Edgar Kaksis
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2013
- Posts
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- 32
So, the meet took place succesfully, in spite of problems with finding a key for the reserved room (credits to ampair for saving us). 
It was a great pleasure to meet you all and was very interesting to share ideas and impressions on that amazing gear we had for appreciation! Thanks for coming.
Here are some pics I took (selected ones, but if you want all of 'em, PM me):
The major astonishment I experienced was of course the Abyss (plakat, thanks a lot for the opportunity to probe them and for that extensive range of gear you fetched along with them). As a reference to compare with I used my MyST IzoPhones-60, to which sound I'm used, and which is also planar magnetic. While I found their performance at mids and highs rather on par (both deliver very intimate presence at mids and even and natural crisp at highs with no harshness), I was stunned by Abyss's performance at low end. Compared to IzoPhones, it features very different behavior there. IzoPhones have a decent extension of lows, but their level is noticeably attenuated relatively to mids and highs. On the other hand, bass is extremely impactful in IzoPhones and thus, is capable of speedy punch. In contrast to that, Abyss has not just decent but amazing and unsurpassed bass extension! It goes down to the very abyss of low frequency vibrations - for example, I've never heard such a life-like sound of bass drum. You can not really hear but feel the rumble. I always thought that truly deep bass presentation is a hustle for loudspeaker systems with large woofers since we sense bass with body rather than with our eardrums, but what I've heard yesterday has changed my mind - period! So, bass extension is atonishing. Its level is also very solid. I personally prefer it to be like that, but I can also imagine that some might find it excessive. All in all, it doesn't overwhelm other frequencies and thus does not obscure detail and information at mids. The downside of bass performance of the Abyss is that compared to the blitz behavior of IzoPhones it is not as rapid, so sometimes it can break away into rumble. I observed that with some agressive metal that represents an intense flow of information. But that is a very minor rumbling and if you don't fancy agressive music, it is even unnoticeable. In summary, to my taste Abyss is the best headphone I've ever heard. But I'm still happy with IzoPhones because in terms of sound quality (level of detail, naturalness, level of distorions) it is in the same league, Abyss is just more juicy and capable of causing WOW due to the alternate bass sound signature.
As to pairing it with amps, I've found that Phonitor 2 was barely delivering enough power. In general, I was very interested in Phonitor audition (plakat, thanks again) and was very surprised to discover that it is actually quite low power amp. Its output is hardly enough for driving Abyss and not at all enough to drive IzoPhones (which are in terms of driving approximately as tough as HE-6). As to fancy switches, crossfeed, angle and so forth controls, it is fun and impressive, meaning that it creates an indeed plausible feeling of the space around, but if one does not actually use it for work, it's a toy to play a couple of times out of interest, imho.
With MyST DAC OCU 1866 and Violectric HPA V281 it was much more adequate pairing, which could deliver decent loudness at half power and 3/4 power respectively.
Apart from the Abyss, to which I gave a thorough listening, I have quite briefly tried other stuff we had.
Thanks to ampair for vintage Austrian heritage - he had all sorts of best old-time AKGs (K60, K340, K240 DF, Sextetts of different revisions) and some modern cans by AKG - K701 and Q701. I especially enjoyed the early revision of Sextett, which surprisingly had a very modern nimble sound signature. It is a mid-centric headphone, with fine resolution at mids (for dynamic driver of course), decent quick bass, although not really deep, and delicate highs with no feeling of rolling-off, which is often the case with vintage equipment. Also, K340 is a peculiar design to try out. I found it above any credits at reproducing high freqs (again, it's not that you can usually find in vintage cans), probably due to the electrostatic driver it has dedicated for highs, but at the rest it was questionable - bass is little boomy, mid-range leaves an imression of substantial veil, and in no way it is flat, but still fun. I think, AKGs were really on fire those days, they were ahead of their time. New models did not make any good impression on me. K812 that was also at the meeting had a very bizzare sound signature to my ear - everything was so far away, as though the designers aimed to make it artificially spacious and delivering ultrawide and ultradeep soundstage (and the same tricks I've heard in Fostex TH900). I don't think that it is fidel. Building soundstage of the recording is a challenge for sound engineer, not the task of the headphone. As to AKG Q701, it was overall good in all aspects with adequate amping (Violectric), but sometimes I felt that high frequency hiss went out of control, so among dynamic relatively budget cans, Beyer DT250/250 Ohm is still my favourite as it is most balanced and flat.
Also, there was AK240, which I've already tried out quite some time ago and yesterday I confirmed my previous feeling that it is perfect in terms of UI, ergonomics, comfort and other aspects that are not related to SQ, but in terms of SQ, HM801 Symmcat Edition, although it's bulky, buggy and plays only 5 hours, is an absolute top sound among portable solutions (accordingly to the objective measurementsm too). Along with AK240, its owner (sorry, don't know the nickname) also brought AKG 3003. It seemed to me that it has a very funny "smiley" frequency response - boosted highs and lows, hence booming, hissing, influencing mids - not my thing at all.
And one more remarkable thing to me was a wooden coffin of vintage Bang&Olufsen tube amp that ampair brought for the meeting. Very cool, powerful, and tubish in the good meaning of this word. Especially great thing is that tone adjustment which is indicated with a mechanically bent string.
Once again, thanks everybody for the meeting, I'm looking forward to the upcoming ones!
Cheers,
Edgar
It was a great pleasure to meet you all and was very interesting to share ideas and impressions on that amazing gear we had for appreciation! Thanks for coming.
Here are some pics I took (selected ones, but if you want all of 'em, PM me):
The major astonishment I experienced was of course the Abyss (plakat, thanks a lot for the opportunity to probe them and for that extensive range of gear you fetched along with them). As a reference to compare with I used my MyST IzoPhones-60, to which sound I'm used, and which is also planar magnetic. While I found their performance at mids and highs rather on par (both deliver very intimate presence at mids and even and natural crisp at highs with no harshness), I was stunned by Abyss's performance at low end. Compared to IzoPhones, it features very different behavior there. IzoPhones have a decent extension of lows, but their level is noticeably attenuated relatively to mids and highs. On the other hand, bass is extremely impactful in IzoPhones and thus, is capable of speedy punch. In contrast to that, Abyss has not just decent but amazing and unsurpassed bass extension! It goes down to the very abyss of low frequency vibrations - for example, I've never heard such a life-like sound of bass drum. You can not really hear but feel the rumble. I always thought that truly deep bass presentation is a hustle for loudspeaker systems with large woofers since we sense bass with body rather than with our eardrums, but what I've heard yesterday has changed my mind - period! So, bass extension is atonishing. Its level is also very solid. I personally prefer it to be like that, but I can also imagine that some might find it excessive. All in all, it doesn't overwhelm other frequencies and thus does not obscure detail and information at mids. The downside of bass performance of the Abyss is that compared to the blitz behavior of IzoPhones it is not as rapid, so sometimes it can break away into rumble. I observed that with some agressive metal that represents an intense flow of information. But that is a very minor rumbling and if you don't fancy agressive music, it is even unnoticeable. In summary, to my taste Abyss is the best headphone I've ever heard. But I'm still happy with IzoPhones because in terms of sound quality (level of detail, naturalness, level of distorions) it is in the same league, Abyss is just more juicy and capable of causing WOW due to the alternate bass sound signature.
As to pairing it with amps, I've found that Phonitor 2 was barely delivering enough power. In general, I was very interested in Phonitor audition (plakat, thanks again) and was very surprised to discover that it is actually quite low power amp. Its output is hardly enough for driving Abyss and not at all enough to drive IzoPhones (which are in terms of driving approximately as tough as HE-6). As to fancy switches, crossfeed, angle and so forth controls, it is fun and impressive, meaning that it creates an indeed plausible feeling of the space around, but if one does not actually use it for work, it's a toy to play a couple of times out of interest, imho.
With MyST DAC OCU 1866 and Violectric HPA V281 it was much more adequate pairing, which could deliver decent loudness at half power and 3/4 power respectively.
Apart from the Abyss, to which I gave a thorough listening, I have quite briefly tried other stuff we had.
Thanks to ampair for vintage Austrian heritage - he had all sorts of best old-time AKGs (K60, K340, K240 DF, Sextetts of different revisions) and some modern cans by AKG - K701 and Q701. I especially enjoyed the early revision of Sextett, which surprisingly had a very modern nimble sound signature. It is a mid-centric headphone, with fine resolution at mids (for dynamic driver of course), decent quick bass, although not really deep, and delicate highs with no feeling of rolling-off, which is often the case with vintage equipment. Also, K340 is a peculiar design to try out. I found it above any credits at reproducing high freqs (again, it's not that you can usually find in vintage cans), probably due to the electrostatic driver it has dedicated for highs, but at the rest it was questionable - bass is little boomy, mid-range leaves an imression of substantial veil, and in no way it is flat, but still fun. I think, AKGs were really on fire those days, they were ahead of their time. New models did not make any good impression on me. K812 that was also at the meeting had a very bizzare sound signature to my ear - everything was so far away, as though the designers aimed to make it artificially spacious and delivering ultrawide and ultradeep soundstage (and the same tricks I've heard in Fostex TH900). I don't think that it is fidel. Building soundstage of the recording is a challenge for sound engineer, not the task of the headphone. As to AKG Q701, it was overall good in all aspects with adequate amping (Violectric), but sometimes I felt that high frequency hiss went out of control, so among dynamic relatively budget cans, Beyer DT250/250 Ohm is still my favourite as it is most balanced and flat.
Also, there was AK240, which I've already tried out quite some time ago and yesterday I confirmed my previous feeling that it is perfect in terms of UI, ergonomics, comfort and other aspects that are not related to SQ, but in terms of SQ, HM801 Symmcat Edition, although it's bulky, buggy and plays only 5 hours, is an absolute top sound among portable solutions (accordingly to the objective measurementsm too). Along with AK240, its owner (sorry, don't know the nickname) also brought AKG 3003. It seemed to me that it has a very funny "smiley" frequency response - boosted highs and lows, hence booming, hissing, influencing mids - not my thing at all.
And one more remarkable thing to me was a wooden coffin of vintage Bang&Olufsen tube amp that ampair brought for the meeting. Very cool, powerful, and tubish in the good meaning of this word. Especially great thing is that tone adjustment which is indicated with a mechanically bent string.
Once again, thanks everybody for the meeting, I'm looking forward to the upcoming ones!
Cheers,
Edgar
