That sounds very promising. If you can ask him about the soundstage and separation on the CC Hybrid TP only pad compared to the Caldera Suede Perf pad?
To me, the Caldera Suede Perf pad soundstaging and separation makes the AC sounds like an open back headphone which was my goal with this headphone. My goal of purchasing this headphone was to get a closed back headphone for isolation, but I still wanted a good soundstage and separation for it. The Caldera Suede Perf pad doesn’t sound boxy and confine as the other 2 pads I tried and I really enjoy its overall tuning as well. The Caldera Suede TP pad sounded similar to the Caldera Suede Perf pad, but it did still sound boxy and have less separation compare to the Caldera Suede Perf. The Caldera Suede TP pretty much had the sound quality like the Caldera Suede except in bass, but with the soundstage similar to the Caldera Lambskin thin pad. What makes the Caldera Suede TP unique though as its own pad is that it had the most Subbass rumble to me.
The biggest con for me for the Caldera Suede Perf pad though is the tradeoff in isolation. Because the Caldera Suede Perf pad sounds open, the isolation on it also sounds similar to an open back. It can still block sounds when music is playing, so it’s not as bad an actual open back. Another issue for me is the noise leak. The Caldera Suede Perf pad noise leak like crazy compare to the other pads. So, now I’m back on the fence to either settle with the Caldera Suede TP as a good middle ground since it has good isolation and pretty similar sound characteristics with the Caldera Suede Perf, or hope no one says anything when I’m listening to music lol. I gotta test it out in real world situations to make that judgement.
Sorry for the rambling, looking forward to your impressions of you do try the Hybrid Caldera pads TP only. Zach is probably already selling them under as “Bokeh” pads. His team told me they are in the transition to renaming Bokeh pad to Caldera pad for less confusion. But, it’s always best to double check and sending a email to ZMF because talking to the ZMF team always brighten up my day!