really looks good for my taste hahahaha.

 

[cs098]

 
I had the Fostex TH500RP, and was disappointed.  I can't believe Dan has come up with an open back design, with his own driver design.  Will be interesting I'm sure!

Yup the 1000 was supposed to be my next upgrade, the audezes were too heavy, the he 6 is too hard to drive, and the hd 800 was too analytic and the rest weren't exactly better than my he 560s.
 
But the ether now has taken first place instead of the 1000 as my potential next upgrade. Especially as the sound signature seems similar to the sound of the 560s. Musical but neutral.

 

[mrspeakers]

Yes, this is a driver we designed in house. It uses very narrow high density traces. The part that was not our own concept was the concept for the magnet tray, which Is derived from our current peroduct, but used single ended with the strongest magnets we could find and of course it is larger. Magnet trays offer a ton of benefits, though they also impose some complexity.

For driver matching I left that in by accident. Yes, we are doing matching and yes it is much closer than the spec indicates. In fact, our first run had 95% of the drivers come up problem free and 90% matched so well there was almost no point trying to match them. We will know more about the tolerances with each build, so I meant to remove this spec for the time being as I need more data to create a better spec.

 

[reddog]

If they sound half as good as they look, I can clean house! 
 





[COLOR=000000]
Dan is a genius. Right on the heels of the HE1000 price disclosure, he offers up something "affordable".
 
That loud thump you just heard was the collective sound of Head-Fi'ers jumping off the HE1000 bandwagon. 
[/COLOR]

Lol well said

 

[FastAndClean]

Yes, this is a driver we designed in house. It uses very narrow high density traces. The part that was not our own concept was the concept for the magnet tray, which Is derived from our current peroduct, but used single ended with the strongest magnets we could find and of course it is larger. Magnet trays offer a ton of benefits, though they also impose some complexity.

For driver matching I left that in by accident. Yes, we are doing matching and yes it is much closer than the spec indicates. In fact, our first run had 95% of the drivers come up problem free and 90% matched so well there was almost no point trying to match them. We will know more about the tolerances with each build, so I meant to remove this spec for the time being as I need more data to create a better spec.

Amazing job MrSpeakers, beautiful Headphones. . .

 

[chua004]

I think people may be overestimating the amount of people jumping ship from the HE1000s, which, lets be honest, was a niche group of dedicated individuals already. Summit-fi is a whole other beast where logic and practicality take more of a backseat to aesthetics, both visual and how others perceive them (not to be crass but there is a undeniable amount of d**k waving when it comes to high end gear). Differences between the LCD-3 and the STAX SR-009, the SR-009 and the Abyss are what, sub-10% across the board (purely based on what I've read so dismiss this as you may)? Back to the point, I think they're different audiences completely.

 

[preproman]

How is it different audiences "completely" when in this very thread you have a few saying they would rather pay the 1.5K instead of the 3K that they planned on?  

 

[Kununa]

I think chua is completely right. The people which wanted to buy the HE1000 dont care that much about the money they spent. Two different groups are adressed. Some reviews will be nice though.

 

[preproman]

I think chua is completely right. The people which wanted to buy the HE1000 dont care that much about the money they spent. Two different groups are adressed. Some reviews will be nice though.

 
How do you know this and where are you getting your facts from.  I for one do care how much money I spend.  Your statment is flawed.

 

[Kununa]

People who care about money will wait till the HE1000 is released and will decide to buy it if it get's good reviews or if they had the chance to listen to it by themselves,which is a small group I think.

 

[preproman]

This is what I think...  I think we need to stay out of other "peoples" pockets and worry about your own.

 

[bfreedma]

I wish I sold shock absorbers for bandwagons.  The way people are jumping on and off the various bandwagon/hype trains, they must be wearing out the suspensions in record time.