humanflyz

And the same thing happened with pretty much all the other music I brought to your place that time when I listened to the GS-1000s in your system: Allman Brothers, Brian Wilson, Aimee Mann, Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Metallica, etc. So I'll take the "shrill, distorted, like-two-hammers-on-the-side-of-my-head" RS-1s any motherfucking day over the "hi-fidelity" GS1000s.

I don't know how you hear sound, but RS-1s with flats on your Zana Deux is definitely not shrill. Know what is shrill on your setup? The GS-1000s. Case in point: Massive Attack - Protection On RS-1s: sure, the sounds are crammed, but at least the female vocalist is not shrill. on GS-1000s: Holy shit! Someone took out real cymbals and replaced them with plastic ones. And when did Tracy Thorn started singing with a fucking lisp?

Ha, I enjoyed those threads where it's just you against the rest of the board. Hey, somebody's gotta do it, I just didn't want to stir up shit while I was there.

Only in Head-Case can a $2k+ can become FOTM lol. But I saw a deal that I couldn't refuse.

Have you heard the W11JPN? I used to hear the same thing you do with all the other ATs. The only ATs that sounded good to me were the W11JPNs and the L3000s.

Yay! The L3000s shipped today, now for the excruciating wait

I'll try going to one of their "secret" shows in DC next week, but so far the album is just ok, but I'm only on my first listen.

Oh yeah, heard the K701s on the dynamight balanced; probably the best I've heard it, but still not up there in the TOTL level.

Dude are you kidding me, the K701s aren't even in the same league as the K1000s; it ain't even the same fucking sport, and this is coming from me who used to really like the K701s. The only real thing that the K701s have over the K1000s is bass extension. I'm really hard-pressed to find any other area in which they are better.

LOL, yet another SP vs. EC pissing contest. Anyways, SP amps might sound like heaven, but I am not down with waiting for them for that long. I emailed Craig earlier tonight asking about the Odin, he said that he's focusing on the EC-84 right now, a 5wpc speaker/headphone amp that's targeted at 900 dollars.

Dusty, are you going to be at the VA/MD meet next weekend?

Soon I'll be joining the team. I think I'm pretty much done with headphones after this though, because I can't think of any other headphone that I want to own, not even the Orpheus.

Well yeah, if you do instant switch back-and-forth between the R10 and L3000s, of course the R10 will sound thin and brittle.

Hmm, never heard that in my apartment before, and here I was thinking that you would take care of my gear. Just kidding.

Yeah the D5000s have very good bass, even out of my AE-2. I am going to have them re-cabled/balanced when I go back to CA.

Forgot to say: it seems to me like the old top-tier headphones are works of art, whereas today's headphones are just commodities. I think that the manufacturers, back in the days, actually had an aesthetic vision which they pursued with very little or no compromise, so the results were headphones that really showed the vision of their designers, and you as the buyer can either take it or leave it, but you couldn't deny that they represented an artistic vision. These days, it just seems like headphones are designed by committee with no underlying aesthetic philosophy, more of "let's see what we can do to make the least offensive sounding headphone to the most amount of people for the most margin."

I agree with Aerius: most OOP top-tier cans had their own character which makes them instantly recognizable, even if that means they each had a flaw as well. Nowadays, every manufacturer is trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

@J-Pak: If you are going to sell the CD3Ks, take a look at this: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=248142

Yeah, the GS1000s are pretty bright IMO; in fact, in comparison, the K1000s sound more laid-back in my system than the GS1000s, which is why I never understood why people say the K1000s are really bright headphones. In fact, I don't even know why people say Grados (GS1000 excluded) are bright. With flats, I think they are actually warm-ish. Although I am tempted to give the GS1000s another try now that I've upgraded both my headphone amp and source.

It's different for people who don't know how to DIY. I thought about getting a USB DAC/headphone amp to bring for the summer, but then I realized that I'd be tethered to my computer if I want to listen. I basically needed something small that I can carry around in my apartment, so that when my roommate is sleeping, I can go to the living room to listen. Anyways, the AE-2 got here last night, and it sounds really good: it's the best-sounding commercial portable amp I've heard so far.

Yup, that upper-midrange is what bothered me also while I had them.

I would never buy a portable amp if I had my home system.

I swore that I would never buy a portable amp, but the Zen Vision M's headphone output just doesn't supply enough current for the D5000s. So guess where my first paycheck on the job went? To an used AE-2 in Virginia. But at least I've heard the AE-2 with the D5000s and the combo sounded very nice, a very groovy type of sound. I'll probably sell the AE-2 once the summer is over though.

Oops, forgot about that one. I guess I should re-phrase my original statement by saying that the ratio of transformer-coupled tube amps to OTL-tube amps are really really small.

Sure, there's the original Xana, but realistically, there are no commercially-available, high-end transformer-coupled tube headphone amps, which is a shame, because all the OTL headphone amps I've heard are not especially good at driving low-impedance loads, at least not as well as similarly-priced SS/hybrid amps that I've also heard. Why is this the case? Is it harder to do a good transformer-coupled tube headphone amp right? Do the parts cost more?