HiWire

I am reserving this space for impressions about Paradigm's new Special Edition speakers. I'll try to audition them in the next month or so...

Pretty much any of The Cars' singles tonight.

I have crossed the Rubicon. This weekend, I was listening to Massive Attack's "Mezzanine", a recording I know well, when I realized I was hearing things I hadn't heard before. I'm talking about little details that were compressed or previously over-lapped in my headspace - background sounds, etc. expanded and came into focus. What was previously, by comparison, flat and simple became lush and complex. It was even more shocking because this album had just been preceded by Kylie Minogue's "Fever", which sounded normal, to my ears. At first, I thought something might be broken, since the last time I had a radical change in sound was when the ground channel cut out on my headphone amp. I've been listening to my player sporadically (2 hour listening sessions, averaging about once every 2 weeks) since I got it in December 2007 - I guess it took this long for the player to finally burn in. I'm looking forward to re-listening to all my music now that the Arcam's output is finally reaching it's true potential. I have since listened to Sophie Milman's "Take Love Easy" and Dire Straits' "Band of Brothers" - Milman's jazz arrangements increased in space and detail slightly and Dire Straits' masterpiece was rich and atmospheric, just as they had intended.

Congrats! Enjoy re-listening.

I can't wait to read the follow-up to that article. It should be interesting to see what Sony will do with the DAC technology in the SCD-XA5400ES. I hope it will not go to waste (e.g. find a new life in upcoming Blu-Ray players, PS3+, or portables)... Also, I find it interesting that the new player is half the price of the SCD-XA9000ES (still carried in their online store), but is considered to better sounding. It sounds like we might be getting more value for our dollar, for once. Maybe this recession has a silver lining after all.

How does this affect the Alessandro Music Series?

Great review. Keep it up!

Also watching... this is the state of the art, after all.

It's an interesting sensation - the brain is expecting the body bass from what it's hearing. Still, it's kind of hard to replicate the feeling, in general... you know, the kind you get when the drums in a marching band pass by. That usually makes my heart beat faster, etc.

Crap, now I remember this debate. So... what makes a DynaFET good, compared to a Dynahi or Dynamight? The wikipedia entry on MOSFETs isn't helping me much. I am looking at a single-ended, low-gain application (i.e. the Grado HP-2).

It's my work neighborhood (downtown). There are a lot of music and DJ stores in the area - there is some good stuff to be found, but the area is awash in poseurs.

Congrats!

In my city, vinyl is being sold to a bunch of wannabes - hipsters and DJs. The market for "serious" vinyl purchases is eclipsed by the fadsters.

That makes sense. The magic is in the tubes.

Hey - the display looks very similar to the one in my Arcam FMJ CD36. They must have used the same part. The Arcam CD36 and CD192 also use a Wolfson DAC... Where did you get the test unit from, and did you end up buying it, aerius?

Yes, I saw the announcement a while ago. I had buyer's remorse for about a minute... then I noticed that the FMJ CD37 is only a two-channel player. I'm looking for an SACD player that can handle 5.1 recordings, ultimately. Also, the extant reviews don't indicate that the CD37 is a superior player to the CD36.

Thanks for the update - these are nice-looking players. I'm waiting for acceptable SACD playback at lower prices. I guess Oppo, Sony, Marantz, and Denon are the main players at that level.

Great review.

Isn't Joe Grado making a presentation at this one? He has some kind of new microphone to discuss.

I haven't seen one here. One of my local dealers has the Pro-ject Headbox II, but they couldn't find the SE listed the last time they checked. There are some brief reviews of Pro-ject Headboxes on Head-Fi - overall, they didn't seem particularly enthusiastic. I was very interested in the Headbox II SE when my amp failed... it seems to be a good value. Please let us know your listening impressions!

So it sounds like a tube amp... j/k Good review! I wonder how their solid state amp compares to the Gilmore Light. I agree about the tone control - if you're buying an amp to fix your sound, you're probably doing it wrong.

Dull as in slow and non-energetic response in dynamics. They are slightly bright, but I suppose that might work with people who are looking for "soundstage cues" in the AKG flagship headphones. Overall, I think they're somewhat neutral, but I found them a crashing disappointment at the time.

Would these sound half decent as a system? I listened to K 701's a long time ago and kind of thought they sounded like ass*. Would having killer power on these babies do anything for them, or do they still sound like ass after "burn-in" and Nuculer Power. * ass as in they could not rock out. They were very dull sounding, even after about 1,000 hours of burn-in when running out of my amp. The sins of the K 701, in my opinion, are sins of omission. Perhaps Wes Phillips' ears are made of tin...

I don't want to sidetrack this too much, but which headphones are considered good looking? I tend to like stuff like the Sony's and Audio-Technica's, just because they don't look so huge and protrudey on my small head (not counting the MDR-CD3000). Also, their fit and finish and color options are usually tasteful (except the pink ones). Grados are almost so ugly that they are beautiful... I have been compared to a WWII aviator when interviewed on television wearing mine once.

It's as ugly as sin... I sure hope it sounds good.