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I love and own a Yamaha FS1R.  (Haven't sold it yet.)  I bought it when it came out.  It's a niche product, with its formant filtering engine designed to help emulate the human voice (it is the technology that led to Vocaloid software), but at the time it just sounded vaguely voice-like.  My designs were to use it differently -- feed different voices into different dirt boxes, because dirt boxes respond differently depending on the shape of the input.  Never followed through, to my lifelong regret. And yeah, Into Deep was my biggest entry point into the world of music of Oliver Lieb.  Such a great album.

Bit of a link bait title, but I'm glad we're well clear of the lossy compression era in hi-fi CD players - I always turned skip protection off. The test album is Goldfrapp's Head First - pure synthwave ear candy. I pulled out my old Panasonic SL-S160 from 1995, plugged in the Alessandro MS-1 and inserted 2 Eneloop AA 1.2V NiMH batteries and it sounds a bit looser and not as deep in the bass with its MASH DAC (with XBS bass off - this budget player lacks skip protection), but serviceable (volume is somewhere around 2 out of 10 with its scratchy old pot and decent channel matching - 2.5+ is deafeningly loud with the Alessandro MS-1) compared to the Sony D-EJ2000 from 2002 - the SL-S160 was an excellent match for my old Sennheiser HD 320 headphones with a nominal impedance of 100 Ω back in the day. Switching back to the D-EJ2000 on 1.2V gumstick battery with the Alessandro MS-1 is a sonic revelation (perhaps not a surprise, comparing a budget player to a cutting-edge flagship). People underestimated the Sony when it was released (it came with horrible stock earbuds) - it has a much cleaner overall sound, far more separation, resolution, bass depth, soundstage, you name it - it blows the older Panasonic away in every category - you can hear things on the Sony that are completely obscured on the older player at the same volume level - younger people raised on iPods and wireless headphones have no idea what they're missing. It is like comparing a landscape in a dark fog to a bright, sunny and clear day. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to finally test a Chord Mojo 2 - I used a Toslink optical cable out of the Sony D-EJ2000 to the Mojo 2 into the Alessandro MS-1 and I heard no difference. It was both reassuring and surprising. Obviously, the source and the headphones were limiting factors, but I walked away discovering that a $150 portable CD player from 2002 can match a $650 DAC from 2022 in my informal test.  

I think they are HD650 pads but they were just some I found in my stash of earpads.  I had to trim off the plastic ring at the bottom and attach them with double sided adhesive but it fits nicely on there.  

Nice! Are those pads DIY?

Piano Concerto No.9 In Eb Major, KV 271 - Piano Concerto No.27 in Bb Major, KV 595 by Nicola Frisardi (1995) https://album.link/bzr0znrvcphj6 Example: Checking out the Chesky releases. This has great sonics of course, and the performance is good. More romantic interpretation that I was expecting.  And there is a flaw at the beginning of the third track, which is a bummer, so one blemish on an otherwise great release. I checked three different sources and it is all the same.  (Edit - and I do wish it was high res)