John Atkinson is the real deal. Very polished, tactful, and funny. I saw part of this presentation, really good stuff. It's good to know that there are people like him who focus on objective measurements and try to correlate them with what we hear.

Totally agree.  But remember, lies are often very useful and based on kernels of truth.      There's manipulating the truth and then there's total fabrication.  Absolute truth?  No.  Relative?  U betcha.


O, thx for the update Peter.  Haven't had a chance to respond over there.

My Humble Impressions

I had a small window of time to attend T.H.E. SHOW today (Sunday June the 3rd) in the afternoon (daughter with a little fever, among other daily family life responsibilities)... I'm very glad I attended.

Purrin's Presentation:

Briefly before the presentation, I was able to finally meet LFF and Anaxilus in person, both whom I highly regard. The presentation was very well put together and delivered. Very fluid, well controlled, succinct, entertaining, and easy to follow. Questions were well handled and honesty was appreciated: preferred equalization, thoughts on Dr Dre, among others. I also liked the participation and answers from Audeze (Alex). There were 3 other members in the pannel: Jorge Cervera (Headphone.com), Michael Mercer (CEntrance), and a surprise: George Cardas. Michael and Jorge seemed neutral and easy going though out the whole presentation...

However, Cardas contributions were just not my cup of tea (never have been). He is a bit imposing in his tone which is a bit uncomfortable. I did not agree with his perception of Logitech IEMs, dismissal of certain characterization methods (particularly tones, and surprisingly frequency response), and overall apparent disregard of objective measurements. He did put some weight on driver matching, but IMHO that is not the whole story. I also did not like his last minute endorsements of his products. It took some visible effort from Purrin, to not go medieval on him... Which was probably for the better: best to not give importance to what does not deserve it (It was my impression that Cardas did not manage to interest the audience enough to ask questions).

Even with the occasional distractions, Purrin's presentation managed to show that what we measure strongly correlates with what we experience. Unlike some panel members, Purrin's presentation provided fertile ground for questions and obvious interest... And I won a Total Bithead Amp... How more cool can it get?!

Headphones/Amps

Well it does get better. I'm a ~15 year experienced DSP/Comm Systems Engineer, and while some of the concepts here are relatively easy to digest for me, I have not experienced HiFi audio to the level of most around here, and I'm not a forum expert (obviously post in the wrong threads, inadvertently insult intelligence, and look for acoustic frequency phase response in impedance plots... go figure!) So I got to make amends to my lack of experience to a limited extent in a limited amount of time. Got to hear for the first time the HE-500, HE-400, HD650, Lambda 404, Stax 007, Stax 009, Grado PS500, LCD-2, and, LCD-3. I also experienced the Lyr, Valhalla, Mjolnir, Stax SRM-007T, Eddie Current (electra and balance act), Headroom Ultra (like the name there), among other amps. DACs matter but unfortunately I didn't put attention and notes on those (will try to remember to do this next time)

1- Lyr(or Asgard not sure) >  PS500 - Did not like the highs. Surprising since the PS500 is supposed to be highs tamed.
2- Valhalla > DT990-600 ohm - Excellent. This DT990 did not sound like my DT990-250 and I don't think is just the amp. Not sure if the drivers are different (2003 vs 2005) or if there is some difference in the damping there. Could also be that the source has been equalized but I'm more inclined to think that the drivers are different. Again, very good system for the price IMHO. I'll re-read Xombie_X stuff again!
3- Headroom Ultra > HE-500: Very good. little on the bright side of things IMHO, but I really liked it.
4- Headroom Ultra > HD650: Very good, but liked the HE-500 a little more there. Probably because I come from relatively bright cans.
5- Headroom Ultra > HE-400: Very good, but liked the HE-500 and HD650 better.
6-  SRM-007T > Lambda 404: Excellent. I did not expected to be blown away by it. In my opinion it is brighter than the 007, but less so than the 009 (Eddie Current Electra was driving the 009 I experienced).
7- SRM-007T > 007: Very good. The T2 should bring these to eargasmic levels IME.
8- Electra > 009: Very good. Don't know why, but I liked the SRM-007T > Lambda 404 better. Maybe it was the recording.
9- Mjolnir > LCD-2 (or 3?). Very good. But I did expect these to sound really good.
10- Balance Act > LCD-2. Very good as well. I'm not sure if Mjolnir is better since I did not do an A/B test there. Both were very good.

And that's it. This was my first hi end headphone/amp experience and it was good. I learned that I may prefer a little brighter cans such as the Lambda 404 and a DT990-600 with a tube amp. I really loved the Lambda, what can I say...

Speakers

A bonus to this treat was that high end speakers that I never dreamed I would ever hear where just there! I know this forum is concerned about headphones, so I'll try to be brief here. Zu audio did not impress me, but Thiel's uber-expensive CS3 did. Emotiva's rig was better than I expected, and very much enjoyed their powered monitors. Also liked Audioengine. However I was surprised by Sony's SS-AR1 and 2. Really good sound from those Sony speakers.

So there you go. These are my entry level impressions


 

It took some visible effort from Purrin, to not go medieval on him... Which was probably for the better: best to not give importance to what does not deserve it (It was my impression that Cardas did not manage to interest the audience enough to ask questions).

yeah...  I did have to finally cut him off when he went babbling about crossovers (we are talking about headphones and the IEM Cardas is developing is a single driver): "But headphones don't have crossovers."