LOL , just realised I had my Caldera Ultra pads on my Atriums on the wrong way , I just read that the seams should point to the xlr cable , I had them on the wrong cups .
Sounds even better now
That's funny, I wonder sometimes when guys are commenting do they have the pads attached correctly with the seam pointed downwards toward the mini xlr. It makes a difference. I own every pad offered and find the Caldera pad far and away my favorite.
For me in my system and on the DCS stack which I was allowed to listen on they sound phenomenal. I compared the Susvara, new Utopia, HE 1000 SE, Atrium with Caldera Pads, Meze Elites, Stellia, JM XTC open OG and revised XTC. I listened on both Chord TT2 and Upscaler, IFI and finally the second day on the DCS 30K stack whew.
On the DCS stack everything scales accordingly. The way I see it just some quick thoughts, on live acoustic stuff (lifelike tamber/natural sounding) Susvara 9.5 (out of ten), they just sound real, Focal Utopia 9.3, Hifiman He1000 SE 9.3, ZMF Atrium 9.2, Stellia, 8.9, Elites 8.8, XTC revised 8.8. Resolution follows around the same ranking, though I would rank the revised XTC a 9.0. Staging width and size Susvara 9.5, HE1000 SE 9.4, ZMF Atrium 9.3, Elites 9.3, XTC 9.3, Utopia 9.2 and Stellia 8.9. Money no object I'd rank Susvara with the stack because of its pure musicality, tone etc., Utopia next. What would I buy, me personally I'd buy the HE 1000 SE and Atrium (with Caldera Pads) for a total of 4500.00 before the others because they do the most things right and complement each other. The Elites to me overall on thls and the Chord stack are enjoyable for casual listening but fall far behind this pack overall and I would never pay 4K for them outside of their looks. The JM XTC are far and away the best deal here and believe it or not fair very well, it's a great headphone as a baseline into the starting point of the ultra highend sound. I was sad that I didn't get to listen to the Audeze LCD 5 they were not available.
I cut it short because I went on a tangent outside of the subject area to say the Atrium is a fantastic headphone with the Caldera pads installed correctly. I'll be interested once all my equipment returns to test my current phones and decide what to purchase next. My wishlist Caldera, Susvara, JM XTC 2.5, Audeze LCD 5, Atrium closed, Heddphone 2,0
My system Wyze Mesh router into IFI LAN to TRENDnet 4 port gigibit switch, fiber out to TRENDnet converter ethernet Cat 8 to Sonnet Hermes I2S to Sonnet Morpheus to 2023 Burson Soloist 3X Grand Tourer with 2.0 power modules and 5 amp power supply into a Zenwave power strip supported by several Nordost QRT's and Verastarr cabling.
