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Head-Fier
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- Mar 22, 2008
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They relocated recently from their former location in Santa Monica, and I had a chance to swing by today and check out their new digs.
Small shop specializing in all the gear head.fiers love, emphasis on headphones and near-field monitors. A wall of each. Just about every headphone they sell are open, burnt in, and available for audition. They'll even provide you with a chair.
Their are photos of this on their website: DXC STORE
What made me visit today was that earlier this week I got a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-880's via Amazon and, upon actually listening to them, found them to be not at all what I was expecting. So I decided to actually listen to some phones before I shelled out for another surprise.
And these guys carry a wiiiide selection. I got to listen to about 8 - 10 pair. They were helpful ("have you heard the Ultrasones? Try these 580's..OK, now try the 780's"), hospitable (let my 14-year old daughter use their computer to check her MySpace page while I was listening), and quite knowledgeable. The owner, I presume, was there and he asked me which edition of the DT-880's I got, telling me about the different incarnations of each.
They let my 10-year old son audition some lower-priced cans for his Shuffle. He narrowed his (budgeted) choices down to the Senn PX-100, Senn HD-201, Sony MDR-V300, and Grado iCans, and finally chose the iCans (even though those only had a 120-day warranty.) I thought they treated him very well.
Brick & Mortars are becoming endangered, but it sure was fun spending some time in a shop and looking/listening at all this gear in person, instead of scrolling through web-pages; talking to real live human beings about it all was a lot of fun, too. Instead of the ignorance you'd get at Best Buy or Circuit City! ("Well, of course, Bose are simply, hands down, the best money can buy...Grado? Who? Never heard of 'em. Are they new?")
Let's see - After I described to the owner what I was looking for, he brought out the two Ultrasones above, the SR-225 (nice bottom end, but highs sounded 'crashy' and jumbled together - made me think of a hundred metal shopping carts smashing together and seemed to present a real hearing loss risk), the Audio-Technica 700's (open and closed versions), the ATH-M50 (big big bass, perhaps too much). I prob could have listened to more, but I was running out of time...
My fave was the tossup between the Ultrasone 780 or the AudioTechnica 700 closed. Since the 'Sones were a lot more, I'll prob get the AT 700 closed. But before I visited this store, I would have gotten the SR-225's - a mistake for me.
On my way out, I was able to check out those mighty near-field AudioEngine 2's & 5's -- I thought the 2's were actually more tonally accurate with better imaging, and overall, very very impressive. The 5's were much larger, louder, and more raw to the point of sounding a bit grainy. I had planned on buying the 5's - glad now I didn't. Absolutely the smaller and cheaper 2's are on my short list of stuff to buy! Those 2's are astonishing! Tiny 3" woofers, yet you can actually feel the air hitting your face - like a desk fan on 'low' setting. But you don't realize how MUCH bigger the 5's are than the 2's until you see them together.
So, in all, a highly recommended place to visit. Seemed like really nice and knowledgable guys. Lotsa gear to drool over.
Cheers!
Small shop specializing in all the gear head.fiers love, emphasis on headphones and near-field monitors. A wall of each. Just about every headphone they sell are open, burnt in, and available for audition. They'll even provide you with a chair.
Their are photos of this on their website: DXC STORE
What made me visit today was that earlier this week I got a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-880's via Amazon and, upon actually listening to them, found them to be not at all what I was expecting. So I decided to actually listen to some phones before I shelled out for another surprise.
And these guys carry a wiiiide selection. I got to listen to about 8 - 10 pair. They were helpful ("have you heard the Ultrasones? Try these 580's..OK, now try the 780's"), hospitable (let my 14-year old daughter use their computer to check her MySpace page while I was listening), and quite knowledgeable. The owner, I presume, was there and he asked me which edition of the DT-880's I got, telling me about the different incarnations of each.
They let my 10-year old son audition some lower-priced cans for his Shuffle. He narrowed his (budgeted) choices down to the Senn PX-100, Senn HD-201, Sony MDR-V300, and Grado iCans, and finally chose the iCans (even though those only had a 120-day warranty.) I thought they treated him very well.
Brick & Mortars are becoming endangered, but it sure was fun spending some time in a shop and looking/listening at all this gear in person, instead of scrolling through web-pages; talking to real live human beings about it all was a lot of fun, too. Instead of the ignorance you'd get at Best Buy or Circuit City! ("Well, of course, Bose are simply, hands down, the best money can buy...Grado? Who? Never heard of 'em. Are they new?")
Let's see - After I described to the owner what I was looking for, he brought out the two Ultrasones above, the SR-225 (nice bottom end, but highs sounded 'crashy' and jumbled together - made me think of a hundred metal shopping carts smashing together and seemed to present a real hearing loss risk), the Audio-Technica 700's (open and closed versions), the ATH-M50 (big big bass, perhaps too much). I prob could have listened to more, but I was running out of time...
My fave was the tossup between the Ultrasone 780 or the AudioTechnica 700 closed. Since the 'Sones were a lot more, I'll prob get the AT 700 closed. But before I visited this store, I would have gotten the SR-225's - a mistake for me.
On my way out, I was able to check out those mighty near-field AudioEngine 2's & 5's -- I thought the 2's were actually more tonally accurate with better imaging, and overall, very very impressive. The 5's were much larger, louder, and more raw to the point of sounding a bit grainy. I had planned on buying the 5's - glad now I didn't. Absolutely the smaller and cheaper 2's are on my short list of stuff to buy! Those 2's are astonishing! Tiny 3" woofers, yet you can actually feel the air hitting your face - like a desk fan on 'low' setting. But you don't realize how MUCH bigger the 5's are than the 2's until you see them together.
So, in all, a highly recommended place to visit. Seemed like really nice and knowledgable guys. Lotsa gear to drool over.
Cheers!
