What's the difference between lff slant "starving student" and the regular slants?

People seem to say that they sound the same. I am looking at slants as my end game hp in the future right now, but this is bugging me a bit. If they sound the same why would the non-"starving student" cost that much more? Just because of fancier paint finish?

Also has lff stopped making them? I mean I can see the site is still on and they seem to be taking orders, but... It seems kind of dead...

Also it seems that he has stopped making the non-starving student slants. It's not listed on the site.

 

I've been wondering that as well. Sent a message to lff about having some custom painted headphones made and have not heard back. Then I sent a message to him through head fi and still nothing. Now it seems his website is down which is a shame because I really wanted to buy a pair of slants from him. Anyone know if he is taking a break from making and modding headphones or if he just quit altogether?

Edit: the site went back up and has been up for several days since this post

 

Same situation here, no way to get in touch it seems....

 

I guess the only thing to do is wait. If LFF really has stopped making headphones then the only way to get a pair would be to buy them off of someone. And if that's the case, I bet they are going to go up in value as well.

 

I'm not sure about the going up in value. It's a planar driver which can stop working at anytime and as it's modified who will you ask for a repair?

If the driver is replaced by a normal Fostex driver then it's no longer an LFF.

that's the problem with one man companies even they if the products are outstanding,

 

Well, the thing is because of the way lff modded them without any branding or anything to differentiate them from just a normal painted fostex t50rp with a elastic headband it will be problematic to check their authenticity when purchasing them used from someone. You could easily get conned by someone.

And if he decided to plain dissappear like nwavguy, if anything ever happens to your pair of slants there will be noone to repair them as only lff knows the internal complex mods he did. And then there is the modding consistency, because this is a modded product, consistency might be a problem, if the pair you buy off someone is a bit inconsistent and needs to be retuned, you will be in a pinch.

Why must the one perfect headphone made be this difficult to get!

 

As far as I know, lff doesn't change the driver itself like mrspeakers in his alpha primes. He mods around the driver if that makes sense. So by that logic, replacing the driver if it's malfunctioning should work.

Also, the newer fostex t50rp mk3 doesn't have different drivers from the mk2, just different dampening inside and a different baffle(maybe).

But, the problem is replacing the drivers without messing up the internal mods done by lff. I don't think it's possible to do that without messing up the mods. So only lff can replace the drivers if it malfunctions. Which will be difficult as he's "missing" currently.

 

That's what I meant to say. Any repairs except those done by LFF may ruin the mods.

 

Hi you guys- I mostly lurk, but as I took delivery of my Paradox Slants about 4 months ago, I figure I might be able to provide some useful information here. As far as how the standard Slants and Starving Student versions compare, the only audio performance related difference is that on standard slants you can spec dual 4-pin mini XLR termination on the headohones (the same as Audeze- so you can use those cables) for balanced operation- whearas on the starving student version, you are stuck with the stock 1/8th inch single entry, single-ended termination (and no, you can't have mini xlr on starving student or non-custom paradox- I asked.). Since Paradox Slants scale very heavily with better gear (they are very current hungry like most planars), I was unwilling to limit the potential performance of my slants by going with the starving student version, so I opted for Standard (custom) Slants (it also helps that they look fantastic- I specced mine murdered out and I love it . As far as the website is concerned, I tried contacting Luis on it and had no success- so I did a bit of sleuthing and found his direct e-mail (which he said I should use during our e-mail correspondence) on Head-Fi.

He's at: [email protected]

I wouldn't take the website at face value- I don't know if he has necessarily kept it current. I wouldn't be surprised if you can still get the Starving Student Slants.

As far as repairs go, they are my paranoia LOL. That is the biggest downside to Paradox: only Luis can fix them. However, I sincerely doubt Luis would simply hang you out to dry if you needed a pair of his headphone creations repaired- it just might (TBH it would probably IMO) take a substantial amount of time for the repairs to be completed due to Luis's other obligations.

For me, it's worth the risk- at the time when I was ordering my paradox, I really wanted a closed pair of headphones, and I simply wasn't happy with the other closed planar options I tried (and I prefer planars definitively over dynamics- what it seems like is that I can hear the reduction in IMD but I can't be sure that's why)- and I demoed the PM2, PM3, EL8 closed, and Alpha dogs. Further, having also demoed the HD600/650/800, LCD2/3/EL8, DT880 Pro, and the entire Ultimate Eears IEM line (with universal tips- but i still got the gist), I have found the Paradox Slant to have a more accurate tonality than all of the above (and I say this having worked in College campus recording studios with some State of the Art equipment- U47 FET, RND 5088 and API 1608 consoles, etc). I suspect this is due to the heroic efforts Luis puts into cleaning up the spectral decay profiles of his headphones, but that's probably just part of it.

Hopefully that helps.

 

MPZ,

So, are there still modified slants available or need to do with starving students one?

Anyway, how to amplify these... i could not find any topic about it. How much is much for them?