HHF-1 Elite w/ Fiddle-Back Flame Koa (HF-1 #45) *update*
These puppies sound brilliant.
As a collector of rare jazz recordings I am often listening to sources with a very polluted lineage. Multiple transfers, from acetate to vinyl to analog tape to digital tape to digital wave, and unfortunately occasionally compressed to LAME lossy files. My point is I have more than a few recordings with tons of artifacts that take away from the listening experience. But, just like listening to old Grateful Dead and Phish tapes, I have learned to listen through the defects.
Since becoming a Head-Fi'er I have acquired two rigs, one nice and the other great, combined with my SR225's, they all do there job too well. Every click and pop and all the hiss is that much more defined with the better-than-average equipment I have been using. This makes listening to official and professional releases sound a million times better but it also makes the amateur recordings acoustic defects that much more apparent.
But now, the HHF-1 Elite's that Larry at Headphile was kind enough to build for me have awakened these vintage recordings I have collected.
Last night, to be specific, I listened to one of the better sounding recordings in my collection, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker @ Town Hall NYC June 22nd 1945, the only known east coast live date of this dynamic duo to be recorded professionally by the event's co-producer (the 41 minutes of music on the CD took 7 acetates to record, with two recorders running simultaneously offset from each other so that not a single note was missed).
With these new cans from John/Larry the sound that was once overly bright and sometimes shrill now has the edge taken away. The horns, the rhythm section, Symphony Sid's intros and Dizzy's epochal lyrics to the song Salt Peanuts, all sound as if they were recorded yesterday as opposed to 60 years ago.
Whether it's the wood or the custom cables (or as I like to think of it a synergistic combination of the two) these new headphones have given me more time and patience to listen to these rare recordings I have spent so much time and money collecting.
Thanx John G. for building these limited edition cans for our community, and thanx to Larry at Headphile for having the artistic inspiration to engineer a truly one-of-a-kind piece of art disguised as a one-of-a-kind set of headphones.