HeadphoneAddict

They could finish getting rid of the rest of that 6.3 - 8 Khz peak, which is is already much improved from the demo version but not gone. It's still audible listening to test tones with Michael Knowles "Bink audio test CD". But I agree, it doesn't seem to affect the sound quality with music or add sibilance, so how significant would taking that out really be in terms of improvement?

Which one hits the water first, and which one can walk on water to get back into the boat?

Yeah, the HF-2 don't sound too bad if it's the first headphone you put on for the day, but the HD800 make the HF-2 sound bland and veiled.

The source. When I switched from the Apple TV to the Macbook Pro and then went back and compared the two, and the fact that the EHHA was so far ahead of both of them that it rendered them almost equally bad.

In the end I sold the ESP-950 and kept the Smegma Pro. You should be proud.

I'm sorry but I felt the Moth sounded about the same with K1000 as my ZDT, but with less power. With both the Moth and ZDT I felt the K1000s were lacking dynamics and impact and felt slow, while the EHHA woke them up and brought them to life. The K1000 through the EHHA finally impressed me with how good the K1000 really can be, right before I was gonna give up and sell the K1000. Now I see them in a different light. I am borrowing the EHHA, and will have an SAC K1000 amp loaner here next Monday to compare with K1000 and HD800. I think the things I came away from RMAF wanting (that I could afford) are an EHHA, an eXStata, and the GR9 iPod digital DAC box or Wadia iTransport. I'd prefer the Woo WES, but don't think I can swing it without selling more stuff than I'd like to part with.

I have a few photos from CanJam @ RMAF posted online: MobileMe Gallery I left my camera in the car today and didn't get any more. Sorry.

While I like Asr's KGBH SE more than my GES and the eXStata with the O2 Mk1 here at RMAF, I think I might like the Woo WES in it's latest configuration a little better. The prototype at RMAF has been upgraded to current specs, except for no phase splitter for SE>Balanced. The WES is much better than it sounded at CanJam (when it had half the power).

It really sounded good with HD580 and 24/96 flac files here at RMAF on Saturday.

The EHHA at RMAF (built by wiatrob) is very good with K1000. My hopes have been brought back from the brink. They're almost as good as the HD800 now, instead of being worse than my HF-2. I'll be trying out an SAC K1000 amp this week as well, and might be able to compare it to the EHHA. The new Woo WA22 is also much better with K1000 than the Prototype from CanJam and July CO meet, and even better than the WA5 and ZDT I thought. I need to try that one more time tomorrow, because jack didn't seem to agree with me.

I think where the GES excelled with the O2 Mk1 was in the tone and sound signature/frequency response, while the balanced eXStata had a superior soundstage and separation and a little more power - while being brighter than I would like. So, I kinda felt that evened things out a bit. But when the extra brightness of the eXStata is dealt with it will be a force to be reconned with. It's already better with O2 Mk1 than the SRM-1 Mk2 Pro or SRM-T1. It definitely improved when switching the PS Audio DAC to 96 Khz up-sampling instead of 192, which was better with the GES. I have the JMoney leather pads for D7000 and I'm pretty sure the Audeze pads are made by him (okay, Audeze confirmed my guess too, but said shhhh, which I can't, sorry guys).

That's "the deeper but not as wide soundstage" that I was talking about in my previous post. I always assumed that would get better with a better amp and source for my O2, so it's kinda disappointing to read that from you.

It wasn't that difficult. If you read how I hacked my iPhone 3GS with 3.01 OS and kept tethering and added MMS without losing visual voice mail like many others, you'll find you could do it too. Just go to the iphone school link, follow their directions, remove your old tethering profile and install the one from help.benm.at - you might have to actually do everything in the order that I did, I don't know. To me it was worth it.

I Will ! Got in late, about 5:30 or so, and got set up before the room got locked up for the night. Woo Hoo everything worked right once I got the Apple TV remote working. Jude was going to be busy for dinner, and by the time I was done seeing if we could join him then everyone else was gone. So, I had dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Ray Samuels, AudioAddict (Steve) and Ted from Cable Pro. Then we came back and listened to some GamuT speakers while they were tweaking their analog speaker rig (looked like Ray knew the guys). Then my son was bored and we had to go back to the room so he could watch more Star Wars and fall asleep. Looking forward to tomorrow, and shaking hands with a few people. I saw Augs there but missed talking to him. It was good to see JP, Jude, Asr and Sherwood again.

I liked the AD2000 that I had, which were re-cabled by Moon Audio with Cardas cable. But after a few weeks I sold them because among my dynamic cans at the time I still liked the HD600, RS-1 and ESW10JPN better. So, I personally would not rank the AD2000 above my Jade, O2, HE60 or HD800. But I respect Asr's choice because they suit his tastes and preferences well. On the other hand, a KGBH SE like Asr's might have lead me to part with all my other stats but the O2 Mk1, although I really doubt it would make me want to sell the ZDT/HD800. I do think the GES/Jade make a good combination, but when I did my Jade mini-review I still ranked the O2 Mk1 and Mk2 ahead of the Jade. I felt the Jade were very good with nice detail, speed, impact and tone. My gripe about the Jade is the wide but not deep soundstage, and the loose fit. And imaging was precise but somewhat forward sounding like the O2 Mk2. My gripe about the O2 is the deeper but not as wide soundstage (vs Jade or HD800), and its unreasonable demand for moar power. Anyway, the majority of my full size can listening these days has been with my HD800/LA7000, and the Jade/O2 which also I rotate through. The rest of the time I'm using my JH13Pro. So, I think I can live without the KGBH SE and enjoy what I have. I think I'll probably give up thinking about a more powerful amp for the K1000 as well...

Are you asking about the K1000 serial number? #1378 I agree, I hope I just need to hear them with the right amp. Craig recommended the Balancing Act with 300B for the K1000 over the ZDT, but it was too much to spend at the time and I wanted the 8-watt speaker taps for my SRD-7 Mk2 SB. Now I wonder if I made the right choice, because it's also a little underpowered for the SRD-7 Mk2 and Pro. I'm not actually unhappy with the ZDT - I'm just unhappy that it improved the K1000 but not enough to make them shine, and I put my hopes on one amp driving everything.

True, you did say, "I think I might even like it more than the AD2000! Well it's not perfect but its sound has a lot of what I like..." You never said you actually liked the 404LE more, and made it clear you weren't certain. Still seems a shame to have a $5000 amp for a $700 headphone, but I wonder how much you would or would not like them with a less expensive amp. Also, my SR-404LE are #669. Hah!

I was playing with my K1000 tonight before starting to pack stuff up to bring to CanJam @ RMAF. Even though the ZDT drives my K1000 better than any of my other dedicated amps, I'm still not happy with the sound. They don't seem to come alive like my HD800, sounding duller and less articulate/detailed. Bass is stronger than you'd expect, but it's slow on these K1000. It just doesn't sound good enough to showcase a nice headphone rig, which my HD800, LA7000 and RS-1 can do so much better. As a side note - off the ZDT nobody can call the HD800 a bass-lite too-bright can. It's absolutely wonderful vs the K1000. Even my O2 Mk1 on the GES kicks their butt, and most would agree that is not an optimal amp to drive them with. I can hear the K1000 potential and I love the imaging; so I hope that I just need to try them on the right amp, or get them re-cabled, because something has got to change. I really want to keep them as a summer "don't make me sweat" headphone, but my JH13Pro ended up filling that roll this summer. Instead of putting them on display with my dynamic and stat rigs, I'm thinking maybe I could go around trying them on a few amps to see if anything works better. I'm sure few vendors will be excited to plug my banana cable into their amps while they are demoing speakers for the crowds, but maybe someone in the CanJam room will have a better K1000 amp there. Sigh... I'm not gonna be able to buy another amp for a few months, but this might be an opportunity to decide what works. I would hate to part with these without giving them a proper shot at making the grade.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Thanks! I enjoyed that more than some of my Marcus Miller and Tal Wikenfield.

Yeah, I like the idea of writing up and posting instructions for the gear on the table. I will have a 160GB Apple TV with remote and 19" HDTV hooked into a PS Audio DLIII optical, and feeding that into two amps - EC ZDT and Woo GES (using Jensen XLR>RCA transformer since neither amp is balanced). I'll have HD800 and LA7000 hooked to the ZDT, and Stax O2 Mk1 hooked up to the GES, with a spare HE Audio Jade people can try. If the apple TV sucks I can hook up a Macbook with iTunes on an external drive, running inside of a limited user account. Additional stuff - I will likely also have an HE60/HEV70 hooked up to the GES RCA loop out, and I might bring a Marantz CD5001 connected to DAC via coax so people can try their own music. The DAC will auto switch to the active source, or there is a button on front if both sources are playing at the same time.

Well, I have to admit that while the ESP-950 and Lambda Signature got the axe, I still love the Smegma Pros.

hmmm...

Nice - I posted that one here on the 13th.