catscratch

Saw Shpongle yesterday in NYC. Kinda disappointed since it wasn't a full live set, but Simon still put on a good show. There were tracks from the next Shpongle album which sounded very promising, and some Younger Brother stuff which I really didn't like. This was more of your standard psytrance party than a serious show, but it was a good one regardless. J. Viewz opened and actually were great, with a full band setup and fully live. Never heard of them before but will definitely check them out.

'Stats are actually amazing for metal, since they're so fast that they can resolve each and every riff and drumstroke, no matter how fast and dense it gets. Listening to something like Nile - Black Seeds of Vengeance on the 007 is pretty special, and no matter how chaotic it gets you can still hear absolutely everything. No dynamic has ever been able to do the album justice and things just start to smear together. Old Megadeth with the 007 is pretty fantastic too it has to be said, though the 717 will compress once you crank it to concert-level volumes. But I usually don't do that so it doesn't matter as much.

If that were the case, why do I still have the HD600? HD650? K340? 003? UM2, ES2, E500, W3, K1k, etc etc etc? Well, you could say "because I'm too lazy to ditch them" and you would at least partially be right. However, I can't listen to any headphone that has the same coloration in the midrange as the SR-404. I hated that coloration in the SR-404 and I'm reminded of it every time I listen to something similar. Midrange tonality is the most important thing to me in a headphone, and if you look at what I generally like, then you'll see a common trend in all of it: very good mids. The Mk2 and the Mk1 sounded like different headphones to my ears. Yes they had similarities, but the Mk1 is a lot closer to a balanced HD600 than it is to the Mk2 in terms of tonality. The Mk2's mids were way off. No matter how good it was in other respects - and it was very, very good in many respects - I could never like it for that reason alone.

Some say that he was born with a tube tester on each hand, and that all his account numbers end in "6sn7..."

Bah, me = sarcasm detection fail. Oh well, at least I got a rant in.

They already did that. It's called the O2 Mk2, it's more Lambda-like, and I don't like it because of that. The O2 Mk1 is about as flat as I've ever heard a headphone sound. Now, there's nothing wrong with liking a more colored sound, but I hate that particular coloration, and the day Stax decided to put that coloration into their flagship headphone is the day they lost my respect. There are plenty of more pleasing and euphonic colorations to choose from if they actually wanted to pre-tune a headphone for easy listening, and if this wasn't simply shoddy quality control and lazy engineering. I hope they get their shit together, and there is some pressure from listeners and a few dealers who refuse to sell the Mk2, so I guess time till tell. All they need to do is to replace the coating or whatever it was that violated health codes on the Mk1, and put both that and the 717 back into production. Not exactly a whole lot of R&D money invested in that move, and there will be a significant sonic upgrade as a result. But if you like a peak in the upper mids, and more midbass besides, then check out the O2 Mk2. It's halfway between the Mk1 and the SR-404 in terms of sound signature. Complete with a more Lambda-like diffuse soundstage and slightly loose bass.

Meh. I think he's just insecure and can't deal with people disagreeing with him, so he gets defensive about it. Just look at the way he sucks up to Uncle Erik as if he was his personal God and Saviour, and clings onto his every word like gospel truth. I do love reading his DT48 posts though because his attitude is so hilariously full of fail, but if I were you I wouldn't lose any sleep over someone not liking you because you happen to not share their opinions. Not everyone will agree with me or like me very much to begin with and that's just fine. Let him get defensive all he wants since it is, after all, his problem. I'm not going to make any comments on the DT48 personally since I haven't heard it, but it doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Accurate does not mean analytical. Real music has bass presence, fluidity, rich tone color, and massive dynamic range. A dry and analytical sound is a coloration if anything. Comments on good mids and proper midrange tone do sound enticing, since this is what I usually value most in my systems, but there are plenty of headphones that do that already without missing out on anything else.

Raising some Old Rasputin in your honor.

Fantastic writeup. But, Is that Spritzer's Egmont-building cousin? *Jeremy Clarkson voice* Some say that his brain is biased to 580 volts, and "EL84" really is his middle name. All we know is, he's not Spritzer, but he is... Spritzer's Egmont-building cousin!! or maybe: There are those who say that "Stax" was his first ever uttered word, and that he can replace the pads on an O2 Mk1 in his sleep, with his toes. All we know is... Bah, must make stig-style intros! Can't stop!!!

Lambdas? Floats? Sigmas? Piezo ribbons? Bone-conduction headphones? And, lest we all forget, plasma headphones? Sorry, plenty more weird headphones out there than just what they found. Though the K1000 is pretty cool, and the HE90 certainly deserves mention based on asking price alone. And where's the Sennheiser Surrounder?

HE90 had a massive wow factor and a very strong initial impression on me, but then again it was a fairly long time ago and I was still pretty new to this whole headphone deal. It definitely sounded pretty colored, but those colorations were very euphonic and pleasing. This was with the HEV90 BTW, I heard a (then prototype) ES-1 with the HE90 and those colorations that I liked so much with the HEV90 were gone, and all that was left were the HE90's technical merits which were less than stellar. At the time I wrote that off because of the amp, but right now I'm having second thoughts. I would very much like to hear the HE90 again and see what's what from a more experienced viewpoint. I do know that I like its colorations, and I could probably live with the HE90/HEV90 system happily ever after, but there's no way I would fork over the asking price considering what else can be had for the money. I haven't read all of Jude's reviews, but a lot of them do seem pretty fishy to me. He does have a track record for endlessly hyping up new incoming products, and a lot of stuff that he was claiming as the best thing ever in its category - like the E4c - I thought was pretty substandard. So, I don't know the guy and I won't make personal judgments about him, and he's always been very nice to me in online interactions anyway, but I don't trust his reviews at all. Needless to say I will take KG's technical analysis over every other opinion. I don't have the knowledge to formulate educated technical opinions myself, so I'll trust the people who do, rather than going by random and potentially questionable people's audio impressions.

Can't comment on any technical aspects of the amp obviously, but I do like the look/design a lot, especially the power supply. It's simple and classy, not overblinged like a certain amp builder's stuff. Now I'm just waiting for (or dreading more likely) the final price.

Well you could always go the intermediate route and get the K1000. Still a headphone, but pressure issue solved

Darth Nut's review is fantastic. It's one of the few really good attempts to actually discuss sound and break it down into easily understandable and identifiable parameters. Really a rarity when most reviewers feel the need to talk about improvements in sonic gestalt from their $7000 power cables... Unfortunately it ends up being too detailed and intelligent for its own good and many people will not have the patience to make it through a review of that magnitude.

I wouldn't pick DHL even if the alternative was an oversized catapult. My company did shipping with DHL exclusively for several years and we've collected enough horror stories to never want to go near them again.

Wow, nice work on getting rid of the SR-404's midrange coloration. I guess I don't have to tell you that this coloration drove me insane while I still had the phones. The driver is attached with double-sided sticky tape? Good God. I don't know much about headphone design but that strikes me as awfully lazy construction. Won't this make the housing pretty much useless at dissipating excess energy regardless of what the housing is made of? I can't believe that mounting the drivers properly would drive up the cost or manufacturing time that much, at least in comparison to the sonic benefits. Stax's standards and QC have slipped enormously...

Nice, I have nearly all of their beers at my local, I will check them out.

Stouts are my favorite non-Belgian style, especially Russian Imperial Stouts. I really love Stone Russian Imperial, Founders Russian Imperial, Founders Breakfast Stout, and Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout though it's rare as balls and seriously hard to find. Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout was the very first craft beer I've ever had, and man did it ever impress the hell out of me. I don't like very overhopped, dry stouts though, like Rogue Russian Imperial. Too bitter and one-dimensional in its flavor. And I love good IPAs, so you can imagine just how bitter this was... If you can find any of the Founders stouts, do give them a try. Founders brewery specializes in stouts and is one of the top breweries in North America IMO.

I think they were ATC, but not sure which ones. In any case, the signal path was completely custom-built, as was the room. Don't ask me for details since I'm not an electrical engineer and they probably wouldn't be too happy if I gave out too many details anyway.

Wow, what a week. I had the chance to listen to one of the best speaker systems in the world at a rather well-known mastering lab, and let's just say that it gave me a nice perspective into what a system that measures perfectly flat in an acoustically-tuned environment sounds like. And, well... it sounds rather like the O2 Mk1 in a lot of ways. It wasn't very bright. I always thought that most headphones bumped up the highs significantly and this was confirmation of that. This system's treble was completely free of spikes, peaks, and any irregularities, and it was able to render cymbals and other treble-heavy instruments in perfect clarity and in perfect balance with relation to everything else, but there was no glare, grain, brightness, sharpness, pretty much no articafts whatsoever. The midrange wasn't overly forward but wasn't recessed either. Rather, it allowed instruments to come to the foreground when they needed to, and let things stay in the background when that was appropriate. Its tonality was what I always thought "accurate but a tad warmish" but now I'll just call that accurate, and leave it at that. It was basically spot-on what I hear from a well-driven O2 Mk1. The bass presentation was interesting, and once again shared a lot of similarities with the O2. It could be downright massive and commanding, and it could be quiet and tuneful, all depending on the material. Still, this was no wimpy SR-404 bass. It was full, detailed, punchy, and powerful. Robust. Not, it has to be said, as detailed as the O2 Mk1, but then again the speakers were dynamic. Soundstage wasn't enormous but it was absolutely holographic. The imaging precision was incredible and it was as airy and three-dimensional as anything I've ever heard. Once again, very much like the O2 Mk1. The one area where the O2 was ahead was speed, but then again it's an electrostat. But on the whole, that system was the O2, but bigger, and with a lot more tactile impact, and perhaps more detail but then again I was listening to a high-rez digital rip of "Dark Side of the Moon" that was ripped straight off the analog master, and I don't have anything of that caliber at home. It also shared that same sense of incredibly fluid transparency with the O2. I always thought the O2 was slightly more fluid than necessary and this was its only coloration, but now I think that this is simply accurate and nearly everything else is too dry. If anything, this is confirmation that I'm on the right track in my system.

Well, I had a chance to visit beer mecca, so to speak. Stone Brewery, not too far outside of San Diego. Oh man. If you're in the area, google directions and visit it. It's worth it. Very good food that's simple, made from local ingredients, and really well prepared, amazing selection of microbrews on tap, and a very cool and thoroughly modern facility. Best brewery I've been to by miles, though admittedly I'm still new to the whole beer scene. Oh yeah, I also had a chance to visit the Mastering Lab in Ojai, meet Doug Sax and hear one of the best systems in the world. Yeah, it was better than any headphones I've ever heard, but you know what... the O2 is remarkably close. Especially when it comes to tonality. So, I think I'm on the right track in my system at least. Now, back to beer.

Yes, real criminals, those Phish fans. Quick, lock them up for life so that Joe Biden can get richer our children will be kept safe!

Also lusting after this machine, and by lusting I mean trying to decide between this and a PC+DAC setup. Of course if something like the DA6400ES but with less unnecessary features existed it would be ideal. How much would I have to blow on a DAC that rivals the 5400, DA6400 aside? Dumb question but is there any degradation in quality when you do that as opposed to factory-pressed CD?

Shulman - In Search of a Meaningful Moment Eclectic, genre-blending, mind-bending, seriously tripped-out ambient electronica with a strong sense of classically-trained melody. The best electronica artist I've discovered in the last few years. If you're into Shpongle this will be up your alley, though Shulman is somewhat more free-form and experimental.

I just found a store that stocks lots and lots of microbrews, including nearly everything from Stone brewery, and nearly everything from Founders. Take note: beer heaven starts on 3/3/2009. On this week's menu are: Founders Breakfast Stout (I'll see if they have Kentucky Breakfast, they should), Founders Imperial Stout, Stone Russian Imperial Stout (!!!), and Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale. I predict the next few months to be full of amazing beery goodness. Currently making my way through Founders Breakfast Stout, and man, is it good... but more on it later.