These are not mine they are lent but god damn now I really want them
Verite closed rosewood, the resolution sucks for the price and the tuning is weird but the more I hear them the more I want them, its like so unique and different
Now im doubting wether Id like the auteur classic or verite closed as a zmf for the collection
I would be surprised if those were rosewood. It looks more like the ironwood they used in early production.
I just asumed they were rosewood lol I mustve gotten it wrong
I just asked the owner and he said he doesnt remember either so lets just asume it is ironwood
Better lightning
Looks like ironwood to me too. I loved my verite c when I had a pair, great set to just chill with and enjoy the listening experience.
If he has the original Box, it’s listed on documents that come with it.
But yes it looks like Ironwood.
Having said that there were so many one off’s made early on it could be almost anything.
I picked up the D1 and I guess I am spoiled by my Utopia OGs. These did not do it for me and I returned them.
YMMV
Yeah pairing/synergy will matter a bit with these. And I would be shocked if they were better than the Utopia or other popular totl headphones.
I swear I remember saying that I was done with buying DAC… Weird. Anyway, I’ve been curious about this since it came out. With my penchant for neutrality and clarity, I thought it was worth a listen. I have never been a fan of topping amps or DACs but this one seems different. We’ll see…
Got it plumbed in and warming up.
I’ll have it face off against my TT2 and D1se2 to see what’s what.
Endgame cable for the two yammys! Of course, gotta go with Brise. It’s supposed to combined both the strengths of the orochi and shirogane.
I got pair of Reflektor Silver shield 6N23P tubes!
A friend told me they 6922 equivalents and way too good not to try so I did.
I quickly became addicted to its sound so I made a comparison wit my RCA this took me the whole day
Dac: Exogal Comet +
Amplifier: Woo wa3+ custom OTL
Power Tube: Mullard 1960 GB
Headphones:
Driver tubes:
Speciality
REFLEKTOR:
RCA
Scenario
REFLEKTOR:
RCA:
Tonality
REFLEKTOR:
RCA:
Tried these at canjam and was blown away. They are normal TWS with ANC, wierless charging, decent (not stellar) mic, and supisedly good battery life that sound like a high end iem. They arent like trialli or similar on a high end chain, but they are centainly better than most 1k iems with a dongle (which suprised me a lot tbh). Good stage depth and image clarity if typical iem stage size. Good tonality overall as well. Very impressive little things
PS: as with all audio, RRP is fake as hell. The show price on their sign for a new unit was $550 and they were open to working with you. Reach out to a dealer if you want them
I’m too curious of too many DACs right now to stop, so here is another I have wanted to hear for a while. I’m a big fan of the VMV D1se2 and wished to hear some of this ROHM stuff so it’s no surprise that this caught my attention.
Fortunately, today is a music listening day. Nothing but music and computer games ahead of me starting my new job on Monday.
As some know, I love my Moondrop Cosmo headphone. Moondrop have release a co-flagship, Skyland (previously named Laputa). I was initially very interested in this headphone as it continued the development of their in-house planar driver tech but this time incorporated N55 magnets for even better driver control. However, the tuning is quite a departure from Cosmo (neutral-warm). Skyland is allegedly perfect diffuse free field or whatever graph people talk about - neutral bright in layman’s terms.
I haven’t heard much positive about this headphone. Shouty, hard to drive, a weird fit… However, bright but smooth, lean but excellent bass control, excellent clarity, Susvara-level capabilities, kept me wondering whether I would like it.
I’ve left it burning in. I’m currently working a new job in an office and so I’m going to give this a listen on Saturday or Sunday.
If nothing else, I got to hear a unique headphone. I appreciate companies moving the hobby forward by creating new driver technology, etc.. Let’s hope the tuning holds up! If you want to know more about the drivers in this and Cosmo, here’s a link: MOONDROP SKYLAND Nanoscale Ultra-thin Planar Flagship Headphone | MOONDROP Official Website
And now it is time to sell everything and go portable …again!
The last time I did this, a little over a year ago, I jumped the gun but also made the error (for my preferences) of not just going all portable in terms of source gear, but also switching from headphones to IEMs. I’m a headphone guy and so the latter part of that gear change didn’t work for me after a few months.
So, I’ve gone for an iBasso DX340 with all of the amp cards. I had a DX340 as I was getting back into desktop gear and it really impressed me. Power, battery life, resolution, signature, build quality - this DAP seemed to synergise with all my favourite IEMs in it’s stock form brilliantly. Trouble is, I seem to have a penchant for difficult to drive planar headphones. These two Moondrops are both challenging in different ways and so now that I have the iBasso, I’m using it to determine which headphone is going to be my primary can for the next few years.
I’ll test all the amp cards this weekend to see which out amp 14, 15, 15au, 17 and 18 then best synergise with my primary headphone and favourite IEMs. I’ll probably keep two of the amp cards.
This is all being done ahead of a move in 12-18 months where I have now decided that I want to travel real light. I figure my hifi gear, PC parts, etc., is going to be worth more now than in 12 months time. My initial listen to Cosmo on DX340 w/ AMP15 is telling me, although not at the level of my desktop rig, this chain is going to keep me very happy.
My Draupnir came in! I listen to a little bit of both non bass boost and bass boost. Bass boost feels like Susvara level hungry. Bass boost is not as insane as I thought it will be (like a dual subwoofer setup, but that’s not a fair comparison) but haven’t ran through it with Valencia yet. Also the safety page is a little worrisome, but haven’t notice any distortion yet.
Looking forward in hearing more of it!
Added note: default pad is Caldera Ultra Perf and my experience with that pad is it do lower bass a lot with headphones. I might pad roll it with some pads I have lying around.
That’s cool, I’ll be super interested what you think of it. What a beast!
I added two much more modest things, Schiit Eitr 2 DDC and Schiit Buf tube buffer.
The Eitr 2 is connected to Mac Studio, and the Yggy OG/A2 via AES. It did seem to increase the soundstage and sense of space or air around instruments. It also made the treble a bit smoother/softer sounding, which is not a bad thing for me.
Buf is on its way, will insert between DAC and one of my solid state amps RCA inputs. It sounds like it could be a fun experiment.
They’re both little Schiits!
Curious to here what you make of Buf.
I think want to take back my dual subwoofer statement… The more I listen to it/swapping headphones/turning the bass boost on and off, the more bass boost draupnir reminds me of subwoofer. Bass boost so far, morning day1, mainly affect subbass and not so much midbass. Because midbass didn’t hit as hard as I was expecting, I didn’t think much. Next track got a rumbling subbass, yeah I kinda get it now. The way bass pressurized around the music just really sets the mood for me. One of my other favorite thing to hear on this headphone is the kick drum, Kickdrum reallllllllly hits so good lol. So yeah, this headphone is starting to remind me of subwoofer in my room, just in a much smaller scale. I definitely want to listen to my subwoofer more just to compare the two.
I think another aspect this headphone does pretty interesting is soundstage and spatial cues. This headphone soudstage is pretty wide (I got to listen to my entire collection again before I think it’s the 2nd widest before Mysphere for me). Spatial cues is interesting because this headphones is playing sounds higher than I was expecting and different places than I was expecting. I wonder if it’s because there is 4 drivers with a driver both higher and lower than my ear. I got to listen more before saying more on this. Soundstage depth is good, but as amazing compare to the soundstage width.
Only negative I can think so far is I wish I got a little more clarity on vocals, but it kinda makes up with bass resolution. I no longer have the ZMF Atrium Open as I sold it last month, but Draupnir have more bass resolution compare to Atrium Open from what i remember, but Atrium Open have more vocal clarity compare to Draupnir. I got to compare it to Tungsten V2 on bass resolution just to see how the bass resolution compare to a planar headphone around the same price range. But I think bass resolution is still pretty solid regardless.
For favorite things to listen for on the Draupnir, I think it highlights electric guitar and drums really freaking good. I like listening to things like Pantera on it recently and I thought it was super sick. Gotta explore more music to see what else sounds good on Draupnir. One last note on this post is that I left bass boost turned on because I do not see any point doing no bass boost on this headphone. The bass never felt overwhelming to me or too distracting from the music.
