Thank you Dayama for the complete recap! I was there too and would like to add some, especially on some amps or HPs you didn't cover and may be of interest for the community. OFC this is all IMHO, in a noisy environment and with a bit of a bias towards "value".
Cayin booth:
The new Soul amp vs HA-300 mk2 --> If you focus on the difference between the two amps, you'll find two flavors: a bit more mid-forward the SOUL, a bit more V shaped the 300 /clearer sounding... but if you weight them compared to the overall amps pool, you can definitely hear the Cayin tuning on both. So more common than different. Main takeaway is there's no better, just different presentation. Susvara sounded very airy and estats like in presentation out of this two.
FINAL:
D7000 is a total let down. BOOOOMY bass out of scale. Pity the rest was good.
D8000 pro is still the most balanced, even if a bit on the smooth side
X8000 is its opposite: much more forward and percussive, a bit too much for me, but I see huge potential here (pads were just a temp fix, and they impact sound a lot so... let's see)
Meze:
The new empy 2 was... dunno. I liked a lot out of lesser amp (e.g. HA-3A) and less on the Envy. Anyway, I had the elite and sold them because of their exaggerate smoothness /lack of bite... Empy is still a meze, but a bit more balanced... BUT:
ALLN/C:
Then here I came. Well... AMAZED? The soon to be released HPA-300B with the Elite were just wonderful. For sure the amp was quite mid forward and aggressive (in the good way), and pushed the body and attack of the meze out of scale, making it really a wonderful headphone. The charybdis on the same amp was in fact too much slammy. I after tried to triangulate and charybdis on Envy worked better/ very good. Synergies, as we know. BTW, HPA-300B + Elite stays in my heart, with a little sadness when I was told the price of the amp (16k).
Hifiman
Since we are here... the other fav combo of the show was the susvara + hifiman EF1000DAC (that's also an amp). I heard the susvara on many chains here and in the past, and simply this is the perfect balance, or what I would consider the reference point. Just everything was right and in the right amount. This is the first time I considered to buy the susvara. I liked this combo more than Shangri-La
Holo stack + LCD5
I heard the LCD5 at other shows and... meh. You know, all right but not engaging. On the holo stack it was just more engaging! Super fun? No, but musical in its composed way to present music.
Ah yes, did I say value?
Ok here probably you will think "ok this is a strange user, I know I shouldn't trust him!"... Sendy audio peacock. Yes, I mean hell yes! So knowing nothing of this hp, I put it on and: ooooh wow. So fun tuning for sure, some bass bleed? yes. With maybe a bit too roll off on the highs? Yes... But damn, clean and impactful, with stage. What the Hedd2 should have been for me (I bought the hedd v2 after NY canjam, to understand later that even if really wow on many things, it was at the end a bit of a let down for no stage and no highs). So exactly what I was missing in my collection, with a price tag of 1500€, not 5000€.
Auris Audio
The new headonia 300B is another behemoth, and the sound is really as the amp: huge. The scale is huge and the body and mass also, but keeping it away from being ofc congested. Very balanced also in tuning (especially compared to the ALLNIC) anyway. It was driving the immanis very synergically. I like when 300B amps can slam and have bite, something that made me sold my Envy. Strange again, I really like also the still to be release Lyre, which I found very enjoyable with Empy 2 (so probably coherently with my impression out of the HA-3A). I found the chain of tradutto + Ultima + susvara a bit too lean, but I feel the tradutto was giving this character to all their amps, since also the headonia sounded quite better out of the Rockna DAC.
ZMF
I am a bit of a zmf fan, so... I will do my best to be fair:
Caldera closed --> the most 1:1 transposition of sound from open to closed. You like the caldera open, you like this, as I did. Best closed HP for me (ok ok, I own one so...). Weighter sub bass with the caldera tuning is really tempting.
Bokeh open and closed --> Very lively and dynamic with a safe tuning. After all those top end stuff, I felt the level was "lower", but value wise, they score very high for sure.
Others:
Charybdis: Depends on amp. A weighter susvara with 2kHz with some forwardness in the mids, making everything snappier but sometime too much. Due to the fact that no online music was available, muse "madness" really clapped too hard on some amp, ok on others.
Austrian composer: Oki, but nothing stood out, for the good or the worse.
Abyss 1266 tc: why spend words here? Slammy and clear, but wtill a bit too honky for me, but amps and setup can save it probably.
Diana felt more ok timbre wise.
Rosson RAD: sorry, didn't like it. Too classical audeze tune, probably better but... not my taste
Overall, it was a pity that most of the setup had offline music, with almost nothing I really knew or was familiar with. So this started happening...
What would I buy if I could pick anything from this list? The ALLNIC HPA-300B or the Headonia very likely.
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