Mr. Speakers ETHER Flow Headphone(?) Upgrade(?)

No, I'm just me.

 

Deep

 

I might have missed it in this thread, but has @Marvey had a chance to listen to these (open) yet? Curious to read more impressions compared to HEK and Elear/Utopia (apart from @Tyll Hertsens IF review).

 

What's the story about opening these up? I recall someone saying they are booby trapped?

 

Listed to a pair of Ether Flows (open back) at the Schiit Show today and did some back to back comparisons with my Ethers.

Listening to "Mombasa" from the Inception soundtrack using the new Jotenheim, the bass much more present and the high speed drumming was more articulate

Did a few A-B comparisons back to back and decided I'm definitely upgrading!

 

yeah the Flows are definitely a noticeable improvement over the originals

 

I'd say to a large degree, yes. Sound staging is bigger. Treble is smoother and the overall signature is warmer. But sense of speed/decay is probably the biggest improvement. Mine are just arrived in Atlanta, so probably have them Monday or Tuesday. Once I get them broken in I'd loan them to you so that you can judge for yourself.

 

For those that dislike the ether c, what's a better closed headphone with moderately good isolation?

 

Would Lff paradox/slant be a contender? also who aren't very much into the MrSpeaker's "house sound", may like the lusher, warmer albeit a less detailed/resolving Zmf blackwood/Omni. I might be wrong. But different strokes for different folks and all that.

Please do know that I am not saying that these are technically more "better", but the tonality and tuning can be quite important and can have higher priority than the technicalities and rezolushon for some.

 

Ether C FLOW. A reference closed hp is a tough act. I do like some of the older Sony stuff though. R10 is one of the very best I've ever heard. Also the cd3k under the right upstream gear is very good.

 

So now I'm wondering if a great number of folks have been hearing the ETHER/ETHER-C in a crippled state thus far. I got one piece of sideband feedback (aka text) yesterday from the SS2 which said they sounded like a different headphone when driven balanced out of the Jotun.

 

I currently don't recall enough to answer your first question, but as for the second question yes the Flow has a much larger soundstage both depth and width-wise. It's enough to not make me miss something like even the HD800's soundstage (though of course the HD800 still has the larger stage).

You'd better really value that tonality and tuning. Because at least to me, in terms of technical ability the ZMF Omni is not close to the Ether Flow at all.

 

My son has the slants, and he and I will be flying in for the !CanJm, so I will try them then. He lives in Boston and I in New Mexico, so not easy coordinate.

I'm visiting him in Boston in October, so I'll try then too, but time is limited

I really like the ether c sound, so I'm curious if the Flow C is just better, filling out the need for a thinker lower end, or does the flow C have a whole new sound?

 

I don't want them to be. The Flows are $1800. If a $900 (although I got mine for $680 in the B-stock sale) Omni comes anywhere close to the Flow juju, that would be nothing short of blasphemous. The Flows are allowed to be wayyy better for their asking price. The Omni is good but there are better things out there and better things will keep coming out as the audio industry progresses forward. That's a good thing because if ever I chose to upgrade i.e sell the Omni and buy a higher tier headphone, I will actually get an upgrade in audio instead of "just a little better" for X times the price. I acknowledge the shortcomings of the Omni, but they seem to fit my preferences much more that anything around it's price range. I hope I get to hear a Flow for myself one day though.

Happy listening!

 

I gotcha. Well, I'm not sure what your preferences are exactly, but after having just listened to both the open Flow and the ZMF Omni on the same gear (the Schiit Jotunheim), I can tell you that I think that the ZMF has a warmer, more romantic tone. Notes don't seem to be as sharp (I'm not talking about technical ability here, just how the notes sound overall). Soundstage size I think is actually quite comparable, with maybe the Flow having a slightly deeper soundstage. However, the Flow at least to me layers better and and has more pinpoint accurate imaging (though the ZMF is actually no slouch here either).

Hope that helps a bit!

 

@friedrice83 well my preferences lean towards the lusher, warmer and more romantic kind if sound. I'm not honestly a fan of bright sounding or dead flat headphones.

Zach's headphones are biased to acoustic instruments, jazz which falls in line with my preferences and I also listen to rock. But I guess I'm a minor basshead too so I listen to edm and hip-hop as well.

Thanks for your impressions!

 

I wasn't terribly impressed with the sonics of the EtherC (or any Mrspeakers product so far, to be frank), though I'd certainly give the nod for comfort and isolation. For the price of the EtherC, I would rather buy a PM-2 and PM-3, a few nights out with tickets to the symphony and a nice dinner beforehand, and an aged bottle of whatever particular poison tickled my fancy.