@hifiDJ great thread idea.
Here are my thoughts on the stuff that stuck out in my mind that I got to demo.
Susvara
Not sure I need to say much about this one. I heard it for the first time Saturday morning and was walking back to my room with my own set under half an hour later (headphones.com was running some serious deals at the show btw. They gave me an offer on a brand new unit significantly cheaper than ive even been able to haggle any dealers down to so I didn’t even try and haggle).
Ferrum Stack
This, imo, was one of the biggest stand outs of the show. Certainly more on the forward side the resolution and separation were so utterly fantastic it was apparent even on the floor. I think staging was a bit less on the organic side but I would realy want more time for a finer detail review. I used literally everything I brought with me (d8kp, LCD-R, Soli P, Utopia, HD800S, and sus) and it never once had a misstep. IMO this should be quite high up everyone’s consideration list for a 3k stack. TBH I damn near bought it at the show (they were running a discount that made it 2700 USD) but ultimately I think I’m buying bakoon from a friend (and going to demo an AIC-10 in a week or two) so ima hold off since I can basically buy one whenever for this.
Amps & Sound
So Ima lump all these together. This booth is where I spent a large portion of the show. I was initially attracted over here because I heard a mogwai OG at my local hifi shop and was utterly and entirely blown away by the voicing but was left wanting a bit more resolution. Well, to my honest surprise, nothing at their booth had the mogwai magic. Not Nautilus, not kenzie, not ovation, and not rockwell or agartha. All of them were good and detailed and have slightly different voicings but not what I was looking for. I’m sad I didnt get to hear the Bigger Ben or the Mogwai SE at the show but I suspect bigger ben wont have what I was looking for either given Nautilus is just dual mono BB (though I have been told by someone who owns a mogwai SE that he agrees with my opinions at the show, so maybe that does have the magic). All that said, all was not lost. It was in the last 2 hours of the show I finally decided to give the headphones.com forge a listen. Low and behold, the magic was back and with solid levels of resolution to boot (not the absolute best, but given the price point and the incredible voicing I think they are acceptable). I was even sufficiently happy with the amount of slam they gave susvara. I ended up walking away at the end of the show with their 32/300 ohm demo unit.
Raal CA
Honestly, a massive disapointment here for me. The rep said the pads that arrived on them made the bass bloomy so they literally cut out circles of un-finished/un-wrapped foam. Even ignoring the part where without pads they will likely sound nothing like the production units, the ones on the floor were shouty as all fuck. I’ll still hold some hope for when they get proper pads on them as this weekend reinforced my idea that raal’s have the best timbre ive ever heard, but I was pretty annoyed they even showed the cans in the state they were in tbh.
HE-60
Now this was a very interesting one. A man I came to become friends with at the show brought a set of HE-60 with him. Apparently he bough it used in the early 2000s and when it arrived the amp it came with was broken beyond repair. Having never gotten a replacement or an adaptor before this weekend was the first time he had ever heard the headphones after owning it for nearly 15 years. We tried that shit on absolutely everything we could find (BHSE, KGGSH Carbon, and the other energizer at the audeze booth). To say I was blown away would be a fair bit of an understatement. Essentially an HD600 with everything bad about it (stage, veil, nuance) fixed it is a lush organic sound signature that very much so appeals to me. If I do ever decide to go down the stax route for sure I will 100% be hunting down a set.
Shang Jr
So while hifiman said there would be shang sr transducers at the show unfortunately they weren’t (though turns out headphones.com is ordering a demo unit, so ill head up to canada at some point). The Jr though was already quite impressive though. Off of the Jr amp and with music i dont know its obviously a bit hard to get a fantastic grasp of whats going on, but an absalute immediate stand out was the complete and utter lack of bass bleed while still having some kick. This honestly surprised the hell out of me and I think I have a new bar for what “no bass bleed” means. Even sus on 13r doesnt compete here. Truly truly surprising outcome. This one isnt on my desire level of HE-60 but if i do go estat I will probably get a set to play with and it has made me even further want to try Sr. I just wish I had gotten more than 4 songs on it over the course of the weekend.
Rognir & R10-P
Ima put these both in the same category because while they sound quite different my impresion of both was the same. Separation, stage size, and detail were at actually shocking levels. Both higher than stealth and probably VC. Unfortunately the tuning on both of them was just turbo fucked. The rognir I could actually see myself putting up with the tuning of tbh, but the R10P was just flat out bad. Emphasized in all the wrong places, had some weird resonance issue, and was fatiguing as hell. A damn shame given how much performance they forced out of that driver IMO.
Enleum 23R
Honestly, with how hard nuance is to pick out at the show I couldn’t get much of an impression. What i did get was that I am fairly confidant the 23r and 13r are tuned fairly differently with the 23r seeming to split the difference between the 13r and something cleaner like the ferrum stack.
Zaehl HM1
Honestly, I though it was down right bad. Not like bad for its price but just over all. Maybe it was broken by the time I got to it (I almost hope it was tbh). It was so grainy and i’ll articulated I could hear the issues with sus and d8kp even on the show floor. I got 3 songs and and just left for an early lunch on the second day. I guess Ill read reviews if they come out and try it if one happens to fall on my desk but I currently have absolutely 0 interest left in even possibly entertaining buying this amp.
The Things I missed
TBH I completely forgot to try any and all IEMs at the show. I was massively looking forward to trying the EE Evo and just forgot to even look for it. I did try the CRBN and LCD-5 and while I am intrigued I was using entirely unfamiliar system with music i didn’t even know so i cant really draw any conclusions at all. Luckily my local shop will be getting all 3 in within the next couple months anyways so ill get better demos there.
