I had a little bit of creative expression I had to get out yesterday and wasn't feeling too hot so I didn't get to post the rest of my impressions.
I'm probably going to have the internet police leaving comments about it being too long and how they didn't read. Speaking of which, where are all the other impressions you guys?! Even some smaller ones. I know there were more than 2 of you there lol.
First off, I was there on a mission and I didn't know where to start but as fate would have it the first person I ran into was Frank I from headphone guru. Franks an awesome guy to sit down and talk to and he's always got a bunch of goodies and he didn't disappoint. Ether C, Cavalli's prototype Liquid Spark, Edition X, He-1000, Dharma and a not too shabby DAC/Amp combo from Audiobyte the BlackDragon.
I might not have expressed it very well as i openly showed a bit more emotion towards the Ether C but i loved the HE-1000. Two reasons and first being is that there's no isolation to the he-1000 and there was just so much commotion going on that it was interfering with the overall sound of the 1000. I could pick up on what it was wanting to do and i knew i didn't want to hear anything else. It was the one. Secondly, $$$$. I don't have a setup worthy of the he-1000 and as the show went on, it simply assured me this even more. Im a bit of a realist so i knew i had to move on
Then, before i even heard it, i wanted the Ether C the second i put it on my head. OMG the most comfortable headphone i have ever worn. The whole realist thing set in and i remembered how much of a soft spot i have for closed back headphones. My house is always rather loud and there's always a bunch of kids running around and another one on the way. Closed back headphones can also present the music as if it you were listening to it in a very dark recording studio.. With the lights off, this is very engaging. Detailed, elegant and and small sounding is the first thing i thought of when i heard it. I kept coming back to it because it was so polite and detailed but at the same time i was like "this just isn't enough sound for $1500." it really is beautiful sounding but its really not that transparent either. There was always delicate this and delicate that on everything i'd listened to. i like transparency too much for this to be THE ONE. I also tried the Dharma and knew right away i had a problem with it. The second sound came out of it i would locate sound coming out of the driver. It's as if the air the ribbon was moving was more dense than the air the dynamic driver was moving and they were clashing with one another causing turbulence in the cup. Aside from that the little electret driver really wanted to sing and while it seemed very transparent it seemed a little too energetic and strident sometimes. A comparable headphone that did what the Dharma does but better IMO, is the open back Ether. I'll get more to that later.
This ^^^ is the MicroZOTL 2.0. it is a single ended 6SN7 tube amplifier. There were 3 of them there and one of them even had an upgraded power supply upping the output power. I ended up using the version with the upgraded power supply most of the time as i felt the ones without weren't getting the planars as loud as i wanted them to get sometimes. This amp really opened up the sound of the he-1000 and really showed how magical the he-1000 could be. This amp allowed me to really see how delicate the nano thick diaphragm was and when driven properly it can be very pliable and conform to the sound more so than the other headphones. I had a similar experience with a non fazor lcd-3 and cavalli liquid gold a few years ago. So i figured i'd try the ether-c hoping to extract some more magic out of it but was sadly disappointed. The 1000 simply scaled higher.
This is the amp i chose to be in my stable eventually. The Schiit Mjolnir 2. At only $850 its balanced, can be ran tube or solid state, has up to 8w! and can be ran as a pre-amp for my speaker setup giving them the little bit of tube engagement i didn't realize i needed till i came to this meet. Im a sucker for dynamic drivers and this sony cd3000 sounded absolutely fantastic! I didn't think of it till just now but i would love to hear it out of the rhythmic magic woo amps provide. Now i've always thrown out the idea of owning an audeze and the older style hifiman headphones because of how bad they sit on my head. The owner of this rig had a headband suspension mod on his lcd-x that made it super comfortable and really made it so that i would consider audeze again. Ive got mixed emotion about the x. i like it's neutrality and audeze weight in the bass department but always disliked the small soundstage even if it could have good depth. Well this setup really opened it up more than i've ever heard the x and i actually enjoyed it. There was still some planar thickness there and it could never be THE ONE because it isn't detailed enough but i did enjoy it. It's making me consider an lcd-3 or sell my speakers and get a 4.
I'd also tried an he-6 through this setup but i'm pretty sure i had it setup single ended and i was getting all types of peaks that were irritating the heck out of me BUUUUT, that driver is so euphoric to me. Gold is very pleasing to the eye and when melted you can really see the glazing vibrant and round presence it gives off. my brain seems to connect to this same visualization but through sound. The diaphragm doesn't seem to be as pliable as the he-1000 driver and that's probably what makes it so hard to drive and control those peaks. Between that and my hate of the comfort of the older hifiman models it's really a shame.
Here my buddy is sitting at a table with the original mjolnir paired with a pair of open ethers and also a nighthawk laying around. The highs on the ether really screamed transparency more so than any other headphone at the meet to me. I quite enjoyed this headphone and feel it brought more to the table than the closed version. My complaint is that i still seemed to be a little thin and lacking any visualizing body and texture from the lower highs down. i also regret not getting a chance to pair it with the mjolnir 2, microzotl or the woo gear. The nighthawk actually impressed me aside from it's majorly recessed midrange. very comfortable, neat frequency response of boosted bass and highs. what i really liked about this headphone was it's highs though. They had a sheen to them that was kind of euphoric and never to sharp. I'm actually going to buy a pair of these just for electronic music or cleaning around the house.
I didn't get any pictures of the woo gear but i did like the sound for the most part. I mentioned before that i like transparency. Well tube gear like this isn't exactly transparent lol. It really opens up the soundstage of all the headphones but it bullied the headphones into doing it. It almost seemed unnatural and every headphone that i plugged into it took on the same weird but very revealing above head soundstage. That's my only gripe about it because aside from that there was was a lot of good. Plenty of texture, gentleness, detail, the obvious openness and lots of rhythm. It really took on what i consider to be the Audiophile sound.
If i could mix match together anything there itd begin with a headband modded audeze headphone, he-1000 nano diaphragm but he6 gold trace paired with an upgraded mjolnir2 with who knows what for tubes but i'm sure i'd find some good ones. Source would be yggy dac but honestly one microzotl was paired with a pono player and it sounded magnificent. It's not balanced out when running as a source unfortunately.
