[scolaiw]

Quote:

buy a 009, buy this. cut into half, make a new headphone with each left/right 009/1266 , you'll get the best of both world at each of your ears too with one spare in case one goes bad. 
 
now, where's the 1277 or 1266 revision 2? bring it on !!!

I'm not usually a pessimist, but I'm pretty sure doing that will get you the worst of both worlds. 

Also, I think it might just be a little too soon for a rev. 2 since most people haven't even gotten a pair of 1266s onto their ears yet! I'm surprised Jude hasn't even mentioned a thing about them. Besides, as with most things, any chance of a rev. 2 being released depends solely on the success of rev. 1. 

 

[forbigger]

>>>Is it just me or does there seem to be a lot of 'blind' Stax fanboys/fangirls on the Abyss forums?
 
First of all ,I'm a stat devotee. In the beginning I was just surprised that a company that's deemed still wet behind their ears dared to challenge the king of hill thats been around for more than 50 years. Me too was hostile toward this headphone and hope that it would be another flung. BUT Tyll review change my perception from negative to neutral. Now I'm really interested to listen to this headphone and see what's all about. There's a possibility for me to switch back to the dark side (depending on which side you're from) if I found this to be a 009 killer. I'd prefer dynamic/ortho than stats when it comes to maintenance and general robustness of its driver (more resilient to dust, humidity, etc).....
 
If you notice, right after Tyll review came up, the hostility subside because he's a pretty much respected reviewer in our world. Calling stats fanboy/girls "blind" would be an utter exaggeration......On the part of amp for this headphone, my opinion that this argument is futile and premature. There's still bunch of quality amp out there thats not been tested with this headphone. Same thing with source. Lets gather more impression before making a conclusion.....

 

[Happy Camper]

It's price is holding them up for a lot of ortho fans. I'd like to know if they can take a speaker amp to drive them. With the 6s at least, there are a lot of options in the amp department that will make the 6s sing. That fact alone would make the cost of the AB more bearable. But that will challenge the marketing efforts and partnerships.

 

[VisceriousZERO]

I think the Abyss just needs to prove that its worth its price, just like what forbigger said, its "a company that dares to challenge the king of the hill", only the king of the hill now is STAX.

Over time we will have to accept that this headphone is really one of the big boys.

 

[purrin]

The AB-1266 does not have special requirements for amps to get a good a lot out of it. I don't know why this amping issue keeps coming up simply because one person (who has not heard, touched, or even seen the AB-1266 in person) mentioned that a suitably expensive amp may be a requirement.
 
As I've said, the AB-1266 does pretty darn good from two fairly inexpensive amps I've tried (Mjolnir and Crest CA-2 power amp). It's not like the SR-009 or SR-007 which IMO needs at a minimum of a KGSS (preferably better) to get something close to its potential. 
 

I think the Abyss just needs to prove that its worth its price, just like what forbigger said, its "a company that dares to challenge the king of the hill", only the king of the hill now is STAX.

Over time we will have to accept that this headphone is really one of the big boys.

 
Not all people consider the SR-009 or STAX to be the king of the hill. But I've said, if someone likes the SR-009, and likes what it does well and doesn't mind what it doesn't do well, it's extremely unlikely they will prefer the AB-1266. The AB-1266 is more for people who have been looking for a particular sound, a tonal response more akin to HE-500, but at a higher level of fidelity. Something like this has not quite existed yet.

 

[VisceriousZERO]

Quote:

Not all people consider the SR-009 or STAX to be the king of the hill. But I've said, if someone likes the SR-009, and likes what it does well and doesn't mind what it doesn't do well, it's extremely unlikely they will prefer the AB-1266. The AB-1266 is more for people who have been looking for a particular sound, a tonal response more akin to HE-500, but at a higher level of fidelity. Something like this has not quite existed yet.

 
It may be one of the Kings though, me personally I see my LCD-3 to be the king of the hill but I'm willing to try the AB-1266 and see how it fares. Waiting for my Tralucent Uber cables as well to try out with both 'phones.

 

[DefQon]

Quote:

DefQon you may need to sober up a little more. On another forum, you basically made fun of the fact that the abyss was paired with an audio-gd nfb 27. This implied that you believe the nfb 27 is not high fi material...unworthy of the abyss.
 

Ok now that I'm fully awake now I'll be honest with what I'm going to say. Although I haven't said anything directly i.e use of words about the NFB-27 being part of mid-fi/high-fi category (this is something you assumed and pulled out of mid-air), the amp section of the NFB-27 is crap and the price you pay for the NFB-27 is mainly King Wa's implementation of the DAC stage. The amp section is nothing special to write home about what's even funny is that, there are a lot of less expensive dedicated amp's that sound better with the HD800's you have.
 
Nothing implies nothing unless I directly say it. And it was etherlites post that from his experience that indicated the NFB-27 is unworthy of the Abyss, which I have to sort of agree with.

 

[citadel]

Quote:

Ok now that I'm fully awake now I'll be honest with what I'm going to say. Although I haven't said anything directly i.e use of words about the NFB-27 being part of mid-fi/high-fi category (this is something you assumed and pulled out of mid-air), the amp section of the NFB-27 is crap and the price you pay for the NFB-27 is mainly King Wa's implementation of the DAC stage. The amp section is nothing special to write home about what's even funny is that, there are a lot of less expensive dedicated amp's that sound better with the HD800's you have.
 
Nothing implies nothing unless I directly say it. And it was etherlites post that from his experience that indicated the NFB-27 is unworthy of the Abyss, which I have to sort of agree with.

 
The audio-gd nfb-27 amp is based on the audio-gd master-8 and has the same amp section as the audio-gd ref-10.2/10.32 that is fully balanced with individual R-Cores for each channel. This is why I mentioned those amps in the earlier post (either here or on the other Abyss thread). The electronic components (capicitors, etc...) are of very good spec. To continue (on paper), we see a very high S/N ratio, very good channel separation, very low THD, etc...
 
Not everyone likes the amp component's clean neutral and natural sound but many do. It's the same with the WA5 you called 'craptastic'. There are many fans of that amp. 
 
If you do a search for nfb-27 on this site, you will see a couple of reviews and owners who love the damn thing.. However, if you are just talking about the amp component, then comments about the the audio-gd reference 10.32 and 10.2 apply to the nfb-27 (again, since the amp section is identical), from which you will find a number of positive reviews on the net (specifically for the amp component).

 

[DefQon]

Quote:

 
The audio-gd nfb-27 amp is based on the audio-gd master-8 and has the same amp section as the audio-gd ref-10.2/10.32 that is fully balanced with individual R-Cores for each channel. This is why I mentioned those amps in the earlier post (either here or on the other Abyss thread). The electronic components (capicitors, etc...) are of very good spec. To continue (on paper), we see a very high S/N ratio, very good channel separation, very low THD, etc...
 
Not everyone likes the amp component's clean neutral and natural sound but many do. It's the same with the WA5 you called 'craptastic'. There are many fans of that amp. 
 
If you do a search for nfb-27 on this site, you will see a couple of reviews and owners who love the damn thing.. However, if you are just talking about the amp component, then comments about the the audio-gd reference 10.32 and 10.2 apply to the nfb-27 (again, since the amp section is identical), from which you will find a number of positive reviews on the net (specifically for the amp component).

Very low THD numbers don't mean squat as those rated percentage numbers of low-level floor noise is inaudible to the ear to discern any differences unless the THD was in the hundreds range, that's a different story. What you're doing now is summarising the specs that is written by the manufacturer, maybe it's completely true, maybe it isn't do take note that sometimes those rated specs don't tell the truth and this has been seen with amp's(even DAC's) from time to time, Stereophile even 6moons have had reviews units that don't produce anywhere near the numbers manufacturers have on spec sheets, some have even failed throughout review testing. 
 
The WA5 is only crap, maybe it was a bit too harsh of me to call it crap is because you get so very little out of the sound performance for the price you pay for, I've heard all the Woo units up to date except the electrostatic amp's. As far as I'm concerned Woo is all about build quality, rather than sound performance, big fancy enclosures that give you the impression that it is all high and mighty but only to wiped on the floor by something less expensive or extruding in looks.
 
Every product has fan's or followers (and some are so damn thick-headed to talk to it becomes annoying; ignorance is a bliss), there are equal amount of those that have heard it and do not like it and this doesn't apply to the NFB-27. I suggest you keep an open-mind listen to everything A2A has, then get back to me in a year.

 

[faverodefavero]

To me, all this headphones costing more than USD$2'000.00 are really something for us to worry about. What will major companies charge us for their next flagship?
Beyerdynamic and Sennheiser will likely charge way more for their next flagships, like USD$3'000.00 and, maybe more, when something like USD$1'500.00 is waaay more justifiable and fare, for "the best" headphones. This hobby is starting to become too snob and utterly unjustifiably expansive, in my opinion (and nothing will make me change opinion and think USD$3'000.00+ is justifiable and truly reflex all costs and R&D to develop one those "best" headphones).

Just me, but I'd really like to see people pushing down flagship headphone prices, instead of up to the infinite.

I remember when I great, hi-end, end game full (amp+DAC+headphone) headphone setup would be around USD$3'500.00~4'000.00, two or three years ago, for dynamic headphones at least (stats where always much more expansive). Too me, some USD$2000.00~3500.00 DAC+amp most combos for dynamics can compete with any USD$5000.00+ headphone combos.

People are paying boutique price and get convinced by that the one thing is better than other. And haters (and snobfies) gonna hate.

 

[gikigill]

Yup, only a matter of time when we end up similar to high end audio. Hopefully I will be out of the game before that happens.

 

[citadel]

Another review ladies and gentlemen...

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/first-listen-abyss-ab-1266-planar-magnetic-headphones/

 

[DefQon]

Already been posted, it sort of comes off as SG's review, "oh because it has good bass, it is the best" kind of thing. No detail on the test equipment so sort of skimps out on being a meh review.
 
This thread on other hand brings nothing special to the table and nor does the Abyss. Big thanks to the usual crew at A2A for the auditions /unsubscribed.

 

[citadel]

Quote:

Already been posted, it sort of comes off as SG's review, "oh because it has good bass, it is the best" kind of thing. No detail on the test equipment so sort of skimps out on being a meh review.
 
This thread on other hand brings nothing special to the table and nor does the Abyss. Big thanks to the usual crew at A2A for the auditions /unsubscribed.

DefQon, your vacuous opinions bring nothing special to the table. Stop trolling.

 

[scolaiw]

Guys, we're all friends here. Friendly discussions please.