As usual after any meetup/convention, it's long text post time
. It was wonderful getting to see everyone, both familiar faces and new ones, and get to talk and share our love of the hobby and gear. I had a ton of fun, special thanks to Sebastien for organizing this whole thing and Rosson for giving us the space.
That's a great photo of me Sebastien, thanks for taking it!
I'm glad to see that the Mac and cheese was well received. Funny story there, I'd been messaging my mom the previous days to get the recipe and she mentioned off hand that I should bring plastic utensils just in case nobody remembered to grab any. Whaddya know, she was correct and I did end up making a run back to my trunk to grab them. Not sure how well eating Mac and Cheese without utensils would've gone haha.
Anyways, on to your regularly scheduled audio programming. My primary IEMs are a pair of EE Bravado MK II CIEMs, and my primary source is a Shanling M8, unless mentioned otherwise they are what I used to demo.
Code 24 and 24C were both fun listens with my Bravado MK II CIEMs and M8.
The 24 fixes one of my complaints with the 23 that the treble sometimes felt like it was too far back in level in order to balance out the bass. Having a more forward and cleaner treble also helped a good bit with the sense of resolution and texture in the bass, as well as just general resolution and staging in general. Stage was nothing mind blowing in terms of size or placement, though certainly a bit more defined and less intimate and up close than the 23. Despite all that, it must be said this cable still cannot be called anything close to balanced, the bass is quite a lot more extreme than the 23 even. It's the hardest hitting, furthest extending bass I've heard in an IEM Cable and by quite a large margin. Using it with my already bass heavy DAP (Shanling M8) is the first time I've felt a change might actually be adding too much bass to my CIEMs, which was almost surprising given just how much of a basshead I can be haha. I now know where the limit stands somewhat. One other note: while much less extreme than any other pure silver or SPC cable I've used on my bravados, I still got a mild headache after a good chunk of listening, with the treble feeling slightly over sharpened and aggressive.
The Code 24C wasn't anywhere as extreme as either of its two cousins and is the pairing I found worked best with my Bravados of the three. Technicals are a small step down from the 24 and it doesn't hit as hard as the 23 or 24, but it felt significantly more balanced than either of them. Technicals aren't at the level of the 24, but with a less intense presentation than either the 23 or 24, it wasn't as immediately obvious. I definitely prefer the treble on this to the 23, it felt like 23 made a small sacrifice there for the intense/intimate presentation and by taking a half-step back things balance better. It's still a cable with strong bass extension and power, as well as quite good technicals at its price point, but it's far less immediately striking than either of its two cousins. I also really love both the look and feel of this cable. The purple is beautiful and looks great with my Bravado's (I think Sebastien got a Pic of them together that hasn't been posted yet). The thinner gauge and more flexible cores means it handles quite nicely relative to both the 24 and especially the 23. I'd be very tempted to buy one, but I'm going to wait until I can hear the Raphael as it's the other well liked copper cable at a similar price point.
Finally getting to try the IER Z1R was an experience, I'm not going to necessarily say anything good or bad, these are just profoundly weird and distinct sounding IEMs. Fit: Terrible, that was not comfortable at all haha, though it wasn't the size that was the issue but how the nozzle was shaped/placed. Having held them myself I now fully understand those complaints. The most striking thing about this set was the bass. It felt like it was playing in an entirely separate stage to the rest of the music. It was some very good bass, but that complete disconnect was just so striking. That lended the other regions to feel much cleaner, with better separation and resolution than otherwise, as the bass didn't seem to have any opportunity to bleed into and obscure the upper ranges. Fit completely discounts them for me, but there's nothing else that sounds even remotely like them and if it wasn't an issue I'd want a pair just to throw on every once in a while.
The night jar singularity were a very pleasant set and I liked the quite a lot, though the tuning felt a bit too safe to me in both the bass and treble. I am very excited to hear the Duality eventually and see just how far they've pushed the concept.
@theveterans got me to listen to his Andromedas for a bit. Very respectable and pleasant set, especially given how long they've been around. Admittedly, my demo was all of 25 seconds as they suffer the same problem as any other set with BAs playing remotely into the bass for me, giving me a headache after a short bit of listening.
We also had a very fun venture seeing the most dramatic change I've heard a cable cause with the Bonneville. The Bonneville had some very extreme bass bloom that made them sound extremely muddy off of my M8 with the stock cable, with mids and treble being... okayish. Switching out the stock cable to his Effect Audio Thor 8 wire? I believe it was, was a dramatic shift. The bass bloom was completely gone and the sound became significantly clearer, better, separated, and just all around incredibly good. Also an interesting demo as I heard none of that bass bloom and muddiness listening to the Bonneville at CanJam SoCal with my Shanling M6 Pro and its stock cable.
Got to listen to the Shanling M9+ and Luxury Precision P6 Pro via
@emdeevee. I was using the Code 24C during these demos. Without question my two favorite portable players of those I've heard, beating both the DX320 Max Ti and SP3000 easily for my preferences. Very complementary players I'd say in tuning. The Shanling player excels in power, control, and resolution compared to the P6 Pro, though the P6 Pro's sense of tactility and texture, as well as its tone were extremely good. To the Shanling: I could have been convinced that amp was twice as powerful as it was, whatever they do with their Amps to make them behave as if they have so much power, while being lighter than the competition is black magic. Listening made me realize that nearly all other sources are not powering the estat treble drivers of my Bravado to the fullest. To the P6 Pro: I felt like I was listening to a set with bone conduction despite my Bravados being nothing of the sort. The texture and tactility presented in the bass are completely unmatched by any other source I've tried.
One last sound thing. I'd heard that some IEMs scale well with power to the level of desktop gear and I sought to test that. I hooked up my bravados using the Code 24 (non C) to the Schiit Midgard/Bifrost 2 stack and was somewhat blown away. This made even the Shanling M9+ sound mildly underpowered in controlling both the DD Bass and estat treble drivers. The technicals were also right up there with the flagship players, though I'd need a lot more listening to clearly place it above or below. On both the headphones and IEMs I tried on the midgard it gave a sense of solidity/tactility in the treble that I haven't heard in the same way anywhere else. Definitely going to be thinking about buying some desktop gear to use my IEMs with at my desk in the future. I guess my idea of building a very low gain speaker amp for IEMs isn't that stupid of an idea if the scaling continues up even a little
.
I also had a lot of fun listening to all the great headphones that were available, though I have a lot less experience and reference with them, so will be withholding judgement on them.
All in all, I had a great time and hope to see some of y'all around another time.
