[FooFighter]

Soundstage is hard to gauge for myself. Sound stage of susvara sounds just as wide to the TCs to me. Different presentation.

I agree it's a bit hard to gauge and strongly depends on amping especially for the Susvara.
To my ears the Solitaire P had a wider presentation than Susvara a depth which is at least equal but I need to do a closer side by side comparison at some point.
What I immidiately found is that the localization of objects of Solitaire P seemed more pinpoint exact than Susvara, Susvara being more alluring diffuse (compared to SolP) but need to really test side by side.
TC is for sure still the king of stage size even compared to SolP

 

[musicman59]

Just got a notification that my P should be delivered this Thursday… yeah!!!!

 

[Somatic]

Just got a notification that my P should be delivered this Thursday… yeah!!!!

Nice mine came from Austria. Still waiting. Supposedly they are heading off to USPS soon

 

[musicman59]

Nice mine came from Austria. Still waiting. Supposedly they are heading off to USPS soon

Mine from France and they are taking about 22 days in transit due to the current global transportation issues.

 

[FooFighter]

Mine from France and they are taking about 22 days in transit due to the current global transportation issues.

What is it about with the transportation?
We heard in the news here about baby milk shortage and even military planes covering transport from Europe to US - is that the reason?

 

[FooFighter]

I did some quick side-by-side swap comparison SolP with stock pads and maybe like 24h burn in time vs Susvara burnt in at last with this Quobuz song example out of Roon to HQPlayer

To make it short: I found that the SolP retrieval of spatial cues being presented in this song with the coming and going background noises and voices around your head and the sound signature for the voice of the singer is closest with the ORATORY settings I ve posted before, with the other settings it appears relatively subdued on top (which seems to be the stock tuning as discussed before)
There are still signature differences between the headphones even with PEQ applied on SolP, I'd say that Susvara has some light melting on top and might be also slightly more textured than SolP and slightly more detailed.
With the ORATORY PEQ applied I find the SolP a tad clearer (maybe due to the slightly less texture) and more revealing in terms of the voice being more into your face than Susvara (all with the mentioned PEQ applied)
It is also appearing more full-bodied than Susvara.

Some last words before going to bed now: as some of you mentioned already less is more and always trying to somehow technically tweak one headphone to sound closer to another might not be the the best solution for the tweaked headphone.
I have now been listening to the lighter PEQ of DarginMahkum and stock pads listening to mixed Indie out of Roon-Radio and found it really good.
That's anyway an experience I've made with other headphones before:
After your brain adjusted to some sound signature, you can enjoy the music without needing to nitpick anything.
I've done that with Susvara before too enjoying it's superior vocal presentation and once in Rock'n Row mood taking TC out and in that moment not questioning the missing vocal timbre.
Up to now listening to SolP I feel I am not in need of switching headphones as much as before for listing to both vocals as well as RnB, Rock, Metal, Indie.
Jazz, Classical still to be evaluated.
Past 1 AM here - good night.

 

[musicman59]

What is it about with the transportation?
We heard in the news here about baby milk shortage and even military planes covering transport from Europe to US - is that the reason?

For over 2 years since the pandemic started the global transportation is a total disaster (until last year I worked 40 years in the automotive industry materials control and logistics).

With the lack of labor the ports got congested creating an imbalance of ocean containers availability. These has created a hike in prices of ocean transportation of over 300% in most cases. A secondary issue created for this issue is extra demand in airfreight but with less flights available the space for constraint cussing delays and higher cost too.

Transit times of ocean containers from China to the US was normally around 42 days door to door. Now they are over 80 days and at triple the cost.

It is still a mess…..

 

[Somatic]

For over 2 years since the pandemic started the global transportation is a total disaster (until last year I worked 40 years in the automotive industry materials control and logistics).

With the lack of labor the ports got congested creating an imbalance of ocean containers availability. These has created a hike in prices of ocean transportation of over 300% in most cases. A secondary issue created for this issue is extra demand in airfreight but with less flights available the space for constraint cussing delays and higher cost too.

Transit times of ocean containers from China to the US was normally around 42 days door to door. Now they are over 80 days and at triple the cost.

It is still a mess…..

Seems like it will get worse. China’s lockdowns are going to cause more pain. Probably on purpose.

 

[musicman59]

Seems like it will get worse. China’s lockdowns are going to cause more pain. Probably on purpose.

That have COVID zero tolerance policy. That’s the base of the lockdowns and yes it will get worse.

 

[FooFighter]

Let's hope that after the Covid desaster the political situation won't escalate between China and USA and Europe as it does with Russia .
Otherwise audiophile trade will suffer by a degree we all don't want to see

 

[musicman59]

Let's hope that after the Covid desaster the political situation won't escalate between China and USA and Europe as it does with Russia .
Otherwise audiophile trade will suffer by a degree we all don't want to see

The real danger is if China decide to go into Taiwan. If that happens it will be worse that the current Russia situation.

 

[ThanatosVI]

For over 2 years since the pandemic started the global transportation is a total disaster (until last year I worked 40 years in the automotive industry materials control and logistics).

With the lack of labor the ports got congested creating an imbalance of ocean containers availability. These has created a hike in prices of ocean transportation of over 300% in most cases. A secondary issue created for this issue is extra demand in airfreight but with less flights available the space for constraint cussing delays and higher cost too.

Transit times of ocean containers from China to the US was normally around 42 days door to door. Now they are over 80 days and at triple the cost.

It is still a mess…..

Very interesting insights, thx for sharing

 

[DarginMahkum]

Seems like it will get worse. China’s lockdowns are going to cause more pain. Probably on purpose.

China lock downs are / were much more regional and strict, with much less incidents. If they would do what the west has done, they would have to do much larger and longer lock downs, in the end causing more damage to global economy. Yes, things might be really nasty if they decide that it is time for the Taiwan region to return back to home land. But such regions were anyway artificially created for such purposes, it is just a matter of time. I hope there will be more peaceful solutions to such hotspots, though. The chip crisis might also grow with the raw material problems. At least it was confirmed that the prices will continue to go up also in 2023.

By the way, I ordered a Dell laptop which was built on order in China and delivered to my doorstep only in 9 days after the order and replacement for my other broken laptop was delivered in about 5 days after its shipment. Both happened in May. But some people in the US needed to wait much longer, like two months for the same laptop after the order.

 

[yellowblue]

I don´t need my Ultra Wide Pads anymore. Maybe there is someone here (Europe - EU) who is able to reterminate my Norne Einvaldi headphone cable. I used to have the cable for my HE 1000SE but want to use it for my Solitaire P in the future. So you could get the pads in exchange for your work and the plugs.
BTW - my HE 1000SE didn´t get any more listening time since I own the Solitaire P - so I sold them (but I still like the Einvaldi cable).

 

[FooFighter]

am back to ultra wide pads now for burn-in listening
I think I understand better now what the ORATORY EQ intended to do for raising both mids at around 2k and with the high shelf above that with dedicated dips inside of the high shelf according to their measurement to match Harman target.
I found myself missing spatial cues and some bite in female vocals without the raised high shelf applied with the stock pads.
So if one is anyway into that tuning he can better mount the ultra wides and save some equing.
Nevertheless as the mids are by design reduced with the ultra wide pads I have now applied the ORATORY PEQ just without the high shelf (as this is yet provided with the ultra wide pads).
As yet discussed before their massive increase of the mid and sub bass in the original ORATORY-PEQ isn't logical to me, I've only slightly raised this part to compensate the loss with the ultra wide pads.

I find that tuning to give a very alluring presentation, especially for (female) vocal based tracks reminding me very much of Susvara but being a better allrounder with the satisfying body and bass - but SolP isn't that neutral and laid back anymore in that configuration for sure

Btw I ve been switching TC and SolP today for some minutes.
As yet mentioned TC does still have the largest sound image and stage presentation.
The physical bass thump is also unmatched - but can get also tiring.
In that regards SolP has a TC like dryer bass colour with a nice strong punch but doesn't reach the physical shattering impact - I've yet to see a can which can...
SolP still has the best bass besides TC I ve yet heard from a headphone and is compared to TC better suited for longer listening sessions to my ears.
In the wide pad configuration SolP has to my ears a tad TC-like more forward into the face exiting presentation (different than Susvara - though being similar to Susvara in the mids to high registers tone color now), so that is a trait which needs to fit to one's aspiration