Ok, my turn.
Once again, I left the show with the impression that a lot of the new stuff was mediocre at best, with exception of the following products:
Cavalli Liquid Carbon: This thing just rocks! Paired with the Pulse Xfi and Ether, it was a very good sound for my own taste and limited listening time. Actually, it was possibly - and surprisingly - the best setup I heard the Ether on (I heard them on the Vega + Taurus at Auralic's booth, the Vega + LAu and Yggy + Rag / WA5 at MrSpeakers booth). Excellent value at the expected price. I'm buying one.
MrSpeakers Ether: A better and much more comfortable LCD-2.?. A bit more romantic than my warmish HE-6 and technically not as proficient, but more comfortable and much easier to drive. Vocals are really, really good (life-like). Bass is on the romantic side (not the tightest, but not overpowering like the LCDs). Treble was just right for me on most setups (only the Vega/Taurus didn't do well for me).
Not a super good value on its own (I would buy one instantly at $1,000. At 1,500 I will need to think hard), but the easy-to-drive factor makes it a viable solution for the Carbon. ~$2,000-2,200 for the pairing is a good value in today's $$ (where everything tends to be overpriced).
UERM: I actually never listened to any UE iems before, so I jumped on the occasion to do the demo. Was always switching back and forth between the UERM and the UE5; the others didn't do it in the demo. The UERM had that "reference" quality that stood out and made me actually believe I was "there". The punch and clarity is very, very good. No peakyness I could detect, just very linear. It's basically what I expected the HD-800 to be.
I bought the UERM and did the 3D ear impression at the last minute. We'll see if the sound is similar to the demo pair at the meet (well, how I'll remember it).
For the highly anticipated, but disappointing overall:
Hifiman HE-1000: Probably the biggest disappointment for me. Not that this is a bad headphone per se, but I cannot understand how they can sell that for $3,000. First, I need to say that the gears and music selection at HFM booth were terrible. Since the EF-1000 monster was busy when I first sat at the booth, they offered me to try the HE-1k on the EF-100. What a craptastic idea... I'm not even gonna talk about it. The pairing with EF-1000 + 901S was probably OK overall, but one thing stood out: this setup had no sound-stage depth whatsoever, let alone center imaging. Most of you already know sound-stage and imaging are the most important aspect of headphone rendition for me (I know some of you don't even believe headphone are capable of having a believable sound-stage
) and just for this, the HE-1k was a let down. The sound signature was linear, with fast and clear treble but no annoying peakiness. Gave it a 'stat' like sound, indeed. The bass was not as good as anticipated: it was actually a bit loose, akin to the Ether on some setups. I was expecting a deeper, tighter and more thunderous "HE-6 like" bass presentation. Well, this was not it! This could be the amp (the EF-6 was pretty bad at this already...), the DAP, my mood, the recording... Vocals sounded thinner than natural on that setup, too. The look was okay. The finish was pretty bad (man, get rid of that ugly veneer, seriously... The HE-400i's finish looks better than the 560/1000).
ENIGMAcoustic Dharma: treble is too elevated to be considered neutral (
my neutral) and the bass was of the "mediocre dynamic" kind. The drivers integration was *probably* well executed; couldn't hear a transition in the mid-range (where I expect the x-over to be). I actually felt the treble was di
sconnected a bit from the mid-range (slightly U shaped). Ohhgourami liked its
presentation, as expected. I like warmer sound (you can tell from our respective HE-6).
And then the rest:
Ayre Codex: Definitely had a USB issue somewhere! The sound was cracking and full of noise when I moved the mouse on the Macbook
. Despite that, I found the sound agreeable. Had some qualities of the QB-9 DSD, but don't expect the same quality for an all-in-one DAC/amp at half the price...
More to come, maybe.
