So... to preface:
 
This particular pair was an upgraded Alpha Dog. According to Dan, whatever he does to driver, it's extremely risky and he has broken numerous drivers in the process.

I've heard 3 upgraded Alpha Primes at this point, and to me, all of them had some weird tonality issue. I brought my pair to the Bay Area mini meet to make sure I wasn't going crazy. The Primes weren't very well received, and many people commented that it sounded that something was wrong with the pair.

I worked with Dan to get the pair returned. Dan replies and says that the pair was "catastrophically wrong", and basically akin to a pair in the prototype stage of the driver mod. According to him, he's fairly confidant that the current tuning is correct.

Now, I drove them out of a Schiit Vali, Owen's The Wire amp, Gustard H10, and even my First Watt F5 power amp. The "fixed" Prime still sounds really weird to me. I let Dan know, and he tried, in the most respectful manner, to tell me that I was wrong, and something else was wrong in my chain.

For all I know, I could just have hella shitty ears or something. Dan's obviously biased towards his own product. I just don't like the Primes as much as the Paradox Slants.

For those in the tour, please do share your impressions. Try not to let this bias your own experience, and keep an open mind.

--Jeff

EDIT: Do you really like the connectors Marv? I'm not a fan at all. I wish he would have just gone with the mini 4-pin XLRs...

Measurements attached.

• Actually a fairly even FR. I personally I would liked to see a tad more bass - flat to a few hundred Hz with a slow roll-off toward the treble. The marked mid-bass dip in on channel and slightly rolled down response in the other probably contribute to the slightly thin sound I noted.
• Bass distortion is good, especially in the mid-bass.
• The sharp dip seems to be a artifact, although some ringing is noted before the dip. Minor ringing at 6k that is. Small mid-treble peaks. Nothing too wrong.
• Some rolloff in last octave, but measurements are sometimes unreliable in this area, although lack of air was observed.
• Distortion in the mids is concerning and seems unacceptable for a headphone at this price point. This distortion can be heard and what I referred to as the low-fi'ish quality of the sound.

Will have to see what I think when I test them, but the response looks a bit weird and maybe even worse than regular Alpha Dog, channel matching is not great, and distortion isn't great. Assuming these still aren't messed up and actually represent the Prime sound, this seems disappointing and not just for $1K. But, hey, that's why I'll be testing them myself to see how they work for me.

The seal is good, otherwise there would be a steep rolloff somewhere in the bass. My rig actually simulates a less than perfect seal - a realistic seal taking into account hair and a small area underneath the back of the ear. I'll take another set of measurements to confirm.

It doesn't sound bad, but it's not a $1000 headphone in terms of SQ. Not even close. I actually think the Primes went a little bit backwards. One step forward (FR), two steps backward (distortion). It took me a while to get my finger around the sound. As I've said, the FR is OK if a little lean, some minor spots. It's was just weird - like "why doesn't this sound right - why doesn't this sound good" until a few seconds later when it clicked... ahh the mids are funky.

Ah, makes sense. Was just wondering cause, I had issues with the bottom of the pads and my glasses breaking part of the seal.

They sound decidely mid-fi to me. Don't know how else to explain it.

I couldn't find a single recording where the Prime's accurately reproduced violins. Tonality was always off, and had this nasal quality. I won't even mention how weird violas sounded to me. I usually start with older recordings of my string quartet back when we actually played. Just easier to go off of stuff I'm more familiar with.

Dude. OMFG! What up with that distortion mang? You kidding me. Purrin, I'm surprised you not calling this out as a stinking piece of shit.