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monsieurguzel

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Everything posted by monsieurguzel

  1. Well from me peaking into the HE-6, I couldn't tell the difference between that and the HE-5 other than the gold color. I might wrong though....I can post a couple pics later on...
  2. I always find it amazing seeing photos of old ortho headphones from back in the day when companies had the funding and machinery to make these very intricate drivers. Nowadays, the drivers from Audeze and Hifiman are handmade and so much more crude looking, which doesn't mean that they perform any worse than the old ones. But it makes me wonder what if a big company decided to properly invest in Ortho technology, what could be done with the precision of new machinery along with new found materials (ie. thinner materials, stonger magnets, etc.)
  3. To me it sounded nowhere near as bright as the HE-5 which I previously owned. The HE-5 at first really impressed me with 'aparent' detail retreival, but I then realized that it was just the overly harsh brightness that made them feel detailed. They were great at louder volumes but oh so fatiguing. To me the HE-6 takes a nice step forward as it is a more laid back and neutral headphone than the HE-5 before it. It does all frequencies quite well, but to me there isn't one specific thing that it does outstandingly over anything else. I'm sure its a great headphone but needs some very serious power to properly drive. Which makes me wonder how come two headphoens that aparently use very similar technology can differ so much in power requirements. Is it that the HE-6 magnets are a lot less strong than those on the LCD-2 or is it just that the gold diaphragm is extremely hard to drive. But even so, what are the advantages of a diaphragm that is super hard to drive compared to the extremely thin one of the LCD-2 which can sound decent out of an iPod?
  4. So after spending a about a week with a loaner pair of HE-6 headphones, I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with them, especially in terms of construction. I feel like it is quite a marketing ploy to sell an existing pair of headphones (ie. HE-5) at twice the price. When I peaked into my loaner pair, everything about the construction, including the casing, the magnet arrangement, size of magnet, etc. were exactly the same as the HE-5. Which means that the only difference is that they are clad in a questionable leather, have some minor tweaks, and have a "gold plated diaphragm" which I don't really buy as a positive. Gold sure as hell isn't the best conductor for use in IC cables, and doesn't seem like a very good idea for a diaphragm which is supposed to resolve all the nuances of a musical passage properly. All this pretty much means that my low powered WA5 amp which can power high efficiency speakers just fine, can't even handle the HE-6 at all which is a total bummer. Fang suggests 10-30 Watts @ 60 ohms, which seems pretty darn high for just headphones. Call me upset, but I just don't really understand the point of this product, both in terms of price point and in amplification needs. I wasn't a big fan of them at Canjam and wanted to give them another try, but still can't seem to really appreciate them even on my own equipment. Oh well....one less headphone tempting me to be purchased
  5. Alex from Audeze actually bought a WA6 SE from Jack a little before Canjam and had it at his table next to the new Cavalli amp. I think most people were excited about trying the Liquid Fire(?) with LCD-2 and nobody payed attention to the WA6SE. To me the WA6 SE was actually pretty killer with the LCD-2 and tubes really brought out good bass impact, more extended highs, and a more holographic soundstage to my ears compared to the Cavalli amp. Just my opinion...
  6. Well in my book the TightAnus gets the award for the jankiest phone of the show. Not sure if anybody would purchase this thing at $1000
  7. I have both atomic browser and iCab and by far preffer iCab. The interface is very beautiful and native feeling compared to Atomic browser. It also has all sorts of goodies such as tab bar, adblock filters, bookmark syncing, etc. etc.
  8. HE-5LE was really a letdown at the show and didn't really do much for me even on a great Eric Clapton unplugged recording. I was quite excited about the HE-6 until I saw them at the show and felt they were kind of a let down too. The look exactly the same as the HE-5LE except they have a pseudo leather coating on the plastic cups and the diaphragm is different. In other words, it doesn't really feel like a 1300-1600 headphone in the least bit to me. The amplification worried me too since he had it running off a 100W amp and I even asked fang about my 10W Woo 5 amp and he wasn't sure if it was enough!! Listening to the same Eric Clapton album fared better on the HE-6 than HE-5LE and they seemed to have quite good imaging and highs, but nowhere near the detail retrieval of the LCD-2. The LCD-2 felt a whole lot more linear and 'real' sounding to me compared to the HE-6 that might have a bump in the highs. I pretty much have no interest in purchasing the HE-6 and don't feel that they are anything other than a retrofit of the HE-5LE with a gold plated diaphragm. It also doesn't feel like a finished product either and not tested as thoroughly as the LCD-2, which was good enough for the Village recording studio in Santa Monica to snag 50-100 pairs to be used in house. Sorry to be pessimistic about the HE-6 but I was frankly expecting more....
  9. What I mean is that they really sound like they are designed by the same person who has a certain sound signature that he is looking for. I talked to Todd in the room and he also agreed with me that their sound signature is pretty similar but obviously one performs a little better than the other. I'm thinking similar to lets say a BMW 1 series and a 7 series. One is a lot more expensive than the other and they don't share any parts but the handling is geared be behave in similar manners.
  10. Are the EL34s running on higher voltage in the T2 compared to the BHSE? The BHSE def seemed cooler to touch, but that might have been due to the power supply located next to instead of underneath the T2 Amp chassis.
  11. Since I know most people are talking about the LCD-2 and JH-3A in their impressions (which btw I love both), I wanted to mention my experience with the amps at the TTVJ room. I was there Sunday morning and had lots of time to spend listening to music all by myself since everyone else at Canjam was still drunk or hungover I mainly focused on the HD800 since I'm very familiar with them and compared the headphones on the Luxman P1-U, Apex Peak+Volcano, Apex Pinacle ($10k amp). The was listening to Dire Straits 'On Every Street' CD which isn't that great of a CD but I was very familiar with it. I have a pair hooked up to a Woo 5 amp and I know how extremely finicky these headphones are and difficult to get to sound right. All mu First of all, I wasn't a big fan of the Luxman P1-U and don't really understand why people keep raving about this amp with HD800s. To me added even more sterility to the HD800s and was overly bright to my ears (even with the HD800s being re cabled). Lows weren't anywhere near their potential on this amp and neither was there enough impact of notes to my ears. Next up was the Apex Peak + Volcano (Hybrid tube amp) which will go for about $2k. The designer of the amp actually said he had never compared the standard wallwart vs. Volcano power supply which I find a little suspect but whatever, it should 'technically' be better The amp isn't extremely attractive and doesn't have any balanced outputs, but boy did they make the HD800s sing! The sound was very effortless and transparent, providing a great window into the music. Bass was extremely satisfying and right away I started bobbing my head with sheer enjoyment of the music. The mids felt more prominent and satisfying than on the P1-U and the highs were way more tamed. Overall, a great amp pairing for HD800s. Next up, the Appex Pinnacle (307A Tube amp), which was hooked to the same source as the Peak/Volcano and running HD800s balanced. In terms of build, once again not the nicest designed chassis but it felt very solid and well built. To me though it looked more like a $5k amp in the ranks of the Balancing Act or Woo 5 than something twice the price. In terms of sound, I was very familiar with the sonic signature of this amp since it was extremely similar to the Peak next to it. I could tell they shared the same DNA and had the same effortlessness to the sound. To me the more expensive amp increased the detail level of the music and felt a little airier / more transparent sounding. Bass was a little bit tighter and mids sounded pretty similar to the Peak. It truly was a wonderful amp that could make the HD800s sing but in my book is nowhere near worth the $10k asking price, especially when the Peak/Volcano can do about 90-95% and only cost $2k. I think this amp would have been better off with some less fancy parts inside and a price drop to about $5-6k to make it competitive with other good tube amps out there. So if I were to walk away with an amp after this meet, I would have definitely put my cash down on an Apex Peak / Volcano combo. It really won me over both in sheer musicality, compactness of the design, and great price point (especially with the flexibility of purchasing the power supply later on).
  12. Yeah I actually wasn't impressed with the WES at all (especially after everybody cravig for it last year). To me the sound felt kinda slow and heavy without enough speed for detail retreival or for faster paced music. Maybe that's why all the demo music they had was super boring slow Vocal / piano music that nobody knew. But I must say that the WES sounded better than the prototype transformer running from the Woo 5 amp which lacked severely in dynamics / bass control.
  13. Spritzer, I totally noticed that too. I have a pair of Mk2 and thought it was odd that they barely made any farting sounds, especially compared to the pair at the Woo booth! The pair did feel like it had some mid bass emphasis, but it might have been due to the WES drivig it (which I personally found too warm)
  14. Yeah that comment bothers me a little. I don't know if this would make a difference but my DAC has an inverse phase shift.
  15. That's great to hear! I did the same thing and even bought the ALO audeze cable while at the show. I couldn't resist since he was getting rid of it for a little under $300 instead of the usual $425. Btw I actually went back and firth between the WA 6 Se and the Cavalli amp at the Audeze both and was more impressed by the Woo amp in terms of bass presence, highs, and the imaging of the songs. Alex at Audeze also said he has a soft spot for tubes
  16. Yup in my book the initial D-A conversion is the most important one. You could pass the line out of an iPod into the most expensive DAC in the world and it still won't sound any good because of the source.
  17. Super excited that I purchased Beck Sea Change MFSL LP at Canjam! Sounds pretty amazing even compared to SACD version.
  18. I actually think we didn't really hear the JH3A setup at it's full potential since it was running through line out of the iPod/ipad. It should get quite a bit better once you feed it a digital signal and use the amps internal DAC. I was really impressed by the guys next to JH audio who were demoing song digital output out of the iPod and sounded noteably better than through standard iPod line out. Btw those same guys were also in charge of the JH-3A dac/amp so should be great once completed and properly tweaked. Jerry mentioned he was still going to work on getting the EQ just right and I'm sure he listened to ppl's opinions at the show.
  19. I felt bad for this poor sucker sitting next to me at the raffle. He must have bought 2-300 worth of raffle tickets and didn't even win anything (not even those totally lustworthy and awesome Comply tips)
  20. Totaly agree with you spritzer. Listened to the T1 about 4-5 times at the show on a bunch of different amps and indeed they were very uninspiring and didn't really do anything really well in my eyes. I really don't quite understand what all fuss was about them...
  21. I felt super bad for KG especially since most people wanted to hear the T2 with the O2 headphones and all there was to listen to was the 404s . But yeah that dude who screwed them up should be tracked down!
  22. Talked I depth to Jerry and he mentioned it would be a 20 hour battery life. In terms of digital inputs it only talked coax SPIDF in which was a little bit of a bummer for me considering I wanted to connect to a MBP. He also mentioned there being a USB port behind the back plate but it is only to be used for programming the thing. Despite all that it was the most impressive rig at the show(along with LCD-2 in a close 2nd)
  23. Hi I wanted to thank everybody this evening for being so welcoming to the "new guy" at the restaurant and after the light jazz music gig. You guys really are grea and it was awesome meeting a lot of you in person! Tapatalk is great btw...thx Vicky -Alex
  24. Is anybody else ticked off that Fang keeps cranking out new headphones every couple of months? First the HE-5 which had a bunch of issues and got replaced with the HE-5 LE, causing the initial run of headphones to devalue quite a bit. Now the HE-6 which, granted is in a different price bracket, doesn't help the fact that some might have wished to wait for the HE-6 instead of buying the HE-5 LE. The one thing I admire about the Audeze folks is that these guys showed the headphone at last years CanJam and spent and entire year finesing the design and making sure the materials, quality, sound are all up to par for a flagship ortho. I'm questioning how much time and research was put into the HE-6 consider the HE-5 / LE came out very recently and he's supposedly releasing 4-5 other products at Canjam (probably more amps, portable media players, headphones, etc.). I admire his dedication, but I wish he would make sure they didn't have bugs / defects / or even a need to modify out of the box (ala HE-5 LE grill mesh) before coming out to the market. I'm just a little skeptical about spending up to $1600 on a headphone from a manufacturer that doesn't necessarily support his headphones on the long run. Who's to say whether this headphone is going to be a 'beta' for the first 6 months and have issues again. A $1600 headphone had better have amazing sound and impeccable quality control, which I'm not sure will be the case with the HE-6, but we'll see. Sorry about my rant but I'm getting slightly ticked off by this new trend of releasing $1500 flagship headphones ever since the HD800 and pretending that they are amazingly innovative and trump all else (ie. Beyer T1, Edition 8, PS1000, probably HE-6, etc, etc..)
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