Source AV Meet Impressions

Discussion in 'The Meeting Place' started by purr1n, Feb 25, 2017.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Always great to visit Source AV, Jason Lord, and meet up the rest of the gang. Starting off with some pictures before impressions. I may post impressions of some of the gear in other more relevant threads. If I do so, I will provide links. Also, I forgot to take pictures of the HiFiMan Edition 6k prototype. If anyone has any, please post them.

    Sennheiser HE-1
    DSC_1891.JPG
    DSC_1893-1.jpg
    DSC_1894-1.jpg
    DSC_1896-1.jpg
    DSC_1898-1.jpg

    BTW, thank you Wally (the Sennheiser guy) for not making me listen to Hotel California. Like the Big Lebowski, I hate the Eagles. Paul Simon's Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes was a treat.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    HiFiMan Shangri-La
    HiFiMan Shangri La 1.jpg HiFiMan Shangri La 2.jpg
    HiFiMan Shangri La 3.jpg
    HiFiMan Shangri La 4.jpg

    I love taking photos of Alex listening to stuff. He's got such a critical ear and serious in-thought look.
     
  3. brencho

    brencho Friend

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    A picture of the Edition 6 Thousand Dollars is worth a thousand dollars, ahem I mean, a thousand words.
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Jason Lord has a great facility and is such a fantastic host. BTW, this is a great place for folks in SoCal to visit and audition gear. They have every high-end headphone that you can think of. Be sure to make an appointment first.

    Source AV 1.jpg
    Source AV 2.jpg
    Source AV 3.jpg
    Source AV 4.jpg

    My son won some free Focal IEMs. He couldn't wait to use them after experiencing the crappy audio system at Chuck E Cheese (I took him to a birthday part right after the meet). He said he needed to get that awful low fidelity system out of his mind. I have a video interview between Jason and William. Will post it in a bit.
    Source AV 4.5.jpg
    Source AV 5.jpg
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yeah, I was sort of in a hurry to get out of there so my son wouldn't miss a birthday part. Totally forgot to snap pictures. It's a very good headphone, and the one that was surprising to me in that it surpassed expectations. Will post short impressions of it later. I'll find a CES photo if someone doesn't post one.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    HiFiMan Edition 6
    [​IMG]
    Image from HF: http://www.head-fi.org/content/type/61/id/1789646/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL

    I wish I took photos of this headphone myself. A lot of photos I've seen don't do it justice.

    First of all the Edition 6 is much more wieldy than the HE1000 (HEK). I didn't realize this before from the photos, but in person, it's very evident that the cups of the Edition 6 are a more compact teardrop shape compared the longer oblong HEK. The longer HEK cups ended to swivel and flop around. It's possible that the HEK cups could be heavier, but I would be guessing at this point. What matters is that the Edition 6 does feel "more together" and is easier to handle.

    The sound is nothing earth shattering, and in fact quite different from the HEK. I've always stated that the HEK is headphone that makes you take notice. It's a wow type of sound. The Edition 6 is more like the Utopia, a headphone which doesn't immediately excite, but demonstrates its true capabilities in more subtle ways and over time. Before I say more, I should state that I believe that the Edition 6 is still in its prototype form, and some changes may be pending; and that I don't think any of setups I heard the Edition 6 from revealed that it could truly do. We really need @ohhgourami's magical preamp and Krell setup for this.

    The best way for me to describe the Edition 6 sound is this: take the best from the HEK and the best for the HE-6, combine them together, and give it Code-X tonality. No etch a la the classic HE-6. No splashy timbre a la HEK. Got you guys peeing your pants yet? The only downside (and I don't see this as a downside personally) is that the Edition 6, like the Edition 5, is horribly efficient. The pairing that I preferred the Edition 6 from was the mellow sounding Cavalli Liquid Gold. (Forgot the DAC, but it was a decent one fed from USB.) High gain on this amp is 8X (18db), and this wasn't quite enough. I had the volume knob at full clockwise to get a moderate-high volume.

    Honestly, I came away surprised because I didn't have high expectations (honestly, I didn't know what to expect). Also, the fact that this might be "affordable" makes it much more exciting.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Also, I thought I'd post this. The Shangri-La is reminscent of a flat-top.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  8. brencho

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    @Marvey is herr profesordoktor fang revising his pricing ambitions on the Ed 6?
     
  9. ohhgourami

    ohhgourami Friend

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    Horribly inefficient?

    Surprised you gave it good impressions.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    There are still questions. What tweaks will be made? How will the production model sound like? How resolving will it be to the last few percent?
     
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The HiFiMan Shangri-La was fed from a McIntosh D150. I really felt it would have been better served from the MCD550 SACD/CD player. The DT150 is one of those preamp / DAC combo deals, and combo deals never end up being as good as the real specific purpose deals. The money needs to be split to two functions instead of concentrated into one function. Also the DT150 was being fed from a Windoze machine via USB. I surmise that a lot could have been improved on the source end. I spoke with HiFiMan rep Angel, and he remarked that we would have liked to bring a turntable. Haha. Maybe next time I will bring my Classic 4.

    The tonality of the Shangri-La is slightly tipped up, more along the lines of the HEK, but attacks are more incisive (more like the Jade than HEK). Bass is more purposeful, there's less of that "bouncy" HEK bass, and timbre is better without the HEK's (V1, I have not heard HEK V2) slight splashiness, although there is a little bit of sibilance at where I would guess is around 8.5kHz. No different from the Sennheiser HE-1 which has a very similar sibilance. The Shangri-La is basically a perfected HEK with e-stat sensibilities. The amp definitely has that bit of 300B sound for those many 300B fans out there. Other than that, I really could not give the headphone a good assessment without knowing exactly how the rest of the chain sounds like.

    Finally, for those who heard this setup, the Michael Jackson DSD files on the laptop appear to be from a bright, lean, bass-light re-master. I suspect the SACD one. It's important to know your source and know your masters.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Finally, these are meet impressions... I can guess to what masters, but I can't be sure exactly.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    P.S. The Sennheiser HE-1 was fantastic. I'll append @HitmanFluffy's post with my impressions later tonight. My impressions mirror his exactly.
     
  14. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    Hmm could it be the disappointing impressions people heard from the HE 6 thousand was because it wasn't powered with a power amp via speaker taps like the HE-6?
     
  15. DigMe

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    Yeah I was wondering how $6000 could be considered in any way "affordable" for headphones even in the audiophile world.
     
  16. DigMe

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    Btw, the marble or faux-marble on the Senn is atrocious.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm not aware of any specific disappointing impressions. I don't read HF, so if you could point them out or quote them here, it would give me a better idea. I need something qualitative I can work with. "Meh" doesn't give me much idea.

    My sincere wish is that Fang reconsider his pricing. There was a lot of pushback here and on HF (that disaster of a thread). An angry customer base is not a good customer base. I've never seen customers and potential customers take it out on a manufacturer like that. A worse, he'll get fewer people to buy it. Ultimately the price vs. demand curve will dictate the price.

    Haha. I asked about the marble. Mass loading. They could have used concrete, but decided that the granite or whatever was better.
     
  18. Thenewerguy009

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    I think I read impressions from 3 separate meets & everyone who tested it was either indifferent or hated the Edition 6.
    I'll have to dig through the threads later on tonight to get the quotes.
     
  19. DigMe

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    Yeah, I guess we'll see how prideful/stubborn he is when the actual pricing is revealed.

    Makes sense about the mass loading on the Senn. Totally changes my attitude about the looks. Still would prefer metal but at least there's a reason for the marble. When I first saw it the first thing it reminded me of was the faux-granite HD600.

    Good-looking kid, @Marvey. possibly the only kid his age in the world that owns a pair of Focals now!
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    He's just loving his Focal IEMs that Jason gave him. He knows everything else in the house doesn't belong to him, but these were gifted to him - so they are his very own.

    I just read through a few on HF. A few guys who owned the HEX V2 didn't like them. Not surprised. The HEX V2, like the HEK, is one of those "wow" kind of headphones. I can see these guys kind of go "meh" with the understated Code-X or even HE-6, headphones that the Edition 6 reminds me of, which are extremely well regarded here. Secondly, I really do think a monster amp is required. The EF1000 has the gain, but I don't like the tonality of the amp (SS glare) and I don't think it resolves to the n-th degree either, that's why I went to the Cavalli table really quickly. Also, I believe less than ideal sources were used at the meets in question.

    What we really need is a top-notch DAC (The Liquid Gold had a Questyle DAC, both mellow, with the Questyle being on the flat sounding side, so I don't think good synergies here) and a monster speaker amp with ton of gain and correct tonality that is extremely resolving. Heck, even throw this thing on the Ragnarok to get a better idea. MOTs, with their constraints, tend to be horrible at properly setting up synergistic systems at shows and meets.

    I'd love to try the Edition 6 on my Gumbreya / Hegel H2 or @ohhgourami's setup. Well, maybe not @ohhgourami's setup because of his expose and continued championing of the HE-6. (He's been a pain to Fang, or at least perceived as such). It would be nice if HFM continued with the HE-6, but I don't think that is going to happen.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017

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