2015 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Impressions

I agree but maybe I was just lucky to get a good seal. Don't get me wrong I think the headband design is terrible. Everyone should be able to get to have a good experience with a set of headphones.

 

Actually sorry one more impression because I didn't think I said anything about this and I think it's important.

I sat down and listened to the iFi iUSB 3.0. I am not going to say you won't notice a difference when plugging from your computer to this device then to your dac/amp. I think you will but to me it was totally negative. I was only able to listen to one track I was familiar with and that was Superstar by the Carpenters. What I heard was constriction of the sound stage and the highs from the vocals during the chorus being lowered. Without the ifi iusb 3.0 it sounded natural and the music flowed. With the iFi iusb 3.0 it was like I lost the beauty of how good that song is and made it unlistenable. Do I think I got a good sample? No as I was only familiar with that one song from the playlist they had.

I am really excited to hear more impressions in other threads about what they heard from their USB "cleaners." One thing to note is I spoke to Cardas about the need for high end cables and usb cleaners and he said with higher end equipment you really don't need them as what you spend more money on is a solid power supply and higher end components within. I guess this is just going to be one of those things that you have to hear to believe.

 

Ether(s) Open – These all had varying degrees of hard treble and lean bass. The only one I heard that sounded decent was paired with a prototype Woo Audio transportable amp, but that was with music I wasn’t familiar with (though it did sound good). I really just don’t think these headphones are very good. They don’t sound particularly hi-fi, clear, or have good staging to my ears on top of the lean and slightly hard tone.

Ether Closed – The pair I heard sounded like a joke. Less full sounding than the already-lean Ether open. Brighter and less cohesive sounding throughout. I wrote “weird” multiple times in my notes. It’s like the MrSpeaker headphones have just gone downhill in sound quality, or even basic tonal balance, as the prices go up.

LCD-3 – Heard another one of these. Yep, similar to the one I heard at Tyll’s, but not identical. Kinda like all the Ethers floating around. Still kinda slow, murky, and rough-yet-dark treble. Meh.

LCD-4 – Finally, an Audeze headphone with decent tone! And, yet, this one still has the LEAST slam and overall bass power out of the bunch. So, more neutral, smoother, faster, and more cohesive than the LCD-2, 3, X, and either EL-8 model, yet the most lean and boring sounding. Kinda like how the Ether can be boring sounding, but more refined than the Ether. Better clarity. Smoother treble. Maybe it had some midrange emphasis in a shouty area, but nothing major. I tried to tell the rep-in-a-lab-coat (BTW, this just makes you look like a tool and an asshole!) that it lacked slam, and he said something along the lines of, “No, this model has the most slam out of our others. You’re not just in the minority, you’re the ONLY person to have said that.” All while having this condescending smile on his face. I guess he at least gave up the typical, “Well, everyone hears differently.” Later over lunch, velvetx told me he said the same thing about slam to the rep before I stopped by their booth, so the guy straight up lied to me about me being the only one to make that comment. Yeah, go screw yourself and your bend-over-and-take-it priced headphones. Companies and products priced like this are the epitome of what’s wrong with this industry. Who knows, maybe 1 in 100 pairs has a sound that’s worth the price. [Insert big ol’ middle finger]

EL-8 Open – Thankfully this is not the horrible mess that is the EL-8 Closed edition. Funny side note, one of the cooler Audeze reps (i.e. not lab coat man) just kind of giggled and said, “Yeah,” when I said the open version was much better than closed. I think he knew what I was talking about. In overall sound quality, I’d slot this below the Ether. They too were sort of similar. The EL-8 Open could have used more bass slam and was on the rougher, scratchier side of things without being outright bright. Lacked clarity. Unfortunately, I could only pair these with my phone at the time, so that wasn’t bound to do them favors. At least with my phone I can start to get a feel for tone with familiar tracks. Harder for me to tell with unfamiliar music, even if it brings out better traits and qualities vs. my phone.

Kennerton Odin – Kind of midrange focused. Not very clear sounding. Hazy. Looks nice. Comfort was so-so. Heavy, and pads were stiff. Not very memorable or particularly good.

HiFiMan Edition S – This is their “on-ear” portable. It was actually over-ear for me. Looked kinda like a cheap headphone, felt cheap, and didn’t sound great. Very bassy, scooped mids, kinda shouty, and somewhat U-shaped.

HiFiMan Edition X – This is similar to the HE1000 but lower priced. I heard tentatively around $1500-2000. I hope they stick with $1500 or even lower. I much preferred the tonal balance on this one over the HE1000, even though I could only run it from my phone (which, by the way, actually sounded pretty good). Just a hair bright, but less so than HE1K and without that roughness due to the HE1K’s treble emphasis area(s). Overall pretty neutral and engaging sounding. Some said a bit midrange-focused, but I’d have to listen more to be sure. Still not as balanced sounding up top as the HD650, not that many headphones are, but quite good!

Torque Audio’s Tunable Headphones – I forgot to write down the model name of their product, and while the sound quality wasn’t quite “there” on any configuration, it was a cool design! It comes with a set of on-ear and over-ear pads. They are magnetically attached to the baffle. They are square shaped and can each be oriented in four different ways for tuning purposes. This controls the amount of bass, primarily, though clearly it had sonic effects on the mids and treble. This seemed to bring more changes to the sound overall that your typical adjustable bass port, for example. I only found one configuration on each pad that sounded decent, but nothing particularly good. Still, the rep was friendly, very passionate about his product, and I have to admit…sound quality aside, it is a cool idea and implemented quite well! I wish them luck and hope to see their product line refined down the road.

Lyrus Audio Orthos (Model 6 and 9) – Model 6 was not good sounding. Very weird, very mid-focused. The Model 9 sounded much better. I want to say it wasn’t too bad, just a bit scooped in the mids. But my brain could have been fooling me after switching from the bad Model 6. Still, both were priced too high (mid-to-high $1000 range) and didn’t offer competitive sound quality. They were very nice looking headphones, though.

T50RP MK3 – When I first saw Tyll, the first thing he said was to check out the T50RP MK3. What? I thought he was pulling a prank on me. Did he really want me to hear another iteration of a headphone that needed mods to sound good? All they did was change the pads and headband, right? Wrong! I mean, sure, the pads and headband were new. The pads, despite looking similar to the old pads, were surprisingly comfortable and fit nicely. But before putting them on, I noticed there was something around the driver on the front side of the baffle. Baffle mods, eh? Maybe there was more to this iteration than I expected.

I played some music from Tyll’s portable setup with the T50RP MK3 and…whoa! Good bass extension, good bass power and presence, balanced midrange, good clarity, decent sense of space for a mostly closed headphone, and maybe a hint of that typical T50RP sharpness in the treble. And only $160! OK, so the show conditions weren’t the best way for me to see how technically capable they were, but I liked the tonal balance over a lot of headphones at the show. These are NOT the typical T50RP MK2. The reps were honest in that the company was inspired by the modding community. These are a steal and a definite highlight for me. I think had the MK2 sounded like this, no one would have bothered modding them in the first place.

TH500RP – You know, I had heard a lot of negative or so-so opinions on these. I actually liked them for the most part. They sort of reminded me of the HE400S. Slightly rolled lower bass, warmer tone, generally easy going, and a slight hint of sibilance. Could use a bit more clarity. They looked nice, felt nice, were comfortable, and overall enjoyable to listen to. I forgot how much they cost, though, and now that I’m looking at their retail price, they do cost too much. You can find them used or on sale for $500ish, which isn’t terrible. I’d slot these closer to the $400 mark, if only because they have a nice enclosure and pads. (Looking at Ultrabike’s measurements from Changstar, they actually look similar to the HE400S.) Thinking to myself…if you know how to mod headphones, you could probably make them a bit less open in the back and change or add damping to get a damn good sounding headphone for a good price relative to other Fostex planar mods. But for the general consumer, maybe consider the HE400S first.

TH900 – This one varied depending on what I paired it with. From their smaller, solid-state DAC/Amp combo, it sounded bright but clean and clear. Not too bassy. And despite brightness, it was surprisingly easy to listen to. Good air and width. From their mega-huge, mega-pricey tube amp, it sounded much bassier and more powerful. The amp helped lessen the brightness, but it was still bright. Comfortable to wear and gorgeous looking.

Sennheiser HD630VB – First off, this headphone doesn’t deserve the HD5XX or HD6XX naming convention. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great. The variable bass does more harm than good, I think. It was SO hard to dial in in right to sound OK-at-best. The problem is that these have shrill treble unless you adjust the bass until there’s, well, too much bass. So you either get too much bass and decent mids and treble, or you get shrill treble. Dialing the bass down all the way was like torture. Very hard to find a good balance. When you do find the best balance, they are OK-at-best, like I said. It’s just there is always going to be something off about them.

Beyerdynamic T1 – Thin and lifeless. Like a bad HD800 imitator minus the HD800 etch (due to how the HD800 emphasizes certain treble spots). The difference is the T1 just sounds very low-fi.

T90 – Like a T1 with added ouch. Icky treble. I didn’t order this, dammit! Take it back! Also sounded small and weird.

DT770 – Honestly, sounded bright to me. Not bassy, just bright. Thin sounding if anything. That said, MUCH clearer and resolving than the T1 or T90. WTF, Tesla? Why do you even exist? Still, not my thing despite it being leagues better than the T1 or T90 there.

DT1770 – Still had some brightness issues and wasn’t perfectly cohesive sounding from top to bottom, but this model actually had life and body to it. Wow! Some semblance of tonal balance? No way! Still just a bit too much on the bright side of things for me, but not a Tesla abomination. My favorite of the four Beyers I heard, but I still wouldn’t buy one for myself.

Soekris Discrete Ladder DAC + HP Amp combo – Hey, this is pretty cool! Unfortunately, while they had an HD650, I knew none of their music. I brought my USB stick with me but forgot I wiped the music off it to load OS drivers on it for an OS install. Crap! That was embarrassing. Oh well, I did what I could with their music. First off, the concept of the discrete ladder DAC is just cool as hell, and the boards were suitably nice and tidy looking. The DAC/amp combo unit was loaded with 4 different oversampling filters, but I couldn’t tell a difference between them at the show. The amp had no problems powering the HD650, at least in terms of volume. All USB powered. It’s not exactly pocket-portable, being wide and long, but very thin. You’d have no problems toting it around from place to place if traveling, but it’s not small like the GO products. OK, so maybe the discrete ladder DAC won’t hit the same accuracy as what’s used in even the multibit Bifrost, but, hey, this combo unit was only $650, seemed to work well, and was just a damn cool concept for an all-in-one unit. On my radar.

Multibit Gungnir + Mjolnir 2 w/ SS Tubes + PMx2 (balanced) – Surprisingly nice combo! A touch of warmth and thickness, good power and dynamics, relatively smooth sounding. Not much to complain about! I’d have to listen more to this at home with my own source and music, but this is a damn good combo.

Multibit Bifrost + Lyr 2 (stock tubes) + HD650 – Seemed like this might be even warmer and more relaxed sounding than the MBG+MJ2+PMx2 combo (save for the HD650 sounding inherently sharper and clearer up top to me than PMx2), but in a good way. I actually might prefer how the HD650 sounds with the Lyr 2 over the Valhalla 2. Great sounding combo! I would not at all hesitate to recommend the Lyr 2, and the MB Bifrost is a hell of a deal. We did run into a bug at the show, much like the pre-production unit I heard before. That is, on Macbooks, the MBB would sometimes get this very strange and noticeable digital distortion quality to the sound. Like fed through an 8-bit processor on LSD. This was resolved by either reseating the cables or switching the input selector until it got back to USB. Not a deal breaker to me. The Schiit rep said they had to use Macs because they couldn’t get the MBB to work on their Dell machines at the show even though it used the same USB board as the MB Gungnir, which had no issues on the Dells. Weird. And now that I am reading some others are having USB driver issues with the MBB on various Windows machines, I’m a bit concerned by that. Maybe there’s something else at play, or maybe this is only affecting a few users at most, but if there’s a legitimate issue, I’m sure Schiit will take care of it. Doesn’t change the fact this combo sounded awesome once we got beyond the minor bug. All those pre-production worries I had about sonic qualities (when we had that unit working, i.e. not in buggy state)? Gone. This all sounded great.

Woo Audio Transportable Prototype Amp – This one was pretty cool looking. I liked the design and style, though I preferred the black unit over the gold one (only got a pic of gold – coming up later). This uses three, visible miniature tubes behind a glass window. Can run off battery for about 4-hours. I’m assuming you can plug it in too and power it that way, but they had it on battery mode. Built in DAC too, though I’m not sure if that was being used or not. Made the Ether sound powerful and whole in a good way. Took off some of the edge I’ve heard on Ethers too. Granted, not familiar with the music selection, so take that with a grain of salt. The downside? Priced just shy of $2000. Too bad…

Liquid Carbon – There weren’t any headphones at the table I cared for, so I was pretty bummed to not get a good feel for this amp. I should have just brought my HD650 or borrowed one, like from Alex. Oh well. Looks and feels nice! (Only posted this so you don’t ask later if I listened and then I have to explain myself.)

Out of Your Head – I’ll be honest. I never tried this before, even the trial. I don’t trust virtual surround sound processing. But, hey, while I was there, I figured I’d say hi to Darin and give it a shot. Why not? Well, I got my ass handed to me. I put on some HD600s for the demo he had on loop. Listened for a bit. Sounded good. Wasn’t familiar with the material. Wasn’t sure what I was or was not listening to from the software. Then it switched to processing off mode. WHOA. Sound lost air, collapsed to either side of my head, and lost what I hadn’t even noticed were nicely processed room acoustics. Holy crap, Out of Your Head is the real deal! I’m pretty eager to use the trial at home now. Cool stuff!

EDITED/ADDED

Pioneer SE-Master 1 - I didn't think this headphone was bad necessarily. Pretty pleasing sounding, actually, to my ears. It was just a bit too thick, bassy, and warm for my tastes. Not enough liveliness and presence in the upper-mids and treble. Dark and thick throughout. Sort of like the R70X tuning, but more refined. Still, in no way did I hear anything that made me think it was better than the HD650 except for having a larger stage and maybe more air. Maybe. But the HD650 is still more competent at a fraction of the SE-Master 1's asking price.

 

Table of contents has been added to the front page for easier navigation and organization. Please PM me with the direct link to your impressions and I will add them.

Thanks.

 

The only disclaimer I have about the Lyr 2 is that to get the good sound the tubes are pretty expensive. Trust me you are going to want to roll.

 

realizing all us here are gear sluts, wanting to know what is great, what sucks and what has value-
the crew impressions from Hands, Velvet, bixby are filling that bill.
(will divulge results of my crap load of time at Cavalli Audio table later)

So a slight diversion.
Best in RMAF 2015 show was simple:

lunch with (7) Pyrates and Tyll.

WHY?
well, not including Hands stealing the last half of my Patron Silver margarita,

I learned 300% more from talking to these dudes than I do from reading HF for years or visiting RMAF for 3 years in a row or talking to Napoleon or vendors at the show.
No one is afraid to say Nighthawks suck, or that Audeze should get a grip on reality, or who that R2R OEM vendor is, or that Napoleon wields HF power to protect his ego and sponsors and not (obviously) us peons in the street (forums).

to wit,
Can someone explain how Jude gets to moderate a “measurements seminar” at RMAF and Tyll is NOT invited or even consults?!
What. The. Holy. F.

In a significant section of the State of our Hobby chat, I became enraged at the current state of the state, hopeful of out flanking the establishment, and now brainstorming on modern ways to construct an actionable Headphone Magna Carta for those of us with a brain, a focus and energy to make our voices and goals possible.
even if HF is not behind or even against such. this is not the times of Stalin Russia.

Look, I’m not a Billy Graham evangelist. Just a family guy with a real job, not much spare time and no skin in the game other than wanting the People to have fair input toward uniting across the inter webs instead of being blocked.
Voices, that if banded together, could make for an actual fair and non censored community in partnership with companies for the betterment of audio products with value and sonic ability instead of perpetuating a shill sponsored environment where Whomever-Pays-(or Whines-like-Dan)-the-Most silences the critics.

Soon I will take this plea (new secret, AES256 encrypted thread?) to Marv and others to try and discuss some sort of cohesive plan.
I may just drive to Montana and drink with Tyll for a week because it would be fun, enlightening and maybe even constructive.

just saying kids- get past the gear alone.
try to imagine a world where it’s NOT SO DAMN HARD to keep from getting ripped off by bad audio/headphone products at insane prices, or that you have to lose a nut to find any sort of legit A/B comparison (like Big Audio at Inner Fidelity) to cut through the smoke and mirrors of reviews / impressions.
SBAF may be one such place, but also that we must co-ordinate with others to significantly impact The Headphone World.

End of soapbox.

rip me or ignore necessary, my hide is thick.
Wonder Twins power activate.


back to the Black Widow listening hour......

 

I understand where you are coming from here but think of the applications. Imagine you have a baby or you don't have the money to sound proof a room for high end speakers and you want to watch a movie. You love the soundstage speakers give when you watch a movie but you need it quiet in the house. This idea for headphones I think is great for those who live in apartments or don't have speakers but want a speaker experience sometimes.

 

I actually didn't get into much about our lunch but this was definitely important and no one could tell the story like it was like Jexby and Tyll. I would say myself, hands, and kevin were the young uns listening to the old timers give advice to the new generation with Jexby, Tyll, and Mike Ross. I mean they really knew the issues far more than I did I just sat and listened. Personally I had two margaritas.

I am adding this to the navigation thread because whether Jexby is being blunt, non PC, or whatever I think this topic needs to be addressed and known that there are people talking about change and really wanting to push for it.

Thanks again Jexby for being honest and it was a great time to have everyone at the lunch to be of like mind.

 

I didn't post my opinions yet about what Jexby and others are now commenting but there is a reason why despite some head-fi members recommending it I don't like posting my impressions of gear there. I don't feel the sense of community and there is too much noise for any constructive discussions because everyone is too busy saying you are wrong or overwriting your impressions with reposts of their own positive impressions. I am not saying that all of head-fi is like this but just looking at the responses for my LCD-4 post it's disheartening. It's impossible that what I heard was correct. That thinking is why sometimes I have to walk away from Head-Fi at times.

I think in regards to Jexby's post it really puts things into perspective about how similar we think. Do I want to topple a king? No. I don't think deposing anyone would do anything but fragment the community and personally I don't want that because then shows and meets go away. However, I think as a community we can do better to increase the level of communication and add things we think are important into our meets. Head-fi is the masses and as we saw towards the end of Changstar sometimes it becomes an uncontrollable mess and spins out of control to a point where you don't even recognize it's identity. I don't find us to be elitists and we want more people to join SBAF but at the same time they have to be the right people for us as a community. I would like us to get bigger organically. I would like to see people from Head-Fi come over here and see what we are doing differently and how we speak about products and how we form opinions. It's not like we are doing anything by the book I just feel at SBAF we do it constructively in a manner that is respectful.

We saw at Inner Fidelity how things are done right (small, contained, with a lot of great gear to listen to) however I also heard how hard it was on Tyll to attain all that gear. If we are to do something like this as the SBAF community I am all for it but it's going to be like the movie Field of Dreams you build it and they will come.

 

good feedback ya'll and yah- not saying HF should be shut down or taken over by a new leader. only that HF should NOT be allowed as the bully of the Hobby, censoring fair commentary, contributors, goals and meets that don't meet "the HF agenda",

Indeed, let's go back to RMAF equipment impressions and tonight will write up on that mini R2R DAC/amp product from Denmark.

 

LOL! Hey man, we were about to leave, and I asked if you were gonna finish it. You said, "Yes," I clarified that, nevermind, I was only gonna drink it if you weren't going to finish, and you shoved it on me anyway!

Forgot to add thoughts on the Pioneer SE-Master 1.

I didn't think this headphone was bad necessarily. Pretty pleasing sounding, actually, to my ears. It was just a bit too thick, bassy, and warm for my tastes. Not enough liveliness and presence in the upper-mids and treble. Dark and thick throughout. Sort of like the R70X tuning, but more refined. Still, in no way did I hear anything that made me think it was better than the HD650 except for having a larger stage and maybe more air. Maybe. But the HD650 is still more competent at a fraction of the SE-Master 1's asking price.

 

No idea if it was the new or old version. Didn't care to ask. I just listened for a bit and silently walked away.

Zach wasn't there, nor did I see any of his headphones. He is sending me an Omni to borrow for a bit, though.