catscratch
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Posts posted by catscratch
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Depends on what you mean by "high end..." In the universal-fit realm I don't think anything is high-end. The W3 is not bad when properly fitted but that's about it... not bad.
Custom is the way to go, but you're not going to find too many people who have experience with many different models. Shoot a PM to Digihead on that other forum since he's heard just about everything there is to hear in the custom IEM world. Otherwise, you're going to have to piece things together and gamble.
Personally I only have the ES2, and I like it quite a bit. It does have a very liquid midrange, lots of dynamic range, and pretty good detail, but it definitely could use more treble extension and better instrument separation.
Read up on the UE11, UE10, ES2, the new ES3X that Westone announced not too long ago, the ACS T2, and maybe Sensaphonics, though I have heard very mixed opinions on newer Sensaphonics since they changed their drivers. And by "mixed" I mean mostly negative...
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AFAIK, the O2 charges up just about instantly. The sonic difference that is usually attributed to charge-up is mostly from components in the signal path warming up. The O2 is revealing enough that you'll hear warm-up clear as day.
I keep the 717 on almost all the time, but if you do that be careful with dust, and keep the phones well away from any possible dust contamination. The 717 needs to be well ventilated as it tends to get rather hot, but I have no idea how hot the KGSS runs.
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FWIW, I've dealt with Craig at KuboTen before, and I would definitely trust him over Mikhail. I got my O2 from KuboTen and I have no complaints.
Get those R10s singing!
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Damn edit timer...
Anyway, it's time to revisit some old-school Goa trance.
This time, it's "To Sirius" by Ra. This disk can be bloody hard to find and is expensive, being long since out of print. But, the music contained therein is remarkable, if you're a fan of Goa.
In a nutshell, this is a dark psy version of old-school Astral Projection. The vibe is very, very dark, the beats are fast and intense, the melodies and middle-eastern, very complex, and polyphonic, and much like Astral Projection, there is a very intense, spiritual vibe that infuses every single track.
This is definitely a dancefloor monster, but as with a lot of old-school Goa, it is also something more. It's hard to put a finger on it, but the same exact mystical X-factor that separated albums like AP's "Trust in Trance," Jaia's "Blue Energy," Infected Mushroom's "Classical Mushroom," or Juno Reactor's "Beyond the Infinite" from the rest of the flock is very much present here. It's a deep, powerful, almost spiritual intensity that, without specifically trying to sound uplifting, nevertheless manages to be very uplifting and touching at the same time.
Oh, and it's also hard and heavy as hell, at least as far as Goa goes.
I definitely give this a full 5/5. This is "Trust in Trance's" evil twin, once removed. Favorite track is #5 - "Initiated" - but everything on the second half of the disk is seriously awesome.
I also have "IFO" by Pleiadians lying here, but that will have to wait...
P.S. Note that there is a rock band named Ra out there, but I'm not talking about them here...
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"Diffuse" by Spectral.
Damn, this is Progress Trance before there ever was such a thing as Progress Trance. It's way ahead of its time, as is expected for something that came out on the Blue Room Released record label. It very much reminds me of the early Jaia disks (i.e. Blue Energy) in feel if not in style (Jaia is distinctly more Goa). There is a very organic vibe running throughout the whole disk - very French. The melodies, however, are very reminiscent of Eat Static at times.
I should note that the production on hand is some of the best I've ever heard in electronic music. The disk is recorded very quietly so you need to crank it, but the sheer dynamic range, resolution, seemingly analog sense of fluidity and coherence, and massively wide-open if artificial soundstage is remarkable.
Definitely recommended if you're a fan of Goa, Psy, Progress Trance, or just want dance music that has the complexity of Goa but a much proggier beat. I should say that the music is upbeat and playful rather than intense and/or spiritual, as Goa often is.
Oh yeah, the last, chillout track is mind-blowing. I first heard it in Stef's Real Dream mix (it kicks in at about 15:00), and it led me to tracking down the album. Well, as it turns out, the rest of the disk is very different in style and feel, but I don't regret getting it one bit.
4/5 for music, 5/5 for production.
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I'll wait until there is a solid amount of feedback until I do anything.
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But I don't want to converse with only you and Spritzer here. Where is everyone else? Did I fart?
I've been away on vacation and didn't have internet. But even so, I'm tired of making the same arguments over and over again. I'm not here to try and convert anyone to my views, so there's no need to pointlessly repeat the same banter. There's another forum for that...
BHSE looks smoking hot. Though hopefully not literally.
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Gents,
Here's a toast to the mistakes made last year, and to not repeating them this year. So, a glass to learning, as it were.
Happy New Year. Cheers!
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I don't think the SR-007 is "darker sounding than every other headphone besides the HD650." The SR-007 has a very HD600-like tonality, at least with the SRM-717. Not dark, not bright, but just about perfect. Though to be fair, it's still very dependent on the source. With the 840c it was rather bright, actually, and with the Opus 21 it was the other way around. Cables were able to adjust tonality either way in both cases.
I think the problem is that you're using the same exact rig to drive many different headphones which have all been voiced in a different way. The O2 requires the rig to be tuned around it since it's so damn revealing (which usually means making the whole rig as neutral as possible), and if you have a rig that's tuned for something else, like the HE90, the O2 probably won't work in it all that well.
But, not having heard the rig in question, I could be wrong.
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Definitely go for shock therapy. The way I see it: how many of us actually regret spending this much on audio and would want to undo that first fateful moment when we heard really good sound?
Sure, it's an expensive road, but very worth it in my opinion.
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"Soundscapes and Modern Tales" by Shulman.
Wow, this is some serious electronica. Very much in the vein of Shpongle's "Are You Shpongled?" though perhaps with somewhat more melody. Still, there's the same sense of utter psychedelic chaos that assembles itself into catchy infections rhythms and grooves, melodies that sporadically apear out of the madness and swirl effortlessly into the mix, and layers upon layers of hidden inner meaning. It will take me weeks of listening to disect all of this stuff.
Needless to say, I like it a lot. Time to check out the rest of the discography.
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I remember that fight. Really impressive stuff by Manny. This is not the weight class for him but it was completely one-sided nevertheless. Still, who knows how much of that was Manny being brilliant, even at that weight, and Oscar being slow?
I wonder what's next for both fighters. Is Oscar finished? Is Manny going to fight Mayweather Jr. after the Hatton fight? It's definitely going to be an interesting 2009, I think.
Though on the whole I have to say that Hopkins' fight against Pavlik was even more impressive. Beating someone like Pavlik through handspeed and lateral movement when you're 43 is inspiring, no other word for it.
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I really liked Angelo's "No Boundaries," and not only because of a soft spot for pointless instrumental wankery. Some of the tracks were really well written.
As for Nitro... ugh.
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The ER-6 isn't white only. There's a black model and there may be other colors. It's one of the smallest IEMs you can get your hands on, and is very low-profile if getting mugged is an issue.
It doesn't have gigantic bass though, so if that's the type of sound your friend is looking for, you should probably keep looking.
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Kuba - Inside Out
Seriously awesome flowing organic chillout.
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That's pretty damn ugly IMO (I thought I'd try honesty rather than sweet cooing noises here), but if he really has a great personality then it shouldn't matter.
Friendly, outgoing cats are rare but are absolutely amazing when you can find one. A friend of mine has a Maine Coon that's very dog-like in its personality, if anything, and is one seriously awesome bit of kitty. Friendly, affectionate, and very smart. If your cat's anything like that, then I can see why you couldn't turn him down. I probably wouldn't be able to, either.
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Those pupils ought to be a lot bigger than that if it's really kicking in.
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Definitely go for Don Julio, and Anejo is the way to go, though other varieties of Don Julio aren't bad either. The Bianco has a nice mild flavor.
My favorite widely-available commercial hard liquor.
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Shawn Lane on "Time is the Enemy"
Buddy Guy on "Stone Crazy"
Devin Townsend on "Terria"
But all-time favorite has to be Steven Wilson on "Up the Downstair" and "Voyage 34." NOT the shitty remasters - the originals. Don't get the remastered - which is actually re-recorded - Up the Downstair. It's a travesty. Most of it is re-recorded and all of the original emotion is gone. Get the original instead even though the production sucks.
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Right, time to revive the dead. Ghoulish, I know.
I have been messing around with the W3 some more, and experimenting with fit, and I finally found something that works: large clear silicone tips, which are too big to go into the ear canal and make a pretty good seal just outside the ear canal. Not very comfortable, but driver distance from the ear seems to be about right.
The sound improved massively.
Mids aren't quite as distant and not veiled. Treble is no longer harsh and sibilant. Bass isn't overblown, though upper bass is still exaggerated. But, on the whole, what was originally a mess of a canalphone is sounding very nice now, and I never thought I'd say that! It doesn't have the finesse of the ES2 but it's getting closer. I actually kinda like it!
Too bad the fit sucks. I think that Westone made the stems, sound tubes, whatever you want to call them, too short. When the W3 is worn as any other canalphone - i.e. shoved in as far as it will go - the sound seriously sucks. So you have to come up with stupid fitting techniques to get the driver-ear distance just right.
So from another mediocre canalphone I will upgrade this to a rather good canalphone actually with some major design flaws. The comfort [is bad] and makes me stick with the ES2 just for that alone, but the sonics are definitely something I could live with.
Still going to get the UE11 though.
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Used to be into the Soul Calibur series quite a bit. My friend was very much into local tournaments and did reasonably well, and I was his practice partner, though I never bothered with tourneys myself.
Don't have the time for it now, though I still like SC4 quite a bit.
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Sad to say, I have never heard an O2 (or any stat for that matter), how did the H2 sound out of the 717? I'm guessing pretty terrible. I have only listened to the H2 via the TR2, first driven by a Yamaha receiver (unlistenably bad) and a Hafler P125 power amp (flawed, but tolerable and very interesting). Once my current rig has stabilized (read: sometime next year) I plan on reintroducing the Hafler, TR2 and H2 into the equation.
Flawed but interesting is exactly how I'd describe the H2 when it was in a Rega Planet 2000 --> Dared VP-20 --> TR2 --> H2 rig. Now that I have a source that doesn't suck balls though it will be interesting to swap it back in and see what's what. The bass was bloated in the old rig, the treble could sometimes be bright to the point of being unlistenable, though with positioning it could be scaled down to manageable levels (whoever thought that a tweeter that fired as a ray in the middle of a massive and essentially supra-aural driver was a good idea?), and the midrange was rather recessed and dull. But, at the same time, you had unbelievable speed and detail, together with serious impact - sort of like the best qualities of dynamics and electrostatics put together. But, unfortunately, with a whacked-out frequency response...
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OK, this time it's going to be a cut on the Mk1 earpads.
*cackles gleefully while taking out the scissors*
Pics or it didn't happen.
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I've seen those mentioned before. They've always looked like style over substance to me. The layman is starting to accept the idea of expensive luxury headphones, which is theoretically great, but in practice lots of mediocre stuff dressed up in pretty wood and leather and chrome overalls is going to pollute the market, and high-end publications, being the sellout pigs that they are, will drool all over them and lavish endless praise. In the end, it's the audiophile that will suffer, as usual.
But don't let my pessimism distract you from taking one for the team and getting a pair. I swear, I will read your impressions very attentively!
There's something wrong in Colorado...
in Headphone Amplification
Posted
I think that at some point SP ran into serious financial trouble and had to start taking orders that it couldn't possibly fill on a timely basis simply to raise funds to clear the existing backlog of orders - and then hope against hope that business will pick up and these new orders will somehow be taken care of. That, I think, has been going on for quite some time, and all the lying, fake shipments, delays, botched repair jobs, and all that nonsense are simply symptoms of Mikhail desperately trying - and failing - to keep his business afloat.
His whole business model was fucked. He should have had standardized amps, standard builds, and maybe a few select upgrade levels, where everything doesn't have to be manufactured as a one-off, and he should have had a solid base of simple, relatively inexpensive builds to provide a solid financial foundation. Then, he could have used that foundation to make a few high-end custom builds at exorbitant prices. Relying exclusively on custom high-end builds and making everything a one-off model is asking for it. I really don't see how any business like that can possibly be profitable, or fill orders on a consistent, timely basis.
I think it's in his best interest to call it quits, now. Own up to the community as to what he has done. Then, resurface under a new name and a new business model, and more importantly, hire someone else to run it like a proper business, leaving Mikhail to take care of the design component without any additional stress. As it stands, it's clear that the SP name has been damaged beyond repair, and unless he has some massive financial investment coming in to put the business on track, he's only digging himself deeper and deeper into the hole.
But meh, all of that is just guesswork and me talking out of my ass. What else is new?