Fuglyphones have landed.

[postjack]

What is going on? Is this the week when everyone's shit breaks around here?

My new fountain pen broke this morning!

[Duggeh]

I'm using a Halfer P125 60WPC solid state amp.

...

The honeymoon with the TakeTs officially ended an hour ago. What started as a crackle in the right side has progressively worsened to distortion, and now it doesn't put out any sound at all. I wiggled the cable in the right earcup, and the sound would correct for a minute, but as soon as I moved, it faded again. Now it won't come back with any movement. Given the voltage that the TR2 puts out, I opted not to mess with the H2s any further.

I am not happy. I now have to contact Mr. Takei and see about getting the H2s repaired. Which means sending them back to Japan, and being without them for a period of time measured in months. 0_o

This is not a good thing. I've had the cans for less than two months, totaling a few dozen hours at most. I've never dropped them, and stored them in the box they came in when I wasn't using them. Duggeh mentioned the cabling was the weak link the H2s ...he didn't know how right he was.

Really really bad luck there old stick, let us know how you get on with the repair.

[catscratch]

That sucks. There is a crackle in the left side of my pair, but that is, I think, due to the somewhat sloppy fit between the driver and the headband. During bass-heavy passages the driver vibrates a lot and rattles in the loose fitting. If I slide the driver up a bit into the headband housing, it's a tighter fit, and crackles less.

But then again, maybe this whole theory is rubbish, and it's a cabling issue like it is in your pair.

Man, this is a headphone still in beta. It has so many virtues but it should have been through this phase before it ever became available to the public. Paying $1500 to beta-test a new headphone is not exactly my cup of tea, no matter how good it is. I don't regret having spent time with these headphones and I may keep them for a while, but if I knew how unfinished they were I would have held off buying them.

I don't think the repair will take months; given that it took me all of four days to get my pair from Japan from the time I sent payment, I would guess that he'll be right on top of getting your pair fixed.

[Duggeh]

I've been listening a lot to the second set of drivers I've been sent for comparison and theres not been any issues of crackle at all. I've also never had the noise re-appear in the first set of drivers after the intial listening period I had with them (which I still think was a grattle issue). It is dissapointing though that other people have had these problems. The beta testing comment is an unfair sword. The company is never going to reach the market size of Grado or Stax nevermind AKG or Sennheiser, even if TakeT comes up with a cheaper sheet film offering so the product, I suppose like a Morgan car is always going to be boutique.

I don't know how many have been sold since the Head-Fi buy offer, but I would be interested to know of those sold how many have had any of these issues. The headphone has already been through one major and one (from what I am hearing here) one very minor revision. While there are many things that can (coudl) be done to improve things at the performance end from a design perspective still, I don't think that many of them would be cost effective for the company. (wooden housings, Stax type cabling, complicated headband mechanism (and a complicated one would be needed because I'm still reserving judgement on these thick pads)).

Not to try and brush aside these issues there have been, because frankly, they are important for a company in this stage of market acquisition (if they are getting things wrong they should certainly be getting them right at the service end because the inconvenience is not good) to come over as enthusiastic and able and profuse in its desire to satisfy. The most paramount issue, beyond such concerns as these, from a performance perspective, is the availability of an amplification solution which does away with the need for the TR-2 though.

Im sorry if any of that didn't mesh, i've had an awful lot to drink tonight.

[catscratch]

I've got the gist of what you're saying. Yes, my post may very well end up hurting TakeT in the long run, but what else am I supposed to say? I am always 100% honest 100% of the time, and I tell it like I hear it. The best possible outcome would be for TakeT to take note of the criticism and to try and address it. And, at this point in time, I should say that I see them doing just that, with the new pads, driver tweaks, and a new direct-drive amp that should eventually come out.

Still, small company or not, there are issues here that should not happen in a $1500 product. I understand that I'm buying something radical and new from a small company, but the same exact money can be spent on an Omega 2 that doesn't have any of these issues, so as a consumer, what exactly am I to say and advise other consumers to do? I'm not interested in hearing any "small company" excuses, all I am interested in is results, and results as they compare to other products in the price range. I am willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt if I see the issues being worked on, and so far, they are. So, I will probably keep my pair for a while and see where new developments take it.

I agree that we do need a direct-drive amp, and we need it fast, before existing owners that are having the same problems as me lose patience with their pairs.

And, just to reiterate, the only reason why I am putting up with all this is that I do believe that the sonic potential here is enormous. Unbelievable. Huge. The H2 does things no other headphone can, and if the issues are fixed, then the title of your review on That Other Forum will really be right on the money, in my opinion.

[Duggeh]

I agree entirely with the product issues being beyond the pale in such an expensive product, no matter how big a company is, it should get things right for the sort of monies involved here.

I have no link to the company beyond the fact that Mr Takei has agreed to let me review his products to the best of my ability. I also try to be 100% honest. And that's why I'll be saying that the use of the H2 drivers in the WHD configuration is basically a waste of time when I write up the review.

[catscratch]

With the TR2, I ran the H2 off a 160w/ch, 500w peak power amp and I had no problems whatsoever. As long as you don't turn the volume up too high, you shouldn't overload anything.

The question is, will they sound good... these headphones are insanely revealing, but there are also colorations in them, which may be due to them or due to the rest of the system. Frankly, I have no idea which is which; they've changed their sound quite a bit from system to system, and a lot of what I've heard were known issues with my signal path blown out of proportion, but at the same time, I've seen massive sonic differences just switching from the 4 ohm to the 8 ohm taps on the same amplifier.

You definitely should hear them, as the sonic potential here is quite staggering. And, I think they will follow a similar success story as the K1k - the issues should hopefully be addressed, and over time we'll discover what amps work best with them.

[spritzer]

i would like to hear a pair of T2s, some day, unfinished product or not. could they be rigged to run off a high powered (500 watts into 4 ohm, with near limitless current capacity) power amp?

A lot of current into 4ohm is very different from 100v into 2000ohm and more so it will depend on the amp. It should be find at low volume though before the amp runs out of voltage and starts to misbehave.

[Knuckledragger]

Crikey. Tonight I've been futzing around with my rig a bit. Ostensibly, I'm preparing to use the amp that current drives the TR2/H2s to power a set of studio monitors, while the H2s are sent back to Japan. The first step (at least from the perspective of one as illogical as myself) is to get cables of sufficient length to reach the speaker cabinets. On a whim I connected the new cables to the TR2, and dug out the H2s. I gave them one more listen and now I can't get the right channel to go out.

Clearly, there is a gremlin or two in my system. I've been in the bourbon this evening, and generally my M.O. when dealing with misbehaving electronics after a little tipple is Don't. Fuck. With. It. Consequently, I'm not going to be making any more attempted diagnosis or repairs this evening. Instead, am going to enjoy the speed and dynamics that the Fuglyphones can offer, and think no more about it.

[Knuckledragger]

At the risk of repeating myself, I must once again state that the TakeTs makes my otherwise-competent dynamics seem sleepy and boring my comparison. I'm currently listening to "Mother Tongue" off Jairamji's Kindred Spirits album. It's an ethnic downtempo piece with strong dub elements and a very powerful vocal lead. It's also nearly 12 minutes long. I started listening with studio monitors (EV Sentry 100As) which are fairly bright and very assertive. The cans I had at the ready were my DT-880s, which I'd been using earlier for gaming. Man, have I never been so underwhelmed by them. The highs just couldn't compare to the EVs. So I dug out my Fugs and of course the highs are any thing but lacking. They do sound a little bit cold todoay. I really amp going to have to pursue a tube amp sometime soon.

I do think the 880s might have slightly better tonality, an obviously a much more graceful midrange, but they are just so dozy in comparison.

I should add that the Fugs have managed to work consistently in both channels ever since Christmas eve (/me crosses fingers.) I am now curious about the new ported pads that Mr. Takei is offering. I saw someone (stevekelby?) selling his TakeT setup with the new pads, and I'd like to know how they affect the sound (and the fit).