Chicago Meet Impressions:
Disclaimer: the day before showing up to the meet, I had to do three consecutive trips back-to-back from Chicago to Waterford, MI nearly non-stop. My wife left vital time sensitive, work-related materials she could not do without. By the time I got to the meet, I was so tired that I didn’t even set my own rig up. So, these impressions come without use of my own test tracks or immediate access to my own gear for comparisons. That being said, I don't think that anything below is too out of sorts.
Personal Favorite Rig of the Evening: Steve’s Questyle CAS192 > DNA Stratus > HD800s
Probably the best rig I’ve heard thus far for a pair of stock – completely unmodded - HD800s. The combination of Wolfson WM8741 balanced D-S DAC and Stratus with aftermarket tubes was enough to balance out the 800’s treble without completely screwing up the rest of its positive characteristics (resolution, imaging, dynamics, etc. etc). The DAC is probably the weak link in that chain – but it’s no secret that I’m a bit of a WM8741 fanboy as my favorite D-S DACs are the Gamma2, Mousai192 (a rebranded Questyle mini), and Audio G-D’s Wolfson implementations. If I have any quibbles, it might be that something in the chain was causing it to come up short in the resolution department. I didn’t have my own test tracks though, so I can’t confirm.
Related Q: Where in the fuck do you even get a Questyle CAS192 these days? They have no U.S. distributor and seem to have become borderline unobtainium in the states as of late. I hunted around a bit for one when I was looking for a balanced WM8741 alternative and came up empty.
ZMF’s Omni Demos from Gen Va > Decaware & EAD > V281
I had a chance to demo a previous iteration of the Omnis where Zach was still working out the damping scheme. The models he had at the meet were substantially ahead of the ones I heard previously. I felt like top to bottom coherence of mids/treble/bass was lacking in the previous iteration. On my TransDAC > Project Ember setup at Zachs, I thought I heard a major problem on one model in the transition in upper bass to lower mids with my own test tracks and on Zach’s Violectric/EAD setup. This problem was no longer present at the meet.
Zach had his EAD/V281 rig hooked up to a laptop using Tidal – that gave me access to a number of familiar test tracks. General notes, starting with the positives:
1. Crisp and correct string attacks on acoustic folk and alternative tracks (Iron & Wine, Jose Gonzales). Instrument timbre seemed spot on across the board.
2. Crash cymbals had the appropriate amount of sibilance – not too much, but also not not present (The Who, Baba O’Reilly). I’ve found that “sibilance” with many reviewers has come to mean the exact same thing as “sibilance issues” – for example, the hot 6k area on the HD25/Amperior. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m also not talking about elevated sibilance that comes from problem recordings – though I’ll get to that in a second. I’m talking about the natural presence of sibilants (the fucking ‘S’ sound) inherent in certain instruments and the human voice. Cymbal decay was appropriate and accurate.
3. The Omni’s sound more open and spacious than any other T50rp mod that I’ve heard (Fleet Foxes). The only real competitor in this metric is the Paradox Slants, which stages extremely well and which may have slightly more precise instrument separation and overall imaging. The Omnis still sound more open.
4. Zach’s done a great job making the Omnis open and airy without making them limp dick. The Omnis sound energetic for electronic music (Daft Punk, various off of R.A.M. but of course “Get Lucky” and “Giorgio by Moroder”) and hit hard when they need to for rock music (Rush, Danzig, Rage Against The Machine).
5. Vocals on the Omni had a sweetness emphasis that made them great for listening to vocalist-centered pop music. By “pop music”, I don’t mean dance pop or pop rock, but the entire scope of modern genres that place one or more vocalists as focal point, from barbershop acapella to nerdcore hip hop like Cool Keith or Deltron 3030. Neil Finn on tracks like “Distant Sun” and “Throw Your Arms Around Me” (and other various tracks from Crowded House, Farewell to the World) had the appropriate gradient of effort and relaxation in his voice. John McCrea (Cake) sounds correctly monotone – but not affectless, still present and full. Lauren Hill on The Score sounds at the same time chesty and ethereal. It’s difficult for a headphone to do all of these well.
Other stuff. As with all of this, YMMV, subjective listening, stuff and things qualifiers:
1. Product Variation: I only got to hear cherry and walnut models.
Q: I don’t believe there was a Blackwood-cupped Omni there? If there was, I didn’t get to hear it.
While the sound of each unit was extremely similar, one model - which had mismatched pads - had a couple slight variations from the others. I want to make it clear that these are tiny differences. Pretty well things that fall well within manufacturing tolerances for any headphone manufacturer. It had a midrange that was ever so slightly more forward than the others. It also had a slightly higher vocal sibilance range elevation that was audible on poorly recorded tracks. I use Sixo Rodriguez’s “Cause” from Coming From Reality as a test track for this; it’s a fantastic song that, due to poor recording, sounds like the audio equivalent of sandpaper. Talking with Zach after comparison listening, and having him take a comparison listen as well, he noted that he could hear a difference. We talked about three possible causes for this variance: the mismatched pads could have caused it; the difference in wood could have caused it; the t50rp’s drivers have documented product variance that also could have caused it. If you listen to poorly recorded music, this is something to think about. Zach offers a free retune and you might want to take advantage of that if you find your pair too hot in that area.
2. I really liked the Omni. My personal favorite in Zach’s lineup is still the Blackwood though. The Blackwoods have two strengths that, despite sounding more closed, being slightly less tonally neutral than the Omni, and having worse staging, would make me choose them over the Omni. To my ears, the Blackwoods still seem to sound slightly clearer and cleaner than the Omnis. The Blackwoods also have a type of wood cup reverb that contributes to a sense of depth that I didn’t hear with the walnut or cherry Omnis. I’m not sure if a Blackwood-cupped Omni would have these qualities or not.
TLDR: If you’re in the market for a new planar magnetic headphone, including the Ether and HE-1000, you should give the Omni a try as well. It’s a damn good headphone.
Maverick Ronin’s Stax Setup (Focusrite 2i2 > Stax SRM-252S > Modded Lambda Normal Bias, SR207)
I have next to no experience with electrostatic headphones. That being said, I did get the chance to hear Keith’s (I think it was his) unmodded Lambda and compare it to Maverick Ronin’s modded one. I can say this: MR’s modded one was an across the board upgrade. Standout differences: comfort, treble quality, and tonal evenness. Mav’s custom headband and handmade ultrasuede pads made his Lambda of the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn.
Test tracks: Bach, Contrapunctus 1; The Strokes, Under Control; Nightwish, Dead Boy’s Poem; Nobuo Uematsu from FF VIII OST; others.
The stock Lambda had incredibly forward, fairly rough treble. Mav’s pseudo-Anax mods brought the treble back in line and dramatically improved its quality. Leveling out the treble had the net effect of also making the mids and bass more present. Female vocals sounded incredible on this setup and I wish I had some Sarah Brightman recordings on hand. Bravo!
Darin Fong’s ‘Out of Your Head’ Software
Next time it’s on Massdrop, I’m going to have to buy it. I had just gotten done listening to “Money” on Steve’s HD800 rig when I walked over to Keith’s laptop and turned on the demo. Unheimlichkeit. I actually paused the demo and took off the HD600s to double check that I was indeed still wearing HD600s.
Claritas’s Setup (Marantz CDP > Beresford Caiman MKII > Corda something or other > Paradox)
I don’t listen much to classical music on my own. My wife does though, so I was able to find a few pieces in the CD stack that I could use for demo purposes. Claritas’s setup made the Paradox sound expansive and thundering. I don’t mean that in a bad way – you want “Ride of the Valkyries” to sound thundering and expansive. Brass instruments lacked harshness and sounded well extended. Cymbals had a sharp but realistic leading edge. Percussion in general had the appropriate slam. (Lars Ulrich’s drums on Metallica’s “One” had some pretty powerful slam.) On Siegfried’s Funeral March, string timbre sounded perfect and I was impressed at how well the setup reproduced a wide gradient of volumes.
What really struck me was how different this rig was from the last setup that Claritas brought out (a Darkforce > AKG K340, I believe). I seem to remember that rig as airy, even wispy, where this one is far fuller and impactful.
Scattered Final Thoughts
- The Oppo HA-1 is too bright for my tastes. I was a bit disappointed by that because I really like its design and form factor. Unfortunately, it was also what I demoed both the Ether and HE-1000 on. If I had more time, or was less tired, I would have taken them over to another system. Not typing my impressions of the two headphones out because I think they’re ultimately unreliable.
- Fraggler’s ‘For Sale’ setup: The LH Geek Pulse Xfi With LPS > Balanced HD650 was a really great. It’s probably one of the best Sabre implementations I’ve ever heard. Listening fatigue had already set in so I didn’t jot down any notes while I was at his table.
- I got a chance to hear a couple more Bottlehead Cracks at the meet. I never fail to be impressed by how well they work with the 6X0 Senns. I really need to get around to making or buying one.
- The HiFiMan HE-300. No. Not even for $100.