SBAF mini-meet in Chennai, India on January 13, 2018

Set #2...

 

Thanks to @jexby and @FlySweep for joining us for lunch in spirit

 

Highlights for me:

1. @Rthomas brought his Utopia. It was a very good pairing with the ZDS. Wow, that's really dynamic. Macro details were great. Soundstage was definitely smaller. After 5 minutes, the metal coloration made it's presence increasingly felt. I can see how this may be fatiguing with long sessions. Very comfortable.

2. @uniqusrname brought his DIY Sapphire SS amp. Very well made. Solid slam and a tad more neutral than the BW1. My HD 600 really came alive with this one. I also heard his Modi MB for the first time. Excellent value performer and paired great with the Sapphire.

 

Hot from USA, and spending a short time in India before returning home with Mr T. Assumed to be the first and only one of its kind in India. We were a lucky bunch of guys to get this chance. @Koth Ganesh is, I believe, already working on getting around the watch Mrs Ganesh is now keeping on incoming parcels!

There is no advantage to hearing loss whatsoever. It's a dog, especially for a music (and cat) lover! But... I think it is the reason why I was oblivious to that colouration, which I'm guessing would be a higher-frequency thing. It is also the reason why I no longer proffer anything but absolutely-personal, utterly subjective comments on music and audio gear. And I Luuuurved the Utopia

Enjoyed listening to this combination very much. Also, this is not just a guy who happens to be able to solder, but plainly one of our engineering experts: it was great listening to him too!

 

Thad, I'm shipping the Utopia to your house and will collect it later

 

Thanks for all the pics, lunch and a ton of gear @Koth Ganesh ! Had a blast with @Rthomas 's Utopia and @uniqusrname 's Sapphire.

 

An unforgettable meet! 9-5 and still didn't feel tired. Could have gone for few more hours but return back would have been difficult.

@Koth - His energy can put a 10yr old to shame
@ Nick - A silent comedian englishman. Makes astute observations.
@Arun - Thanks a lot for arranging the space for the meet. Perhaps the nice and quite space was one of the reasons this meet was productive
In return you get to save lots of money that could have been spent on audio crap thats available around
@Kartik - Thanks for making us believe in SS amps again.

The gear list available was impressive and there was so much to listen to that it would have taken entire day to audition them all.

1) HD650/HD6XX - Modded or umodded, they remain midfi at best. Midrange is what they do best in their entire spectrum. Quite more resolving than the likes of HE500/HE400/HE560. On the sapphire SS these were decent, with ZDSE scaled a bit where the fuzz layer was lifted off. However, bass and treble are tiring on these. No matter how much I've tried to get accustomed to their sound , the sucky bass quality and gradually rolled off but grainy unrefined treble gets fatiguing over time.

2) LCD2C - These are made to do just one thing, that is make bass sound great. Really, the bass quality was superb. It goes low and RESOLVES!! No mid bass warmth and the bass volume too was controlled as opposed to other Audezes such as the LCD X. If I were to be critical of thier bass, the sub bass is clean and textured but isn't very dynamic and sounds bit soft. Still just for enjoying quality bass I can listen to them for long. Bass apart, these dont sound good. Wonky midrange (the midrange was decently resolving but just too uneven) , treble grain and a sharp peak in mid treble after which no treble information and the well like staging.

3) Focal Utopia - Feels luxurious and solid, sounds pleasing. Distinct timbre unheard previously in any other headphone. The overall sound is heavy and rubber like dense. Bass quality similar to HD800 but has more impact and does some sub bass too. However bass texture nowhere as good as the LCD2C. Somewhat warm due to broad midbass elevation, another broad upper midrange elevation that helps impart clarity and saves them from being too bassy. Upper treble missing, lower treble is smoother than most. Didnt scale much from the Sapphire SS to ZDSE. These are fun type headphones to please first 60 seconds of listening. Listen closer and they actually try to hide the grain and in the process smooth over and sometimes kill microdynamics and nuances. Simliar to the smoothing that most planars try to do but fail at. Utopias do it better but still unconvincing.

HD800 has a more resolving and dynamic driver but needs to be ironed out a lot. Utopias too have a mod potential and if done right should be quite good with their unique timbre.

4) Gungnir Multibit - Smooth, impactful, good macros, decently resolving, bit low on microdynamics, hardly any staging.

5) Yggdrasil - Lean, brute, raw impact, very resolving. Staging is inconsistent, as if looking down right in front of you. Some treble greyishness and fuzz (only minor). But this is the DAC that can tell if your gear/music sucks. I liked it a lot. Needs futher listening to confirm.

6) ZDSE - An amp that looks serious and mostly sounds very good. No softness, was able to do Yggdrasil justice, resolving , was able to scale HD650 per my expectations, some upper treble tizz and distortion. Overall an amp that lives up to its name.

7) ZDSE + Modded HD800 + Yggdrasil + LYNX transport - The most resolving setup of the meet. Outdoes all else by healthy margin. This particular HD800 sounded very good. Sub bass on HD800 for the first time. Mid bass fart, Treble hardness and unevenness mostly gone, mids suckout is gone, imaging still isn't pin point although not as fuzzy as other HD800 (rugliner and dupont mod) I've heard. I liked this pair a lot. Very very resolving and nice decently clean sub bass.

8) ZDSE + HP1 Aniso modded/Unmodded - Crap! It sounded so bad that I thought maybe the driver went bust. For whatever reasons, ZDSE doesnt pair with planars at all. Lots of distortion and uneveness. Increasing volume only made it worse. Very strange!!

9) ZDSE + LFF Slants - Same story as above. Sucked even more. Gooey and what not. Moral: ZDSE + Planars suck while ZDSE + modded HD800 was sublime.

10) EC ZD prototype amp - YUCK!!! Can tube amps sound this bad ?

11) BH Crack - Meh! Treble graingalore, soft bass, fine timbre and enveloping staging, lower treble/upper mids agrresiveness to the point of inducing headache.

12) Sapphire V3 SS DIY Amp - Suprisingly very very competitive for the price. SS fuzziness is still there but you have to look for it. Very nice staging, decently dynamic , smooth. Better than the Jot by a healthy margin.


Now, the most surprising element of the meet:

Andromeda + Sony ZX2 - The driver on these IEMs are so receptive of the input signal that the low level/almost buried details come up healthy volume. Very very different indeed. For an IEM superb dynamics. Very unprocessed and effortless sound presentation with the raw impact similar to that of the Yggdrasil. There are two critical weaknesses though: Instruments and vocals layers overlap a lot. This is mostly due to limited width and depth. The other one is weak upper treble. Not much extension beyond 9-10Khz perhaps. Overall very nice quality. Not sure but the ZX2 might be holding back their resolving potential. The pairing certainly hit a wall in that regards.

 

Abhishek you nailed the ZD prototype. Three years ago, I had sent pictures to Marv and Craig. The message I got back from Marv" Something about taking a hammer to it"

 

sounds like a wonderful time was had by all!

 

Utopia? What Utopia? Courier? Nope... Nothing delivered here for months...

Can get ugly when the camera, which I am still getting to know, does stuff I don't expect!



The (relatively) sane guys are in the background!

 

<--- The HD800s Cat

 

@Abhishek Chowdhary , I think you should have spent some time with the EC BW. The planars sound better with it.

 

@Koth Ganesh I really wanted to, but someone took us to a three course meal

I did want to know why the pairing was bad, hence wanted to try my own music. Too bad I went to the other room so late.
However, both HP1s sounded like really bad, almost hopeless. I've had similar experience when I tried to pair HE500 on my OTL. That too sounded terrible. However Yamahas work great on it. Perhaps, different amp reactions to high/low impedance/sensitivity.

 

Forgot to mention, the Utopias belonged to @Rthomas who did us a huge favor by bringing them over to India from the UK.
They certainly were interesting and different with a sweetened timbre. If only the bass was a couple db lower these might have sounded competitive. The elevated sledgehammer like midbass mildly shadows everything else.

Stax 007 + KGSSV = Fake,tizzy treble and somewhat synthetic timbre. Nothing noteworthy about it
Stax 009 + KGSSV = Blackest blackground of all. Bass isn't effortless. Otherwise these sound huge in scale. Resolve decently but still has the tendency to mask nuances. No major peaks identified. There may be some dips here and there but nothing too distracting. These do have quality sound and maybe the amp was holding it back.The difficult part is finding the right amp as the inventory is very limited.

 

At first I was disappointed with the Stax. Expecting to be blown away, I was... not blown away.

After some more listening though, especially to some music I knew (Arghhh... danger of Paul Simon earworms!) I was was much more impressed.

Utopia blew me away; Stax did not blow me away. I wonder which I'd actually be happiest with after, say, a year of listening!

 

I think that his cousin brought them from USA and he is taking them home to UK?

So they are almost as new to him as they were to us

 

Next time around let's try and have a 2 day meet. Other than the pleasure of being around the group for a bit longer it will help us check out more equipment.

 

I fear for your waistlines.

 

Just wanted to say hello to you guys. Some of your names look familiar to me but its a large world. I had a company in the late 90's called Global CASE Technologies based at temple towers there in chennai. Haven't been back to india in a few years though. Your meet looked great! Looks like everyone had fun! Have a happy successful new years guys!