[DigitalFreak]

Early IMPRESSIONS are up ladies and gentlemen. Needless to say I'm for the most part impressed.

 

[wink]

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VAHT? are they sitting and collecting dust? ): poor things. They must be constantly played on to enrich the goodness. 
 
): I didn't mean it. Has violins at parents' place.... played the trombone...

 
Oh, they come out of their cases every once in a while to be tuned and inspected.  They'll never be sold though.  And no, I won't tell you where they live.  And I played trombone, guitar, and piano mostly, though I was passable with any brass instrument and electric bass.  Beyond horrible at violin and double bass.

WOT, no drummers.  OOPS, sorry, I forgot...... drummers are not musicians...................

 

[MuppetFace]

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The problem here is that the headphone can only be sold after the audition and return as an open box sale which attracts a discount and hence less profit on the sale.
 
I ten sets were sent and returned it means ten sets that can't be sold as NIB which is 3k$ out of pocket.

 
AFAIK, they offer a single dedicated set as a demo set. So you wait in a queue to get a chance to try it, much like a listening tour.
 
Abyss could do the same thing: offer one or two sets as dedicated demo sets. Like a lot of small manufacturers do.

 

[lee730]

lol you really hate them don't you Mups .
 

 

[MuppetFace]

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lol you really hate them don't you Mups .
 

 
Oh geez... lol.
 
I don't hate them at all. I think they've got nerve, sure, but they're *interesting.* The Abyss is interesting. I want to hear it. I want it to be awesome.
 
I just don't want to find out if it is or not by paying that much up front anymore. 
 
JPS is coming in guns a-blazing, taking a big gamble. In that sense I respect their bravery. Really though these will sell: there are businessmen in Western Europe and Asia who will buy one (or two) just because it's expensive. They'll probably listen for a few minutes before putting it back in its fancy box until a future client needs a gift. The real question is whether it will be anything more? JPS is marketing this as a serious tool for people who are serious about their music. The burden is on them to prove themselves.

 

[lee730]

I agree though they do have audacity (a big hairy-pair) to release such an expensive flagship and without trying to prove the units worth via demos. I would think it would be in their best interest to be honest to do so. But I'm wondering if they are like certain businesses who try to cover up the bad like it doesn't exist (can't stand businesses like that!)....
 
Edit: well I may have spoken too soon regarding the demo. Still only 1 demo unit? I'm also curious if it will go to people who will give unbiased opinions opposed to just selling gear for gain.

 

[MuppetFace]

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Edit: well I may have spoken too soon regarding the demo. Still only 1 demo unit? I'm also curious if it will go to people who will give unbiased opinions opposed to just selling gear for gain.

 
Just to be clear:

The demo unit I mentioned before was a headphone The Cable Co. purchased specifically to be part of their lending program. I don't think they are officially affiliated.
 
I was told by JPS they did not offer any demos themselves. JPS has however given several public demos of the Abyss, which is a step in the right direction.

 

[lee730]

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Just to be clear:

The demo unit I mentioned before was a headphone The Cable Co. purchased specifically to be part of their lending program. I don't think they are officially affiliated.
 
I was told by JPS they did not offer any demos themselves. JPS has however given several public demos of the Abyss, which is a step in the right direction.

Ahh ok so no credit goes to them then (at least for now) lol . Still I'm a bit curious about this product since you first mentioned it. It would be pretty cool if it does live up to the hype.

 

[MuppetFace]

If it sounds really good, then I'll definitely end up buying one. I like flagship orthos.

 

[jazzerdave]

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If it sounds really good, then I'll definitely end up buying one. I like flagship orthos.

 It did sound really good.  Just not $5,500 good.  It's more like $2,000-$2,500 good (and that's if you think a good pair of LCD-3's is worth near its asking price).  If I had tons of funds, I'd probably buy one and replace the entire headband with something other than a giant Vice-Grip.

 

[MuppetFace]

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 It did sound really good.  Just not $5,500 good.  It's more like $2,000-$2,500 good (and that's if you think a good pair of LCD-3's is worth near its asking price).  If I had tons of funds, I'd probably buy one and replace the entire headband with something other than a giant Vice-Grip.

 
Yeah, I've heard from most people who heard it that it sounds good but to their mind doesn't justify its price. Your assessment is actually one of the more generous ones: others have compared it to the HE-500, which is below $1000.
 
That being said, most of these impressions have been under very poor conditions (meets or crowded malls) and with decent but not fantastic gear. Also factor in the short audition time (minutes) and poor fit most people seem to be getting... and yeah. Interestingly enough, someone I trust who has spent more time with it than most people and on a very good amp says it's actually extremely good. So I'm genuinely curious: just how good can it sound under better conditions? Can it even come close to the SR-009?
 

---

 
This raises another interesting point, one I've touched on a lot before but haven't brought up recently: whether headphones are "worth" it. To be perfectly honest, I think most headphones out there are probably overpriced (especially when you consider dealer cuts and distribution). Yet I've never really been one to assign exact monetary value to the way things sound. It just strikes me as odd. Not to get all Zeno here, but consider these two cases:
 
Say one attributes a price of $2000 to something. Or even a range of $2000-2500. Fair enough, but what about $2000.01? Or $2000-2500.01? Does adding a single cent suddenly invalidate the assessment? Most would probably balk and so of course not. But then what about a dollar? Two dollars? You can see where I'm going with this. At what point do you assign a cut off, at what point is it absolutely no longer worth it?
 
The other approach is comparative. One can say "well X headphone sounds good, so if Y headphone sounds as good as X, it should be worth the cost of X." Yet one runs into the same problem, only now with X headphone instead of Y.
 

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I'm not trying to be contentious, just sort of thinking out loud. More and more I've come to realize that a lot of the stuff that goes on in this hobby---from the reasons behind peoples' posts to the actual purchasing of gear---has very little to do with sound. I'm not saying it's mutually exclusive: people still use this stuff to enjoy audio. However the drive behind consumption, the "journey" people go on about so much, is seldom about that. It's the little object 'a.' And that's fine, so long as people can sort of see the patterns going on with it. Really it just makes trying to determine value all the more nebulous tho.

 

[jgray91]

If it sounds really good, then I'll definitely end up buying one. I like flagship orthos.

Flagship anything is all well and good, but I think it's high time the developed tech trickle down to more reasonable prices. I mean, that's what almost all other tech industries happen to do.

 

[songmic]

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Yeah, I've heard from most people who heard it that it sounds good but to their mind doesn't justify its price. Your assessment is actually one of the more generous ones: others have compared it to the HE-500, which is below $1000.
 
That being said, most of these impressions have been under very poor conditions (meets or crowded malls) and with decent but not fantastic gear. Also factor in the short audition time (minutes) and poor fit most people seem to be getting... and yeah. Interestingly enough, someone I trust who has spent more time with it than most people and on a very good amp says it's actually extremely good. So I'm genuinely curious: just how good can it sound under better conditions? Can it even come close to the SR-009?
 

---

 
This raises another interesting point, one I've touched on a lot before but haven't brought up recently: whether headphones are "worth" it. To be perfectly honest, I think most headphones out there are probably overpriced (especially when you consider dealer cuts and distribution). Yet I've never really been one to assign exact monetary value to the way things sound. It just strikes me as odd. Not to get all Zeno here, but consider these two cases:
 
Say one attributes a price of $2000 to something. Or even a range of $2000-2500. Fair enough, but what about $2000.01? Or $2000-2500.01? Does adding a single cent suddenly invalidate the assessment? Most would probably balk and so of course not. But then what about a dollar? Two dollars? You can see where I'm going with this. At what point do you assign a cut off, at what point is it absolutely no longer worth it?
 
The other approach is comparative. One can say "well X headphone sounds good, so if Y headphone sounds as good as X, it should be worth the cost of X." Yet one runs into the same problem, only now with X headphone instead of Y.
 

---

 
I'm not trying to be contentious, just sort of thinking out loud. More and more I've come to realize that a lot of the stuff that goes on in this hobby---from the reasons behind peoples' posts to the actual purchasing of gear---has very little to do with sound. I'm not saying it's mutually exclusive: people still use this stuff to enjoy audio. However the drive behind consumption, the "journey" people go on about so much, is seldom about that. It's the little object 'a.' And that's fine, so long as people can sort of see the patterns going on with it. Really it just makes trying to determine value all the more nebulous tho.

 
The Abyss has a very low sensitivity of 85 dB, similar to that of the HE-6. From my experience, only a few amps - and I mean few - could make the HE-6 truly sing. In fact, I never really appreciated the potential of HE-6, even thought of it as inferior to the LCD-2, until I heard it through TOTL high-power headphone amps like the Dark Star, or powered directly from speaker outputs of power amplifiers (designed for loudspeakers) via a balanced adapter. Unless you pair the HE-6 with such amps that can harness its mojo, the HE-6 sounds worse than the HE-500.
 
My guess with the Abyss is that although some people claim to have listened to it, I think it's unlikely that they experienced its fullest potential.

 

[jgray91]

Anybody here listen to any of Hayato Imanishi's music?

I've recently stumbled upon his bands, Withyouathome and Cyclamen. Cyclamen is a technical metal group that plays ambient tracks in between some really heavy, intense metal. Withyouathome is like Cyclamen minus the metal; they only do the ambient stuff, but they expand on it and do a lot more with the ambient sounds and the different vocal styles that go along with them. I found both of these bands on Bandcamp and bought some EPs for $2 each.

Cyclamen have the problem of sounding like an eldritch daemon-spawn summoning ritual, but disregarding that, the non-summoning ritual part I really like. I've only sampled songs from Senjyu, hopefully I can find an album that I can like without feeling like some elder god's minion(s) is trying to invade my sanity. On the other hand, really loving Withyouathome's .​.​.​and the Moon Still Shines Quietly. It sounds so soothingly fatalistic.

 

[eke2k6]

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WOT, no drummers.  OOPS, sorry, I forgot...... drummers are not musicians...................

 
You, sir, are a scoundrel! *slaps you with my white glove*